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Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 1 to 9 of 9. This is the beginning of the thread.
Posted by Dima on August 22, 2009, at 21:09:14
I've had depression, social anxiety, OCD, and fatigue for as long as I can remember. Currently, I eat pretty much no vegetables or fruits. A good amount of junk food. I'm already starting to exclude sugar from my diet and I'd like to make a full diet transformation, but I don't know where to begin. I'm ready to go shopping right now for some food. Any suggestions?
Posted by nolvas on August 23, 2009, at 4:29:14
In reply to How do I start?, posted by Dima on August 22, 2009, at 21:09:14
Eating healthy is about removing as much of the refined and processed foods in the diet as possible, secondly you must choose a balance of essential nutrients that the body requires.
Elements of the Mediterranean diet and Stone Age diet are reasonable sources of information to start with. I believe its not about one specific diet but just about eating the correct natural non processed foods in the right balance. We eat absolutely nowhere near the amount of fruit and vegetables a day. Here in the UK it's recommended to eat 5 portions a day which is the bare minimum.
http://oclinic.com/health/mediterranean-diet/CL00011
http://www.thepaleodiet.com/articles/Hunter-Gatherer%20Mayo.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediterranean_diet#Medical_research
I'm not recommending to stick to one of the above diets religiously, I'm just offering those diets as building blocks to a healthy diet, and to give ideas.
Fish for example may be an essential requirement in the human diet for some people but it can be heavily contaminated with heavy metals such as mercury. Fish contains the Omega 3 fatty acids DHA and EPA, if you are a vegetarian we get these fatty acids from conversion from another Omega 3 fatty acid ALA. The conversion ratio is controversial. If you don't wish to eat fish then you can supplement with fish oil, if you don't want to do that then there's expensive supplements that get DHA and EPA from algae.
Anyway this is what I believe can help in trying to fix your health problems :
Healthy diet - ideally no processed or refined foods at all, and plenty of foods mentioned in the Mediterranean diet just to give you the building blocks of a healthy diet. One you have this in place you can refine your diet to suit you and research some free healthy diet plans on the internet.
Secondly and cruially important is exercise, even if you suffer fatigue it's important to adopt an exercise plan, starting off light and gradually changing the exercise plan to suit your needs. There's an overwhelming amount of information on the net about this. A combination of aerobic and anerobic exercise will suit most people at least 3 times a week for at least 30 minutes.
Thirdly Cognitive Behaviour therapy can tackle the emotional and mental areas of your problems, very useful for tackling anxiety and ocd.
Lastly and in can be in relation to CBT is relaxation. Find a relaxtion technique that works for you. Just listening for 30 mins a day to a relaxation CD can help or try something different such as meditation, yoga or autogenic training.
I recommend this book it's a highly regarded book on CBT techniques, very useful.
http://www.amazon.com/Cognitive-Behavioural-Therapy-Dummies-Psychology/dp/0470018380
(Couldn't get the double quotes feature to work on this link for some reason, sorry)
Good luck :)
Posted by bleauberry on August 23, 2009, at 17:57:04
In reply to How do I start?, posted by Dima on August 22, 2009, at 21:09:14
> I've had depression, social anxiety, OCD, and fatigue for as long as I can remember. Currently, I eat pretty much no vegetables or fruits. A good amount of junk food. I'm already starting to exclude sugar from my diet and I'd like to make a full diet transformation, but I don't know where to begin. I'm ready to go shopping right now for some food. Any suggestions?
Nolvas did an excellent job sharing some answers for you. Mine aren't much different.
Diet:
-Frequent small meals.
-A lot of purified water.
-Generous amounts of salt.
-Good fats...nuts, avocadoes, eggs, butter, cream, olive oil.
-Proteins...lean meats, eggs, beans.
-Fish should be infrequent due to heavy metals...they aren't a concern for healthy people or for someone eating once in a while, but when health is compromised, even small amounts of metals can accumulate due to a weak detox system.
-Veggies...lots and lots, mostly raw or slightly cooked, so as to retain their natural nutrition and enzymes. You don't want the aluminum can stuff because it has lost all its nutrition and you want to avoid aluminum.
