Eat To Beat Chronic Fatigue!
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How To Eat To Beat Chronic Fatigue
Chronic fatigue is on the rise, and it can make life a living Hell. Days blur into one, and you try to take each day as it comes, but sometimes several days gang up on you at once.
You probably know some lifestyle changes that might help—if only you had the energy to implement them.
You’d like to eat well, but you need to…
- Buy the fresh produce (and take a little rest after)
- Put the groceries away (and take a little rest after)
- Wash the vegetables (and take a little rest after)
- Chop the things as necessary (and take a little rest after)
- Cook dinner (and take a little rest after)
…and now you’re too exhausted to eat it.
So, what can be done?
First, avoid things that cause inflammation, as this is a major contributor to chronic fatigue. You might like our previous main feature:
Next up, really do stay hydrated. It’s less about quantity, and more about ubiquity. Hydrate often.
Best is if you always have some (hydrating) drink on the go.
Do experiment with your diet, and/but keep a food journal of what you eat and how you feel 30–60 minutes after eating it. Only make one change at a time, otherwise you won’t know which change made the difference.
Notice what patterns emerge over time, and adjust your ingredients accordingly.
Limit your caffeine intake. We know that sometimes it seems like the only way to get through the day, but you will always crash later, because it was only ever taxing your adrenal system (thus: making you more tired in the long run) and pulling the wool over the eyes of your adenosine receptors (blocking you from feeling how tired you are, but not actually reducing your body’s tiredness).
Put simply, caffeine is the “payday loan” of energy.
Eat more non-starchy vegetables, and enjoy healthy fats. Those healthy fats can come from nuts and seeds, avocado, or fish (not fried, though!).
The non-starchy vegetables will boost your vitamins and fiber while being easy on your beleaguered metabolism, while the healthy fats will perk up your energy levels without spiking insulin like sugars would.
Pay the fatigue tax up front. What this means is… Instead of throwing away vegetables that didn’t get used because it would take too much effort and you just need an easier dinner today, buy ready-chopped vegetables, for example.
And if you buy vegetables frozen, they’re also often not only cheaper, but also (counterintuitively) contain more nutrients.
A note of distinction:
Many more people have chronic fatigue (the symptom: being exhausted all the time) than have chronic fatigue syndrome (the illness: myalgic encephalomyelitis).
This is because fatigue can be a symptom of many, many other conditions, and can be heavily influenced by lifestyle factors too.
A lot of the advice for dealing with chronic fatigue is often the same in both cases, but some will be different, because for example:
- If your fatigue is from some other condition, that condition probably impacts what lifestyle factors you are (and are not) able to change, too
- If your fatigue is from lifestyle factors, that hopefully means you can change those and enjoy less fatigue…
- But if it’s not from lifestyle factors, as in ME/CFS, then advice to “exercise more” etc is not going to help so much.
There are ways to know the difference though:
Check out: Do You Have Chronic Fatigue Syndrome?
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A Urologist Explains Edging: What, Why, & Is It Safe?
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“Edging” is the practice of intentionally delaying orgasm, which can be enjoyed by anyone, with a partner or alone.
On the edge
Urologist Dr. Rena Malik explains:
Question: why?
Answer: the more tension is built up, the stronger the orgasm can be at the end of it. And, even before then, pleasure along the way is pleasure along the way, which is generally considered a good thing—especially for any (usually but not always women, for hormonal and social reasons) who find it difficult to orgasm. It’s also a great way to experiment and learn more about one’s own body and/or that of one’s partner(s), personal responses, and so forth. Also, for any (usually but not always men, for hormonal reasons) who find they usually orgasm sooner than they’d like, it’s a great way to change that, if changing that is what’s wanted.
Bonus answer: for some (usually but not always men, for hormonal reasons) who find they have an uncomfortable slump in mood after orgasm, that can simply be skipped entirely, postponed for another time, etc, with pleasure being derived from the sexual activity rather than orgasm. That way, there’s a lasting dopamine high, with no prolactin crash afterwards ← this is very much tied to male hormones, by the way. If you have female hormones, there’s usually no prolactin crash either way, and instead, the post-orgasm spike in oxytocin is stronger, and a wave of serotonin makes the later decline of dopamine much more gentle.
