Happily Bored

Most CFS sufferers were forced to live a lonely life due to lack of energy to social. And this fact gives people/doctors an impression that CFS sufferers' illness is mental - their depression caused their physical troubles. But most of us (CFS patients) know that the truth is just opposite - the physical disability causes lonely life style (and of course depression as well), not the other way around.

I recently found myself feeling bored often - I was constantly stuck in empty moments and tried to find something to do. I may feel sorry for myself but as matter of fact, I found myself surprisingly happy about this, because this means I started to have extra energy, and no longer (at least until now) struggle with all those incomprehensible symptoms.

Progress has been made!

2010 - my body's victory over my mind

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It's the third day of new year, I got to write something here! I like to put it in brief: The best thing I had in past year is: my stomach was finally liberated from the dictatorship of my mind!

After I was "forced" by my stomach to change my diet back to my "normal" - that means to follow my stomach, NOT so much to follow my mind - which was "armed" with "modern scientific nutriology", I finally stepped out of my worst 2 years' (2009-2010) energy struggle - I am able to do lots of things each day.

Also, I stopped worrying about gaining weight. This stress-free state of mind let my body finally had freedom to "speak out loudly" to my once "despotic brain" about what it wanted! Prior to this point, I always "carefully" and "wisely" chose foods that were "nutritious but less fattening", or the foods that "yeast candida' wouldn't like, or the foods would kill yeast candidas, etc. The consequence was serious - the more purposely I chose foods, the less energy I had and the more sick I was!

Of course, I only speak for myself. I learned that everybody has different health problems with different causes, so everybody does have (and should have) different solution on diet.

For this reason, I doubt that modern medicine could have some good ideas to cope with Chronic fatigue - if it continues standing firmly on its foundation: semiological and mechanical approach toward human. I even doubt that the new discovery of XMRV could do much good about CFS/ME, because it is still a theory/discovery that based on semiological view - and CFS is just NOT about symptoms but our body's inner harmony.

Still, I am not anywhere near my best health condition yet. I am still in the need of much rest and good diet. I don't know how long it will take to make myself in a completely good health but I do see the light.

Meanwhile I will just focus on my each day and each meal.

Quotes by Raymond Francis M.Sc

From Never be sick again:
Modern medicine, pumped up with huge amounts of talent and money, is a strange dichotomy - technologically advanced and cutting-edge, yet obsolete and ineffective. Medicine does a superb job managing medical emergencies and disease symptoms, but is woefully incapable of curing disease or promoting a lifetime of wellness. In medical schools, physicians study one organ or system at a time and then specialize, without developing an understanding of health or the body as a whole. A lack of holistic understanding and appreciation transfers to medicine's focus on disease rather than health.

White rice and wheaten food

For years I have learned that how these two type of foods were unhealthy and I purposely avoided or reduced intake of them. However, after latest serious relapse I have realized my messed digest system demand those foods. As I increased amount of these two type of foods, my stomach feels better and better, and each day I feel more energetic.

White rice and wheat(or flour) products are two staple foods (main course?) in Chinese diet structure. And I grew up with such foods. I believe my digest system had been used to them so my purposely avoidance of them did more harm than good. And that might be the primary cause that my body could not get nutrition from what I ate daily thus caused my big energy trouble.

Based on over 2 months diet adjusting and result I am positive that this is the main cause of my recently years' health trouble. Even though I realized the importance of diet years ago, I was in a wrong track, and virtually made my diet structure worse. Now, by turning my diet back to what I used to when I grew up, I hope I could finally be on the road to a normal health.

Again, I should not be presumptuous. I should be aware of other possible consequences. Also, as soon as my stomach back to normal, I should not stick only on white rice and white flour. I will update my progress in very near future.

"Right" or " wrong" nutrition - who decides?

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I have been feeling better little by little each day for couple of weeks, by feeding myself with "right" foods that my stomach demanded. Actually all these "right foods" such as "white rice", "white wheat", milk and red meat, were all "wrong foods" by my understanding during all these recent several years.

For long time, I purposely cut off white flour and white rice in order to control my weight. Not only that, by candida diet theory sugar and white flour are both "the best friends" of yeast candida so they need to be eliminated completely from daily menu. However, after suffering my recent relapse, my stomach demanded me to eat white flour and white rice, otherwise I would get into serious trouble. And as matter of fact, I have been feeling better and better by listening to my stomach.

There are so many nutrition recommendations out there. So many researches by experts tell people what to eat and what not to. While I understand that many of these tips or theories were "scientifically" studied, I am still not completely convinced their efficiency, rather, I am quite convinced that "right" nutrition is really a "depend on each individual" business - especially for unknown chronic illness patients. In many cases, I think patients would feel better if they chose to listen to their own body instead of doctors.

I have never done any food allergy test, nor I understand what exactly the symptoms of food allergy are. Of course, just because I never had such experience doesn't mean other people don't have it. However, I have read a book written by some chronic patient telling story about his food allergy test: it ended like basically he was allergy to most types of food!