-Fruits...at first, one a day. After a month, eat more. High in sugar, you want to keep them low at first as hidden yeast die off from sugar starvation. Best overall fruits early in the diet are the berries...raspberries, cranberries, blueberries.
-Grains...whole grains, nothing refined. If it is white, it is crap. Might as well eat cardboard.
-Fiber...veggies, grains, seeds.
-Caffeine...low or none.
-Sugars...low or none.
-Starches...low or none.
-Organic...as much as possible.Most people find that cutting down or avoiding both gluten (wheat, barley, barley malt ingredient, rye) and dairy helps them feel better.
With Lyme disease and gluten intolerance and co-infections such as Candida, my primary symptoms are depression, aches, and fatigue. My typical shopping list is full of things that help me and don't hurt me. Here is a typical list...
Produce...tomatoes, avocadoes, romaine lettuce, green leaf lettuce (both romaine and greenleaf have high nutrition...iceberg is mostly without nutrients...I like to wrap large leaves around meat and cheese for a sort of salad burrito thing, unique and good), hot peppers, bell peppers, cukes, radishes, parsley (one of the world's unsung heroes for health benefits, eat it by the mouthful once a day, it's not just for garnish), garlic (a raw clove each night is one of the world's strong antibiotics, antivirals, antifungals), carrots, celery, strawberries, a banana (too high in sugar to buy a lot), maybe an apple or pear, whatever is on sale.
I think almost half my grocery bill is in the produce department.
The isles:
Dinty Moore Beef Stew (I cheat once in a while), dark chocolate bar (85% dark, low sugar, excellent antioxidant, reduces heart attacks), frozen blueberries, frozen raspberries, potato-millet bread from Whole Foods (gluten free and the only one that tastes good), small can spinach sometimes, Red Mill's Mighty Good Hot Cereal (gluten free), Rice Chex (gluten free), Cocoa Pebbles (gluten free), bag of chopped walnuts (ingredient list is just walnuts, no chemicals), raw pumpkin seeds (I slightly roast them with a tiny bit of olive oil and lots of iodized sea salt), olive oil (the only good liquid oil), iodized sea salt (much healthier than processed salt), brown rice, gluten free flour from the natural section, cranberry juice, V8 BerrySplash juice, potato chips, corn chips.Dairy: Lactaid (lactose-free milk)
Half n half from a brand that has no hormones or antibiotics for the cows, butter, cream cheese, plain yogurt, cage-free veggie fed eggs.Meats: Whatever is on sale...mostly beefs, chicken, a little pork, non-antiibotic non-hormone free range meat when I can afford it. Fish once a month. Fish supplements, generally good, make me very depressed and cause me inflammation.
Hey, we are all different and like different stuff. If you aren't gluten free, you'll probably have on your list whole grain bread, whole grain low sugar cereals. My shopping is more difficult because anything with wheat, barley, or barley malt is off limits. I have to read every ingredient label.
This was just to give you a look at how one person who tries to eat healthy shops. It can be totally confusing unless you see an example. Notice there are some cheats in there. Gotta reward yourself here and there to stay on the wagon.
Get creative in cooking. I eat a lot of creative things like celery+cream cheese, romaine leaves wrapped around beef or chicken and cheese, hot cereal with an egg stirred into it (can't tell its there), rice with about anything, chips crunched up on salads for more crunch, plain salads, fancy salads, meat salads, nachos of all kinds imaginable on either corn or potato chips...
Hey, the thing is, experiment and have fun. Avoid the processed stuff. Avoid chemicals. Avoid sugars.
On the supplement side, I would consider these:
-A refrigerated brand of Probiotics (at least 3 billion units twice per day)
-Whole Foods Food Based One Vitamin (not a mega vitamin, good amounts of everything, natural based, lots of small amounts of extra good stuff in it)
-St Johns Wort. Whole Foods brand or Spring Valley brand (WalMart). Both have worked well for many people at a SJW forum, and me.
-Olive Leaf Extract capsules. Antibacterial, antifungal, antiviral, immune booster, energy booster.
-Curcumin. Pro-energy, pro-mood, pro-immune.Just some ideas. Hope it helps. The bus you are getting off of is a clunker for mental health and energy. You are now climbing into a limosine.
