By Dr Gina Shaw
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| Photo: Getty |
So many people suffer with fatigue
these days, but what most people do not understand is why. They may think to themselves 'Maybe they
could do with a little more sleep', or 'Maybe it’s related to stress'. Much of the time people don't actually
understand what it is that actually drains our energy and what it is that
actually revitalizes our energy supply.
So, people try to get more sleep, but they still they can’t seem to
shake this constant feeling of fatigue and low-energy levels and they never
seem to have much energy to do things they would really like to do.
Are you one of these people?
Would you like to turn things around?
Here are some of my recommendations to help you achieve more energy:
1. Sleep Patterns
Many people go to bed far too late of
a night and end up tired the next day because of this. It is important to have as many hours before
12 midnight as possible, i.e. get at least some early nights every week by, for
instance, retiring at about 9 or 10 o’clock a couple of nights a week. Remember: The hours before midnight are worth
2 hours sleep, as compared to the hours after midnight!
2. Cut out Flesh Foods
By flesh foods I mean beef, pork,
venison, chicken, turkey, fish, seafood, lamb, ham or whatever animal flesh you
are currently consuming! Meat is the
hardest 'food' for the human body to digest and takes away a lot of energy in
its digestion (and it provides very little by way of nutrition in return!) A high-protein diet also depletes us of
calcium which gets leached from our bones and teeth. Indeed, there are many reasons why meat and
animal products are harmful to us, but this has already been discussed in my
book ‘The Undigestible Truth about Meat’.
3. Cut out Animal Products
By animal products, I mean dairy
products including butter, milk, yoghurt, cheese, etc. and I am also including
goat and sheep milk and its products.
These products are very unnatural for humans to eat, they are designed
to be eaten by the offspring of the species (e.g. the calf, kid, etc.) and most
of us do not possess the enzymes to digest these products. Many of these products are too high in fat
for us to digest with ease, coupled with the fact that they are cooked, this
makes them very poor food choices. We
cannot easily digest nutrients from cooked foods such as proteins – which have
become coagulated, or vitamins and minerals - which have become inorganic,
therefore by remaining on a mainly cooked food diet, we are not providing
ourselves with sufficient nutrients, especially when it is based on flesh foods
and its products. By the way, don't
worry about insufficient calcium when you cut out dairy products, we get a far
greater supply of calcium from green vegetables and salad as well as from
certain nuts such as almonds and certain fruits.
4. Eat More Raw!
By eating easy-to-digest, raw foods
instead of cooked meals ensures that we do not deplete our energy
unnecessarily. Cooked foods drain away our energy because they are difficult
for our bodies to digest, absorb and assimilate. Meals composed of fresh fruit or salad
require very little energy to digest, absorb and assimilate and provide us with
many vital nutrients.
5. Exercise
Exercise improves the efficiency of
our sleep; indeed our whole body prospers from regular exercise as it speeds up
healing, detoxification, improves our blood and lymphatic circulation, improves
our heart and lung function, improves bowel action, etc. Perhaps one of the best things about exercise
is that it makes us feel good, as it releases endorphins into our bloodstream –
the feel good chemical!
Emotional stresses can also cause
fatigue, so if this is the problem, maybe a listening ear will help or maybe
you need to take up a relaxation technique or yoga. Having said this, emotional problems can be
greatly helped by dietary changes.
If you are suffering from constant
fatigue, it may be worth your while having a blood test to find out whether
there is an underlying problem.
Otherwise, you may wish to have a personal consultation with myself or another
trusted healthcare practitioner. You
could simply be suffering with a vitamin or mineral deficiency, or there may be
another reason for your lack of energy, but either way it is worth getting it
checked out!
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