I thought I had "put my health on my own hands" since long time ago. I trusted doctors before, but they have convinced me that they had no clues about me at all. So I learned to take care of myself by reading informations online, from books or sharing others' experience. I have been also keeping an open mind in experimenting many different treatments/regimens by myself. Now, looking back, I "seem" to be able to get an idea of what's really going on with me: I have not really "put my health on my own hands". If my previous years of chronic problems were caused by my years of bad life style, my recent couple of years' problems mostly were caused by my "ruthless" "anti - Chinese traditional" experiment on diet. Basically, I ignored what my stomach wanted, forced my body to listen to my mind. Now, my body is launching her finally retaliation - forced me to eat what she needs!

More and more, I believe that the complexity of human body is beyond Newton's mechanics, and dealing with such a complexity with limited semeiological treatments, or, "scientifically" designing a few of certain "healthy" diet structures for all people is not only NOT ENOUGH but NOT RIGHT, and even DANGEROUS. I also start to believe that recovering from chronic illness is actually a personal business - each person has her/his own causes and treatments. Of course, knowledge from experts can help us understand our body function in general, but, if we admit that our body is more complicated than what our mind has already understood, we do need to respect it by yielding our mind to our body.

So again, "listen to our body". We, ourselves are the only one who have direct contact with our own body, and our body never stops giving us clues to save ourselves, if we could only listen to it!

Wanton from scratch!

Growing up from south of China, where people eat mostly white rice, I never ever made wanton in my life. Today I tried myself with whole wheat and beef.

Below are the pictures of process in order (total about one hour job):

And I don't know how it tastes yet. Will know tomorrow morning!

The second day morning:

I tried it this morning: it didn't taste good! I guess I will use regular wanton wrap (white wheat) next time!

Oily Chinese foods?

I drove 25 minutes to this famous Sichuan restaurant and spent over $30 for some food I could not eat at all! Too oily! I probably have to throw them all away! I am sure these foods are oily enough to destroy the reputation my home town food (together with Chinese food).

In many Chinese restaurants (include mainland China) foods are indeed oily. But, I still don't think these oily foods represent the real good Chinese culinary tradition. There are tons of Chinese foods are made freshly and healthily. As matter of fact, I have not seen many deep fry stuffs before I visited Chinese restaurants in this country.

Monotonous diet - the invisible killer of my health

I recently have lots of trouble with my stomach - "she" refuses to eat anything I cooked for long time. "She" demands the variety of foods - even "junk" food. Each meal has to be different and delicious, otherwise I will suffer consequence. Of course I followed "her" orders (what else choices I have?) and take care of each meal, at least as much as I could, I started to feel better.

For years, I purposely got ride of certain type foods, based on the famous "caveman diet"/"candida diet", but what I didn't follow, was the suggestion/advice that it's only good to keep the diet for certain amount of time (I believe it was suggested from several weeks to 3 months). I was too anxious not to go extreme! Now my experience is giving me lessons: salads were proved to be bad for my stomach, at least I cannot eat too much because my stomach cannot handle cold foods. Meat is also necessary. And the very dangerous food "white flour" which I deliberately got rid of for years is somehow my stomach's current favorite - I had to eat it for every meal for several days straight! I guess my stomach simply misses it so much.

My primary symptom is extreme lack of energy and I have reason to believe it is caused by nutrition deficiency, especially during recently years. For long time I was so baffled about what I missed in my diet but now, it seems clear: the variety! My monotonous diet was somehow indiscernible problem to me but my stomach finally decided to force me to realize it.

I guess someone was just right to say: our body is our best doctor!.

First time I tasted my hometown foods for 4 years!

These beautiful delicious elegantly made dishes from the Sichuan restaurant (about 10 miles away from where I live) finally settled down my crying stomach! I don't want to be presumptuous but I like to believe that these real hometown foods would eventually stop my CFS symptoms in near future!

Mad about cooking - a struggle between brain and stomach

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I am a fan of western culture and that's why I came to US. But more and more I realized how patriotic my stomach is - diet has been such a big deal in my daily life. The very first thing I think every morning after I got up is no longer "what am I going to read today", but "what am I going to eat today?" Or even worse, "what am I going to cook today?"

I almost get to a point to believe that my all CFS problems are essentially caused by my bad diet here. It is not that American foods are all bad but, my stomach doesn't negotiate with American foods and I had been too "busy" to stay in kitchen before.

I just suffered another big relapse recently several weeks. I may have to say it was all about "foods". The upset stomach triggered all my symptoms. This morning I woke up by a sheer feeling of hunger, and whatever I ate just didn't satisfy my stomach, so I could not go back sleep again. The thing is, I spent so much money and time in kitchen everyday and cooked so much food but I still dislike most of them. And I feel like wasting so much time everyday!

Cooking Chinese food is time consuming. Everything has to be hot and cooked. Sometime I wanted to eat something but I just don't have materials, nor do I know how. Well, be fair to say, I am not a bad Chinese cook at all, but just not good enough to my stomach!

Why is my stomach so picky? Were my ancestors Chinese Emperors?

I thought about going back to China, but my brain said "no". There are so many things I dislike there. And moving back there might be a bigger "business" to do than just learning cook here.

Good news is, I heard there is an excellent Sichuan (where I come from) Chinese restaurant about 10 miles away. Hope it can be my part time "housewife"...