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…

  1. Buy the fresh produce (and take a little rest after)
  2. Put the groceries away (and take a little rest after)
  3. Wash the vegetables (and take a little rest after)
  4. Chop the things as necessary (and take a little rest after)
  5. 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:

Keep Inflammation At Bay!

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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  • Invigorating Sabzi Khordan

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    Have you ever looked at the nutritional values and phytochemical properties of herbs, and thought “well that’s all well and good, but we only use a tiny amount”? Sabzi khordan is a herb-centric traditional Levantine sharing platter served most commonly as an appetizer, and it is indeed appetizing! Never again will “start your meal with a green salad to ensure a gentle blood sugar curve” seem like a chore:

    You will need

    • Large bunch of parsley
    • Small bunch of tarragon leaves
    • Small bunch of basil leaves
    • Small bunch of mint
    • Small bunch of sorrel leaves
    • 7 oz block of feta cheese (if vegan, a plant-based substitution is fine in culinary terms, but won’t have the same gut-healthy benefits, as plant-based cheeses are not fermented)
    • 9 oz labneh-stuffed vine leaves in olive oil (if vegan, same deal as the above, except it’s harder to find plant-based substitutes for labneh (strained yogurt cheese), so you might want to use our Plant-Based Healthy Cream Cheese recipe instead and make your own)
    • 2 tbsp za’atar (you can make your own by blending dried hyssop, dried sumac berries, sesame seeds, dried thyme, and salt—but if you haven’t had za’atar before, we recommend first buying some like the one that we linked, so that next time you know what you’re aiming for)
    • 3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
    • 10 radishes
    • 6 scallions
    • 9 oz walnuts, soaked in water overnight and drained
    • 1 cucumber, cut into batons
    • Warm flatbreads (you can use our Healthy Homemade Flatbreads recipe)

    Method

    (we suggest you read everything at least once before doing anything)

    1) Arrange the feta, labneh, za’atar, and olive oil in separate little serving dishes.

    2) Arrange everything else around them on a platter.

    3) Serve! You may be thinking: did we really need a recipe to tell us “put the things on a plate”? The answer here is that this one today was shared mostly as a matter of inspiration, because when was the last time you thought to serve herbs as the star of the dish? Plus, it’s an excuse to try za’atar, not something so commonly seen outside of the Levant.

    An alternative presentation

    Enjoy!

    Want to learn more?

    For those interested in some of the science of what we have going on today:

    Take care!

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  • A drug that can extend your life by 25%? Don’t hold your breath

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    Every few weeks or months, the media reports on a new study that tantalisingly dangles the possibility of a new drug to give us longer, healthier lives.

    The latest study centres around a drug involved in targeting interleukin-11, a protein involved in inflammation. Blocking this protein appeared to help mice stave off disease and extend their life by more than 20%.

    If only defying the ravages of time could be achieved through such a simple and effort-free way – by taking a pill. But as is so often the case, the real-world significance of these findings falls a fair way short of the hype.

    Halfpoint/Shutterstock

    The role of inflammation in disease and ageing

    Chronic inflammation in the body plays a role in causing disease and accelerating ageing. In fact, a relatively new label has been coined to represent this: “inflammaging”.

    While acute inflammation is an important response to infection or injury, if inflammation persists in the body, it can be very damaging.

    A number of lifestyle, environmental and societal drivers contribute to chronic inflammation in the modern world. These are largely the factors we already know are associated with disease and ageing, including poor diet, lack of exercise, obesity, stress, lack of sleep, lack of social connection and pollution.

    While addressing these issues directly is one of the keys to addressing chronic inflammation, disease and ageing, there are a number of research groups also exploring how to treat chronic inflammation with pharmaceuticals. Their goal is to target and modify the molecular and chemical pathways involved in the inflammatory process itself.

    What the latest research shows

    This new interleukin-11 research was conducted in mice and involved a number of separate components.

    In one component of this research, interleukin-11 was genetically knocked out in mice. This means the gene for this chemical mediator was removed from these mice, resulting in the mice no longer being able to produce this mediator at all.

    In this part of the study, the mice’s lives were extended by over 20%, on average.

    Another component of this research involved treating older mice with a drug that blocks interleukin-11.

    Injecting this drug into 75-week old mice (equivalent to 55-year-old humans) was found to extend the life of mice by 22-25%.

    These treated mice were less likely to get cancer and had lower cholesterol levels, lower body weight and improved muscle strength and metabolism.

    From these combined results, the authors concluded, quite reasonably, that blocking interleukin-11 may potentially be a key to mitigating age-related health effects and improving lifespan in both mice and humans.

    Why you shouldn’t be getting excited just yet

    There are several reasons to be cautious of these findings.

    First and most importantly, this was a study in mice. It may be stating the obvious, but mice are very different to humans. As such, this finding in a mouse model is a long way down the evidence hierarchy in terms of its weight.

    Research shows only about 5% of promising findings in animals carry over to humans. Put another way, approximately 95% of promising findings in animals may not be translated to specific therapies for humans.