Question: can it cause any problems?
Answer: yep! Or rather, subjectively, it may be considered so—this is obviously a personal matter and your mileage may vary. The main problem it may cause is that if practised habitually, it may result in greater difficulty achieving orgasm, simply because the body has got used to “ok, when we do this (sex/masturbation), we are in no particular rush to do that (orgasm)”. So whether not this would be a worry for you is down to any given individual. Lastly, if your intent was a long edging session with an orgasm at the end and then something happened to interrupt that, then your orgasm may be unintentionally postponed to another time, which again, may be more or less of an issue depending on your feelings about that.
For more on these things including advice on how to try it, enjoy:
Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!
Want to learn more?
You might also like to read:
- Mythbusting The Big O ← 10almonds main feature on orgasms, health, and associated myths
- Come Together: The Science (and Art) of Creating Lasting Sexual Connections – by Dr. Emily Nagoski
- Better Sex Through Mindfulness: How Women Can Cultivate Desire – by Dr. Lori Brotto
Take care!
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Is Your Gut Leading You Into Osteoporosis?
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Bacterioides Vulgatus & Bone Health
We’ve talked before about the importance of gut health:
And we’ve shared quite some information and resources on osteoporosis:
- The Bare-bones Truth: Osteoporosis Mythbusting
- Osteoporosis Exercises (What To Do, And What To Avoid)
- Vit D + Calcium: Too Much Of A Good Thing?
- Collagen For Bones: We Are Such Stuff As Fish Are Made Of
- Which Osteoporosis Medication, If Any, Is Right For You?
How the two are connected
A recent study looked at Bacterioides vulgatus, a very common gut bacterium, and found that it suppresses the gut’s production of valeric acid, a short-chain fatty acid that enhances bone density:
❝For the study, researchers analyzed the gut bacteria of more than 500 peri- and post-menopausal women in China and further confirmed the link between B. vulgatus and a loss of bone density in a smaller cohort of non-Hispanic White women in the United States.❞
Pop-sci source: Does gut bacteria cause osteoporosis?
The study didn’t stop there, though. They proceeded to test, with a rodent model, the effect of giving them either:
- more B. vulgatus, or
- valeric acid supplements
The results of this were as expected:
- Those who were given more B. vulgatus got worse bone microstructure
- Those who were given valeric acid supplements got stronger bones overall
Study source: Gut microbiota impacts bone via Bacteroides vulgatus-valeric acid-related pathways
Where can I get valeric acid?
We couldn’t find a handy supplement for this, but it is in many foods, including avocados, blueberries, cocoa beans, and an assortment of birds.
Click here to see a more extensive food list (you’ll need to scroll down a little)
Bonus: if you happen to be on HRT in the form of Estradiol valerate (e.g: Progynova), then that “valerate” is an ester of valeric acid, that your body can metabolize and use as such.
Enjoy!
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Carrots vs Parsnips – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing carrots to parsnips, we picked the parsnips.
Why?
There are arguments for both! But we say parsnips win on overall nutritional density.
In terms of macros, parsnips vary quite a lot from region to another, but broadly speaking, parsnips have more carbs and fiber, and/but the ratios are such that carrots have the lower glycemic index. We’ll call this one a win for carrots.
When it comes to vitamins, carrots have more of vitamins A, B2, B3, B6, and choline, while parsnips have more of vitamins B1, B5, B9, C, E, and K. A small win for parsnips here.
In the category of minerals, carrots are not higher in any minerals, while parsnips are higher in calcium, copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, potassium, selenium, and zinc. An overwhelming win for parsnips.
While the overall vitamin and mineral content puts parsnips ahead, it’s still worth noting that carrots have highly bioavailable megadoses of vitamin A.
