I've been eating (and drinking) over two pounds (1 kg) of vegetables
a day for the past three months. Plus meat and cheese and eggs and fish
and nuts and yoghurt and small amounts of gluten free low carb bread...
I am guessing it's about 50% veg and 50% the other stuff. I do not believe
in any kind of fasting, especially not for people with CFS who need all the
strength they can get from food or anywhere else. I just thought that I needed
more natural vitamins and stuff and after reading the book
'Minding my mitochondria' I thought I'd give it a try.
It was really impossible at first to get such a volume of food down. So I
decided to juice some of it and that made it a little easier. But since I am
a very strict low carber my choices for juicing are limited and my veg juices
don't taste very nice. I am using quite a bit of cabbage (white and red),
celery stalks and cucumber and limited amounts of fennel, carrots and
red beets which have more carbs. I have to be careful, If I eat more than
50 gr carbs a day I immediately put on weight. I'll have about half of
my veg as juice and the rest as whole veg: green beans, kohlrabi, green salads,
cauliflower, radishes, spinach, bamboo sprouts, tomatoes, zucchini, aubergines,
artichokes, asparagus, leek, spring onion, endives...
(I do not have a machine for juicing. I put my selection into my blender and
after blending with 1-2- cups of water I strain it through a plastic sieve.
And I leave quite a bit of fiber in because that works best for my bowels)
At first all the veg did nothing at all, then about 5 weeks into the experiment
the constipation I had been fighting with for the last ten years started to lift.
I had been taking huge amounts of magnesium to cope with it.
Now, three months in, I don't need any magnesium at all for this purpose.
I still take magnesium against cramps and restless leg syndrome but I need
only a fraction of what I used to take. And that's great because magnesium
can be quite harsh on the stomach and gut lining. If I eat less than 800gr a day
the constipation comes back. If I eat over 1200gr it clears out completely.
But the primary reason why I started this vegetable binge is my constant
excruciating fatigue. And it hasn't budged an inch. Maybe it takes longer
maybe there's no connection. I'll continue anyway because the constipation
relief alone is worth the hassle.
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