Posted by bleauberry on August 23, 2009, at 18:21:50
In reply to How do I start?, posted by Dima on August 22, 2009, at 21:09:14
Just a quick followup.
First, I want to applaud you with a standing ovation. Taking charge of your own health is what most people miss, and wonder why their lives are a mess. We are what we eat. Literally. If we eat chemicals and aluminum, we will feel like that. Sugars don't make us sweet.
A little warning is deserved though. Please do not expect to see overnight improvements. Your body has been sick a long time. As you change your diet, you will likely feel a healing process...what some call a healing crisis. Fatigue might actually get worse. Symptoms might temporarily get worse. That is a good thing. It means healing is begun. It means the adrenal glands are readapting. It means neurotransmitters are readapting. It means yeast is dying. It means every nook and cranny is being detoxified.
If you begin to really crave sugars super strong, that is solidly diagnostic that you have candida overgrowth as a major contributor to your fatigue. You are accustomed to their toxins. As they die, you are going through toxin withdrawal. Your body knows the way to fix the withdrawal...feed the yeast some sugar so they stop dying. Thus the cravings. It is not your sweet tooth doing the craving. It is the bad bugs. The stronger the cravings, the stronger the healing you will feel on the other side.
Stick with it. If you fall off the wagon here and there, no big deal. Get back on. Reward yourself once a week with something on your forbidden list to avoid falling off the wagon.
What will happen is that you probably won't notice much right away. But I guarantee you, you will in about three months look backward in time and say, "wow, I do actually feel a lot better than I used to." For me it has been significant enough that, even though I still have diseases I am fighting and I still have symptoms, I have been better off psych meds than on.
The right food choices do me more good than prozac. Go figure. A year of a good diet took my adrenal cortisol lab readings from far below the normal range up into the low normal range.
One last thing. It took me about a month to begin to get comfortable with a new diet. But really, about three months to accept it as my new life. Everyone who does this experiences the same thing...that is, after a few months, you will actually prefer your new foods over the ones that you used to eat. Given the choice a fat juicy pizza or some other healty dish you invented, you are going to choose your own dish willingly. And on the rare occassion when you take the pizza, you are going to feel toxic from it and know it was a mistake to avoid doing again. Sure it tasted good, but the feeling afterward wasn't worth it. The foods that are your friends today will be foods you gladly easily effortlessly avoid in about 3 months. It takes a while, but the body and the taste buds do get trained.
Posted by Dima on August 24, 2009, at 0:22:01
In reply to Re: How do I start.....add on., posted by bleauberry on August 23, 2009, at 18:21:50
Wow, thanks for the posts. I'm going to read and reread those. What kind of diet did you have before you started your healthy regimen?
Posted by nolvas on August 24, 2009, at 15:25:53
In reply to Re: How do I start.....add on., posted by Dima on August 24, 2009, at 0:22:01
Sorry to add yet more information but this is a site I stumbled upon this evening, which appears from a quick read to be quite good.
http://healthfood-guide.com/default.aspx
Posted by bleauberry on August 26, 2009, at 15:42:37
In reply to Re: How do I start.....add on., posted by Dima on August 24, 2009, at 0:22:01
> Wow, thanks for the posts. I'm going to read and reread those. What kind of diet did you have before you started your healthy regimen?
Usually donuts and coffee for breakfast. Candy bars and chips and sodas for snacks. Hamburgers and fries and shakes for lunch. Sodas and coffee for daytime drinks. The only decent things I ate were a dinner cooked by someone else and the ocassional subway sandwich, except of course I had no idea at the time that I was gluten intolerant, so the wheat was part of my problem.
Posted by Sigismund on August 27, 2009, at 23:37:47
In reply to Re: How do I start.....add on. » Dima, posted by bleauberry on August 26, 2009, at 15:42:37
40 years ago I lived on gin, malted milks and the odd roast chicken.
When you are young you can survive on almost anything for quite a while.
Posted by Dima on September 6, 2009, at 23:46:25
In reply to Re: How do I start.....add on., posted by Sigismund on August 27, 2009, at 23:37:47
I've decided to start the Paleolithic diet. It's basically what bleauberry suggested, just no grains, beans, or potatoes. Vegetables, fruits, nuts, and meat are allowed.
This is the end of the thread.
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