Another thing to note is that the glycemic index recorded for both is when peeled and boiled, whereas both of these root vegetables can be enjoyed raw if you wish, which has a much lower GI.
In short, enjoy either or both, but parsnips are the more nutritionally dense overall.
Want to learn more?
You might like to read:
Glycemic Index vs Glycemic Load vs Insulin Index
Take care!
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Related Posts
Why You Can’t Skimp On Amino Acids
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Our body requires 20 amino acids (the building blocks of protein), 9 of which it can’t synthesize (thus called: “essential”) and absolutely must get from food. Normally, we get these amino acids from protein in our diet, and we can also supplement them by taking amino acid supplements if we wish.
Specifically, we require (per kg of bodyweight) a daily average of:
- Histidine: 10 mg
- Isoleucine: 20 mg
- Leucine: 39 mg
- Lysine: 30 mg
- Methionine: 10.4 mg
- Phenylalanine*: 25 mg
- Threonine: 15 mg
- Tryptophan: 4 mg
- Valine: 26 mg
*combined with the non-essential amino acid tyrosine
Source: Protein and Amino Acid Requirements In Human Nutrition: WHO Technical Report
Why this matters
A lot of attention is given to protein, and making sure we get enough of it, especially as we get older, because the risk of sarcopenia (muscle mass loss) increases with age:
However, not every protein comes with a complete set of essential amino acids, and/or have only trace amounts of of some amino acids, meaning that a dietary deficiency can arrive if one’s diet is too restrictive.
And, if we become deficient in even just one amino acid, then bad things start to happen quite soon. We only have so much space, so we’re going to oversimplify here, but:
- Histidine: is needed to produce histamine (vital for immune responses, amongst other things), and is also important for maintaining the myelin sheaths on nerve cells.
- Isoleucine: is very involved in muscle metabolism and makes up the bulk of muscle tissue.
- Leucine: is critical for muscle synthesis and repair, as well as wound healing in general, and blood sugar regulation.
- Lysine: is also critical in muscle synthesis, as well as calcium absorption and hormone production, as well as making collagen.
- Methionine: is very important for energy metabolism, zinc absorption, and detoxification.
- Phenylalanine: is a necessary building block of a lot of neurotransmitters, as well as being a building block of some amino acids not listed here (i.e., the ones your body synthesizes, but can’t without phenylalanine).
- Threonine: is mostly about collagen and elastin production, and is also very important for your joints, as well as fat metabolism.
- Tryptophan: is the body’s primary precursor to serotonin, so good luck making the latter without the former.
- Valine: is mostly about muscle growth and regeneration.
So there you see, the ill effects of deficiency can range from “muscle atrophy” to “brain stops working” and “bones fall apart” and more. In short, any essential amino acid deficiency not remedied will ultimately result in death; we literally become non-viable as organisms without these 9 things.
What to do about it (the “life hack” part)
Firstly, if you eat a lot of animal products, those are “complete” proteins, meaning that they contain all 9 essential amino acids in sensible quantities. The reason that all animal products have these, is because they are just as essential for the other animals as they are for us, so they, just like us, must consume (and thus contain) them.
However, a lot of animal products come with other health risks:
Do We Need Animal Products To Be Healthy? ← this covers which animal products are definitely very health-risky, and which are probably fine according to current best science
…so many people may prefer to get more (or possibly all) dietary protein from plants.
However, plants, unlike us, do not need to consume all 9 essential amino acids, and this may or may not contain them all.
Soy is famously a “complete” protein insofar as it has all the amino acids we need.
But what if you’re allergic to soy?
Good news! Peas are also a “complete” protein and will do the job just fine. They’re also usually cheaper.
Final note
An oft-forgotten thing is that some other amino acids are “conditionally essential”, meaning that while we can technically synthesize them, sometimes we can’t synthesize enough and must get them from our diet.
The conditions that trigger this “conditionally essential” status are usually such things as fighting a serious illness, recovering from a serious injury, or pregnancy—basically, things where your body has to work at 110% efficiency if it wants to get through it in one piece, and that extra 10% has to come from somewhere outside the body.
