This is Sadia Badiei. A dietician by academic and professional background, she’s nowadays hung up her lab coat for a chef’s jacket, and is best known for her “Pick Up Limes” brand. Today, we’ll be taking her advice on managing energy levels with what’s on our plates!

Quick note: our usual medical/legal disclaimer applies, and this article cannot diagnose you from afar, and thus neither can it make any certain prescription; this is for educational purposes, and aimed at being applicable to most of our readers.

There are many possible things that can cause chronic fatigue, and not all of them can be fixed by diet. Your doctor will have access to tests and such that we, being a humble health science publication, do not.

You may recognize her; we’ve featured her videos occasionally, mostly recently:

Pick Up A Zest For Life: 10 Lessons For A Healthy Mind & Body

But, what does she want us to know about living life with more energy?

It starts with balance

Badiei makes the case that we should strive for a nutritionally-balanced diet; that may not come as much of a revelation, but what does that look like for a vegan (Badiei advocates for plant-based eating)?

She recommends that our diet consist of:

• About 50% fruits and vegetables
• About 25% grains and starches
• About 25% proteins
• Modest amounts of fats
• A little of well-chosen dairy substitutions
• Finally, a few judicious supplements to top it off

That does add up to more than 100%, but 1) we did say “About n%” and 2) this is not a bad thing to note, actually, since Badiei advocates (as we do) for focussing more on what we add into our diet, rather than what we take out.

Breaking it down a little further, she recommends making sure to get “the foundational seven”, which is a little like “Dr. Greger’s Daily Dozen”, but in this case it’s counted on a per-food-type basis.

Thus, she recommends:

1. Dark green leafy vegetables
2. Assorted other non-starchy vegetables (your choice what kind)
3. Fruit, of any kinds (unlike Dr. Greger separating berries)
4. Grains and starches (so for example, potatoes are lumped in with rice here, botanically very different, but often fulfil a similar culinary role)
5. Nuts and seeds
6. Legumes
7. Fortified dairy alternatives

For full details including how much of each, and “what counts”, etc, see:

Pick Up Limes | The Nourish Method

Time your carbs

Slow-release carbohydrates, those with the most fiber, are best most of the time, giving us more sustained fuel, keeping us energized for longer after meals—even if we would rather sleep:

She cites: Fiber and Saturated Fat Are Associated with Sleep Arousals and Slow Wave Sleep

Quick-release carbohydrates, those with what’s generally considered a less favorable carb:fiber ratio, are best if we’re going to eat nearer to bedtime. We know, eating before bed is often considered a bit of a no-no, but Badiei bids us indulge if we so desire, as the quicker-absorbed carbohydrates support tryptophan reaching our brain more efficiently, and thus promote sleep onset.

See also: Should You Go Light Or Heavy On Carbs?

About that fat

We mentioned (or rather, Badiei’s citation mentioned) saturated fat. It is indeed linked with difficulty falling asleep, and/but omega-3 fatty acids, on the other hand, promote better sleep.

She cites: The relationship between sleep duration, sleep quality and dietary intake in adults

While you’re enjoying those nuts and seeds (for the omega-3 fatty acids), you might also note that several also star in Badiei’s list of plant-based foods that are rich in tryptophan, such as soy, cashews, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, beans, green vegetables, and mushrooms.

Micronutrients

Badiei’s focus here is on B-vitamins, iron, magnesium, selenium, and zinc. We imagine most of our readers here are taking steps to ensure to get a full daily coverage of vitamins and minerals anyway, but you might want to read what she has to say about iron on a plant-based diet, because the numbers may be different than you think.

The reason for this is that while animal products contain mostly heme iron, which is easier to absorb but associated with a risk increase in some diseases, plant-based foods usually* contain only non-heme iron, which is healthier but not as bioavailable, so if eating only plants, we need more of it:

Pick Up Limes | Iron on a Plant-Based Diet

*If you eat a carnivorous plant, guess what, it’ll have heme iron in it, tangling that food web.