    Second, this is only one study. Ideally, we would be looking to have these findings confirmed by other researchers before even considering moving on to the next stage in the knowledge discovery process and examining whether these findings may be true for humans.

    We generally require a larger body of evidence before we get too excited about any new research findings and even consider the possibility of human trials.

    Third, even if everything remains positive and follow-up studies support the findings of this current study, it can take decades for a new finding like this to be translated to successful therapies in humans.

    Until then, we can focus on doing the things we already know make a huge difference to health and longevity: eating well, exercising, maintaining a healthy weight, reducing stress and nurturing social relationships.

    Hassan Vally, Associate Professor, Epidemiology, Deakin University

    This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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  • Eating For Energy (In Ways That Actually Work)

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    Snacks & Hacks: The Real Energy Boosters

    Declining energy levels are a common complaint of people getting older, and this specific kind of “getting older” is starting earlier and earlier (even Gen-Z are already getting in line for this one). For people of all ages, however, diet is often a large part of the issue.

    The problem:

    It can sometimes seem, when it comes to food and energy levels, that we have a choice:

    • Don’t eat (energy levels decline)
    • Eat quick-release energy snacks (energy spikes and crashes)
    • Eat slow-release energy meals (oh hi, post-dinner slump)

    But, this minefield can be avoided! Advice follows…

    Skip the quasi-injectables

    Anything the supermarket recommends for rapid energy can be immediately thrown out (e.g. sugary energy drinks, glucose tablets, and the like).

    Same goes for candy of most sorts (if the first ingredient is sugar, it’s not good for your energy levels).

    Unless you are diabetic and need an emergency option to keep with you in case of a hypo, the above things have no place on a healthy shopping list.

    Aside from that, if you have been leaning on these heavily, you might want to check out yesterday’s main feature:

    The Not-So-Sweet Science Of Sugar Addiction

    …and if your knee-jerk response is “I’m not addicted; I just enjoy…” then ok, test that! Skip it for this month.

    • If you succeed, you’ll be in better health.
    • If you don’t, you’ll be aware of something that might benefit from more attention.

    Fruit and nuts are your best friends

    Unless you are allergic, in which case, obviously skip your allergen(s).

    But for most of us, we were born to eat fruit and nuts. Literally, those two things are amongst the oldest and most well-established parts of human diet, which means that our bodies have had a very long time to evolve the perfect fruit-and-nut-enjoying abilities, and reap the nutritional benefits.

    Nuts are high in fat (healthy fats) and that fat is a great source of energy’s easy for the body to get from the food, and/but doesn’t result in blood sugar spikes (and thus crashes) because, well, it’s not a sugar.

    See also: Why You Should Diversify Your Nuts

    Fruit is high in sugars, and/but high in fiber that slows the absorption into a nice gentle curve, and also contains highly bioavailable vitamins to perk you up and polyphenols to take care of your long-term health too.

    Be warned though: fruit juice does not work the same as actual fruit; because the fiber has been stripped and it’s a liquid, those sugars are zipping straight in exactly the same as a sugary energy drink.

    See also: Which Sugars Are Healthier, And Which Are Just The Same?

    Slow release carbs yes, but…

    Eating a bowl of wholegrain pasta is great if you don’t have to do anything much immediately afterwards, but it won’t brighten your immediately available energy much—on the contrary, energy will be being used for digestion for a while.

    So if you want to eat slow-release carbs, make it a smaller portion of something more-nutrient dense, like oats or lentils. This way, the metabolic load will be smaller (because the portion was smaller) but the higher protein content will prompt satiety sooner (so you addressed your hunger with a smaller portion) and the iron and B vitamins will be good for your energy too.

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

    Animal, vegetable, or mineral?

    At the mention of iron and B vitamins, you might be thinking about various animal products that might work too.

    If you are vegetarian or vegan: stick to that; it’s what your gut microbiome is used to now, and putting an animal product in will likely make you feel ill.

    If you have them in your diet already, here’s a quick rundown of how broad categories of animal product work (or not) for energy:

    • Meat: nope. Well, the fat, if applicable, will give you some energy, but less than you need just to digest the meat. This, by the way, is a likely part of why the paleo diet is good for short term weight loss. But it’s not very healthy.
    • Fish: healthier than the above, but for energy purposes, just the same.
    • Dairy: high-fat dairy, such as cream and butter, are good sources of quick energy. Be aware if they contain lactose though, that this is a sugar and can be back to spiking blood sugars.
      • As an aside for diabetics: this is why milk can be quite good for correcting a hypo: the lactose provides immediate sugar, and the fat keeps it more balanced afterwards
    • Eggs: again the fat is a good source of quick energy, and the protein is easier to digest than that of meat (after all, egg protein is literally made to be consumed by an embryo, while meat protein is made to be a functional muscle of an animal), so the metabolic load isn’t too strenuous. Assuming you’re doing a moderate consumption (under 3 eggs per day) and not Sylvester Stallone-style 12-egg smoothies, you’re good to go.