Examples of commonly conditionally essential amino acids are arginine and glycine.
Arginine is critical for a lot of cell-signalling processes as well as mitochondrial function, as well as being a precursor to other amino acids, including creatine.
As for glycine?
Check out: The Sweet Truth About Glycine
Enjoy!
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Tranquility by Tuesday?
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I Know How She Does It: How Successful Women Make The Most of Their Time
This is Laura Vanderkam, author of “Tranquility By Tuesday” (amongst other books). Her “thing” is spending more time on what’s important, and less on what isn’t. Sounds simple, but she’s made a career out of it, so condensed here for you are…
Laura’s 7 Keys To Productivity
Key One: Plan your weeks on Fridays
You don’t want your Monday morning to be a “James Bond intro” (where everything is already in action and you’re just along for the ride, trying to figure out what’s going on). So, take some time last thing each Friday, to plan ahead for the following week!
Key Two: Measure what matters
Whatever that means to you. Laura tracks her use of time in half-hour blocks, and likes keeping track of streaks. For her, that means running daily and keeping a log of it. She also keeps track of the books she reads. For someone else it could be music practice, or a Duolingo streak, or eating fruit each day.
On which note…
“Dr. Greger’s Daily Dozen” is simpler than most nutrition trackers (where you must search for everything you eat, or scan barcodes for all ingredients).
Instead, it keeps track of whether you are having certain key health-giving foods often enough to maintain good health.
We might feature his method in a future edition of 10almonds, but for now, check the app out for yourself here:
Get Dr. Greger’s Daily Dozen on iOS / Get Dr. Greger’s Daily Dozen on Android
Dr. Greger’s Daily Dozen @ Nutrition Facts
Key Three: Figure out 2–3 “anchor” events for the weekend
Otherwise, it can become a bit of a haze and on Monday you find yourself thinking “where did the weekend go?”. So, plan some stuff! It doesn’t have to be anything out-of-this-world, just something that you can look forward to in advance and remember afterwards. It could be a meal out with your family, or a session doing some gardening, or a romantic night in with your partner. Whatever makes your life “living” and not passing you by!
Key Four: Tackle the toughest work first
You’ve probably heard about “swallowing frogs”. If not, there are various versions, usually attributed to Mark Twain.
Here’s one:
“If it’s your job to eat a frog, it’s best to do it first thing in the morning. And if it’s your job to eat two frogs, it’s best to eat the biggest one first.”
Top Productivity App “ToDoist” has an option for this, by the way!
Laura’s key advice here is: get the hard stuff done now! Before you get distracted or tired and postpone it to tomorrow (and then lather rinse repeat, so it never gets done)
10almonds Tip:
“But what if something’s really important but not as pressing as some less important, but more urgent tasks?”
Simple!
Set a timer (we love the Pomodoro method, by the way) and do one burst of the important-but-not-urgent task first. Then you can get to the more urgent stuff.
Repeat each day until the important-but-not-urgent task is done!
The 10almonds Team
Key Five: Use bits of time well
If, like many of us, you’ve a neverending “to read” list, use the 5–10 minute breaks that get enforced upon us periodically through the day!
- Use those few minutes before a meeting/phonecall!
- Use the time you spend waiting for public transport or riding on it!
- Use the time you spent waiting for a family member to finish doing a thing!
All those 5–10 minute bits soon add up… You might as well spend that time reading something you know will add value to your life, rather than browsing social media, for example.
Key Six: Make very short daily to-do lists
By “short”, Laura considers this “under 10 items”. Do this as the last part of your working day, ready for tomorrow. Not at bedtime! Bedtime is for winding down, not winding up
Key Seven: Have a bedtime
Laura shoots for 10:30pm, but whatever works for you and your morning responsibilities. Your morning responsibilities aren’t tied to a specific time? Lucky you, but try to keep a bedtime anyway. Otherwise, your daily rhythm can end up sliding around the clock, especially if you work from home!