“What if I know I have chronic fatigue for non-dietary reasons?”

Well, that sucks, and we’re not going to pretend the above will magically fix it. However, there are still things that can at least relatively improve your experience:

Eat To Beat Chronic Fatigue! Yes, Even When Fatigued Chronically

(it’s a good guide to being able to consistently eat healthily when your energy levels are consistently at minimal, meaning that a lot of common advice becomes unusable)

Take care!

Protein vs Sarcopenia

This is Dr. Gabrielle Lyon. A medical doctor, she’s board-certified in family medicine, and has also engaged in research and clinical practice in the fields of geriatrics and nutritional sciences.

A quick note…

We’re going to be talking a bit about protein metabolism today, and it’s worth noting that Dr. Lyon personally is vehemently against vegetarianism/veganism, and considers red meat to be healthy.

Scientific consensus on the other hand, holds that vegetarianism and veganism are fine for most people if pursued in an informed and mindful fashion, that white meat and fish are also fine for most people, and red meat is simply not.

If you’d like a recap on the science of any of that:

• Protein: How Much Do We Need, Really?
• Plant vs Animal Protein: Diversity is Key
• Do We Need Animal Products to be Healthy?

Nevertheless, if we look at the science that she provides, the advice is sound when applied to protein in general and without an undue focus on red meat.

How much protein is enough?

In our article linked above, we gave 1–2g/kg/day

Dr. Lyons gives the more specific 1.6g/kg/day for adults older than 40 (this is where sarcopenia often begins!) and laments that many sources offer 0.8g/kg.

To be clear, that “per kilogram” means per kilogram of your bodyweight. For Americans, this means dividing lbs by 2.2 to get the kg figure.

Why so much protein?

Protein is needed to rebuild not just our muscles, but also our bones, joint tissues, and various other parts of us:

We Are Such Stuff As Fish Are Made Of

Additionally, our muscles themselves are important for far more than just moving us (and other things) around.

As Dr. Lyon explains: sarcopenia, the (usually age-related) loss of muscle mass, does more than just make us frail; it also messes up our metabolism, which in turn messes up… Everything else, really. Because everything depends on that.

This is because our muscles themselves use a lot of our energy, and/but also store energy as glycogen, so having less of them means:

• getting a slower metabolism
• the energy that can’t be stored in muscle tissue gets stored somewhere else (like the liver, and/or visceral fat)

So, while for example the correlation between maintaining strong muscles and avoiding non-alcoholic fatty liver disease may not be immediately obvious, it is clear when one follows the metabolic trail to its inevitable conclusion.

Same goes for avoiding diabetes, heart disease, and suchlike, though those things are a little more intuitive.

How can we get so much protein?

It can seem daunting at first to get so much protein if you’re not used to it, especially as protein is an appetite suppressant, so you’ll feel full sooner.

It can especially seem daunting to get so much protein if you’re trying to avoid too many carbs, and here’s where Dr. Lyon’s anti-vegetarianism does have a point: it’s harder to get lean protein without meat/fish.

That said, “harder” does not mean “impossible” and even she acknowledges that lentils are great for this.

If you’re not vegetarian or vegan, collagen supplementation is a good way to make up any shortfall, by the way.

And for everyone, there are protein supplements available if we want them (usually based on whey protein or soy protein)

Anything else we need to do?

Yes! Eating protein means nothing if you don’t do any resistance work to build and maintain muscle. This can take various forms, and Dr. Lyon recommends lifting weights and/or doing bodyweight resistance training (calisthenics, Pilates, etc).

Here are some previous articles of ours, consistent with the above:

• Resistance Is Useful! (Especially As We Get Older)
• Overdone It? How To Speed Up Recovery After Exercise
• How To Do HIIT (Without Wrecking Your Body)
• Exercises To Do (And Ones To Avoid) If You Have Osteoporosis

Take care!