    See also: Do We Need Animal Products To Be Healthy?

    …and while you’re at it, check out:

    Eggs: Nutritional Powerhouse or Heart-Health Timebomb?

    (spoiler: it’s the former; the title was because it was a mythbusting edition)

    Hydration considerations

    Lastly, food that is hydrating will be more energizing than food that is not, so how does your snack/meal rank on a scale of watermelon to saltines?

    You may be thinking: “But you said to eat nuts! They’re not hydrating at all!”, in which case, indeed, drink water with them, or better yet, enjoy them alongside fruit (hydration from food is better than hydration from drinking water).

    And as for those saltines? Salt is not your friend (unless you are low on sodium, because then that can sap your energy)

    How to tell if you are low on sodium: put a little bit (e.g. ¼ tsp) of salt into a teaspoon and taste it; does it taste unpleasantly salty? If not, you were low on sodium. Have a little more at five minute intervals, until it tastes unpleasantly salty. Alternatively have a healthy snack that nonetheless contains a little salt.

    If you otherwise eat salty food as an energy-giving snack, you risk becoming dehydrated and bloated, neither of which are energizing conditions.

    Dehydrated and bloated at once? Yes, the two often come together, even though it usually doesn’t feel like it. Basically, if we consume too much salty food, our homeostatic system goes into overdrive to try to fix it, borrows a portion of our body’s water reserves to save us from the salt, and leaves us dehydrated, bloated, and sluggish.

    For more on salt in general, check out:

    How Too Much Salt Can Lead To Organ Failure: Lesser-Known Salt Health Risks

    Take care!

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    It’s Q&A Day at 10almonds!

    Have a question or a request? You can always hit “reply” to any of our emails, or use the feedback widget at the bottom!

    In cases where we’ve already covered something, we might link to what we wrote before, but will always be happy to revisit any of our topics again in the future too—there’s always more to say!

    As ever: if the question/request can be answered briefly, we’ll do it here in our Q&A Thursday edition. If not, we’ll make a main feature of it shortly afterwards!

    So, no question/request too big or small

    ❝The 3 most important exercises don’t work if you can’t get on the floor. I’m 78, and have knee replacements. What about 3 best chair yoga stretches? Love your articles!❞

    Here are six!

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  • Almond Butter vs Cashew Butter – Which is Healthier?

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    Our Verdict

    When comparing almond butter to cashew butter, we picked the almond.

    Why?

    It’s not just our pro-almonds bias! And of course exact nutritional values may vary depending on the recipe, but we’re using the USDA’s standardized figures which should represent a reasonable average. Specifically, we’re looking at the USDA entries for “[Nut] butter, plain, without salt added”.

    In terms of macros, almond butter takes the lead immediately with nearly 2x the protein and over 3x the fiber. In contrast, cashew butter has 1.5x the carbs, and the two nut butters are approximately equal on fat. An easy win for almond butter so far.

    When it comes to vitamins, almond butter has more of vitamins A, B2, B3, B5, E, and choline, while cashew butter has more of vitamins B1, B6, and K. Thus, a 6:3 win for almond butter.

    In the category of minerals, things are closer, but almond butter has more calcium, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, and potassium, while cashew butter has more copper, iron, zinc, and selenium. So, a 5:4 win for almond butter.

    In short, these three wins for almond butter add up to one total win for almond butter, unless you have a pressing reason to have different priorities in what you’re looking for in terms of nutrition.

    Enjoy both, of course! Unless you are allergic, in which case, please don’t.

    Want to learn more?

    You might like to read:

    Why You Should Diversify Your Nuts

    Take care!

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  • Gut – by Dr. Giulia Enders

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    On account of being an organ (or rather, a system of organs) whose functions are almost entirely autonomic, most of us don’t think about our gut much. We usually know there’s acid in the stomach, and we usually know there are “good and bad” gut bacteria. But what of the rest of what goes on?

    For anyone who has a hazy half-remembered knowledge from school, this will serve as not only a reminder, but a distinct upgrade in knowledge.

    Dr. Giuliua Enders talks us through not just the processes of what goes on, but, as a medical doctor, also many instances of what can go wrong, for example:

    • Why do some people’s bodies mistake nuts for a deadly threat (and consequently, accidentally elevate them to the status of actually becoming a deadly threat)?
    • Why are some people lactose-intolerant, and why do food intolerances often pop up later with age?
    • Why do constipation and diarrhoea happen?
    • Why is it that stress can cause stomach ulcers?

    The style of writing is light and easy-reading, and the illustrations are clear too. This is a very accessible book that doesn’t assume prior knowledge, and also doesn’t skimp on the scientific explanations—there’s no dumbing down here.

    Bottom line: knowing what goes on in our gut as akin to knowing what goes on under the hood of a car. A lot of the time we don’t need to know, but knowing can make a big difference from time to time, and that’s when you’ll wish you’d learned!

    Click here to check out Gut and be prepared!

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