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Semaglutide’s Surprisingly Unexamined Effects
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Semaglutide’s Surprisingly Big Research Gap
GLP-1 receptor agonists like Ozempic, Wegovy, and other semaglutide drugs. are fast becoming a health industry standard go-to tool in the weight loss toolbox. When it comes to recommending that patients lose weight, “Have you considered Ozempic?” is the common refrain.
Sometimes, this may be a mere case of kicking the can down the road with regard to some other treatment that it can be argued (sometimes even truthfully) would go better after some weight loss:
How weight bias in health care can harm patients with obesity: Research
…which we also covered in fewer words in the second-to-last item here:
But GLP-1 agonists work, right?
Yes, albeit there’s a litany of caveats, top of which are usually:
- there are often adverse gastrointestinal side effects
- if you stop taking them, weight regain generally ensues promptly
For more details on these and more, see:
…but now there’s another thing that’s come to light:
The dark side of semaglutide’s weight loss
In academia, “dark” is often used to describe “stuff we don’t have much (or in some cases, any) direct empirical evidence of, but for reasons of surrounding things, we know it’s there”.
Well-known examples include “dark matter” in physics and the Dark Ages in (European) history.
In the case of semaglutide and weight loss, a review by a team of researchers (Drs. Sandra Christenen, Katie Robinson, Sara Thomas, and Dominique Williams) has discovered how little research has been done into a certain aspect of GLP-1 agonist’s weight loss effects, namely…
Dietary changes!
There’s been a lot of popular talk about “people taking semaglutide eat less”, but it’s mostly anecdotal and/or presumed based on parts of the mechanism of action (increasing insulin production, reducing glucagon secretions, modulating dietary cravings).
Where studies have looked at dietary changes, it’s almost exclusively been a matter of looking at caloric intake (which has been found to be a 16–39% reduction), and observations-in-passing that patients reported reduction in cravings for fatty and sweet foods.
This reduction in caloric intake, by the way, is not significantly different to the reduction brought about by counselling alone (head-to-head studies have been done; these are also discussed in the research review).
However! It gets worse. Very few studies of good quality have been done, even fewer (two studies) actually had a registered dietitian nutritionist on the team, and only one of them used the “gold standard” of nutritional research, the 24-hour dietary recall test. Which, in case you’re curious, you can read about what that is here:
Dietary Assessment Methods: What Is A 24-Hour Recall?
Of the four studies that actually looked at the macros (unlike most studies), they found that on average, protein intake decreased by 17.1%. Which is a big deal!
It’s an especially big deal, because while protein’s obviously important for everyone, it’s especially important for anyone trying to lose weight, because muscle mass is a major factor in metabolic base rate—which in turn is much important for fat loss/maintenance than exercise, when it comes to how many calories we burn by simply existing.
A reasonable hypothesis, therefore, is that one of the numerous reasons people who quit GLP-1 agonists immediately put fat back on, is because they probably lost muscle mass in amongst their weight loss, meaning that their metabolic base rate will have decreased, meaning that they end up more disposed to put on fat than before.
And, that’s just a hypothesis and it’s a hypothesis based on very few studies, so it’s not something to necessarily take as any kind of definitive proof of anything, but it to say—as the researchers of this review do loudly say—more research needs to be done into this, because this has been a major gap in research so far!
Any other bad news?
While we’re talking research gaps, guess how many studies looked into micronutrient intake changes in people taking GLP-1 agonists?
If you guessed zero, you guessed correctly.
You can find the paper itself here:
What’s the main take-away here?
On a broad, scoping level: we need more research!
On a “what this means for individuals who want to lose weight” level: maybe we should be more wary of this still relatively new (less than 10 years old) “wonder drug”. And for most of those 10 years it’s only been for diabetics, with weight loss use really being in just the past few years (2021 onwards).
In other words: not necessarily any need to panic, but caution is probably not a bad idea, and natural weight loss methods remain very reasonable options for most people.
See also: How To Lose Weight (Healthily!)
Take care!
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