Linda Lazarides' diet for chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia

PHASE I: (weeks 1-4) Diagnostic diet and anti-microbial treatment
Foods to eat	Foods to avoid	Therapeutic items*	Supplements (daily dose)*
Eat liberally: (why?) Fresh vegetables, especially dark green leafy varieties; Fresh salad vegetables, especially beets (beetroot) raw radishes, onions and chives; Shiitake mushrooms; Fresh fruit, especially blue, purple and dark red berries; Coconut oil; Olive oil; Legumes (pulses) especially if sprouted; Tofu; Fish and seafood, especially herrings, mackerel, sardines and wild salmon; Organic white meat. Eat a wide variety of all these foods. If you are underweight, add more olive oil to make up for reducing carbohydrates. To keep your blood sugar stable eat little and often. Consume sparingly: (why?) Honey; Rice and rice flour; Oats, millet, buckwheat and their flours; Potatoes; Japanese foods: miso and tamari sauce to flavour food. Use salt very sparingly. It interferes with fluid balance. Due to its iodine content, sea salt is best.	Any foods which you already know worsen your symptoms. You should also avoid consuming nuts,coconut meat, peanuts, sunflower and sesame seeds, as they contain too much arginine, an amino acid which encourages the herpesvirus family (including Epstein-Barr). Avoid all foods containing wheat, milk or milk protein (casein), egg or yeast, including bread, yoghurt, ice cream, butter, stock cubes. You must avoid even trace amounts of these items (why?); Artificial food additives: colourings, flavourings, preservatives, sweeteners; Avoid convenience foods in general as these often have hidden ingredients; Red meat (why?); Sugar, foods and drinks with added sugar (why?); Dried fruit, especially with preservatives; Tea, coffee, alcohol (why?); Become an avid reader of labels on all food packets.	Psyllium husks (preferably whole, not powdered) 1 tbsp mixed in 400 ml/¾ pint water twice daily. Castor oil (why?) 1 tbsp at bed-time (not near mealtimes or if you have diarrhoea). Raw garlic cut into small cubes, 1 teaspoon-ful at bed-time swallowed with water. Raw garlic will not cause odour if you do not chew it. Add any of the following anti-microbial spices to the psyllium husks and also use them in cookery: ginger, cinnamon, cloves, cardamom, cayenne, asafetida (ferula). Drink peppermint tea and dandelion coffee to aid bile flow (why?). The most powerful natural liver aid is the yellow Indian spice turmeric: 2-3 rounded teaspoons a day mixed with soya yoghurt. Eat coriander leaf (cilantro) in large amounts to aid the excretion of mercury and other heavy metals. Strong chamomile tea is a natural relaxant and a good sleep aid.	To support mitochondrial function: Basic multinutrient formula plus high-dose Vitamin B complex and Magnesium 200-400 mg; To combat viruses: Vitamin C 1,000 mg, Coriolus mushroom extract (dose as per label), Selenium 100 mcg, Lipoic acid 100 mg (why?); To combat intestinal dysbiosis: Citrus seed extract (anti-microbial) and Oregano oil (anti-fungal): doses as per label. To support hormonal function: Tyrosine 500 mg twice daily, Methionine 500 mg. To support liver function: silymarin (dose as per label). Lipoic acid and methionine also support liver function. To aid lactic acid clearance, L-carnitine 500 mg twice daily. IMPORTANT If food causes discomfort or gas in your stomach or intestines, you may need HCl pepsin and/or bromelain to improve food absorption. Observe the cautions on product labels.
Treat Yourself With Nutritional Therapy Has over 100 delicious recipes for this diet

PHASE II: (weeks 5-8) Food intolerance testing and bacterial repopulation
Foods to eat		Therapeutic items*	Supplements (daily dose)*
Week 5: In addition to the Diagnostic Diet (above), also consume egg-free wheat pasta, wheat flour or plain wheat crackers every day for 5 days, then stop. If any of your symptoms return, such as drowsiness, sinus congestion, joint pains or headache or if your weight quickly rises, make a note of them and stop eating the wheat. It is very likely that you have a wheat intolerance. Whether or not you experience a reaction, stop the wheat after 5 days, and follow the Diagnostic Diet alone for the next two days. Week 6: Repeat what you did in Week 5, consuming cow's milk products daily instead of wheat, particularly fresh milk, cheese and yoghurt. The procedure is exactly the same as for Week 5. Week 7: Repeat what you did in Week 5, consuming eggs daily instead of wheat. If you do not want to eat a whole egg every day, make a 2-egg omelette with plain egg and water, cook it very thinly, and eat a small strip each day for the test period. Week 8: Repeat what you did in Week 5, consuming yeast daily instead of wheat. Buy a small jar of low-sodium yeast extract from a health food shop, and make it into a hot drink with boiling water. Drink this each day for the test period.		Reduce psyllium husks to once a day: 1 tablespoon mixed in 400 ml/¾ pint of water or luke-warm herbal tea. Continue with turmeric and coriander. Consume ginger frequently in cooking. Ginger helps to stimulate the digestion. Use chamomile tea, peppermint tea, dandelion coffee.	To repopulate good bacteria, take Acidophilus/bifidus as per product label. Use a brand guaranteed to survive digestion. (Yoghurt cannot be relied on for this.) Continue with basic multinutrient formula, Vitamin B complex, Magnesium; Vitamin C, Coriolus mushroom extract, Selenium, Lipoic acid, Carnitine, Tyrosine, Methionine, Silymarin. If needed to aid your digestion (see above) continue with HCl pepsin and bromelain (dosage and instructions as per label). If progress appears to be slow, ask your doctor about magnesium injections. They have helped a lot of CFS sufferers.

PHASE III: (week 9 onwards) Maintenance regime
Foods to eat	Foods to avoid		Therapeutic items & supplements*
You may resume eating all foods which tested negative, but try not to eat them more than once a day since these four foods do seem to turn into problem foods very easily. Try to make your routine diet 90 per cent fresh natural foods: fresh fruit and vegetables, white meat, fish, legumes (pulses), olive oil, coconut oil, whole-grains, rice and potatoes - all organic whenever possible.	Avoid the foods which tested positive. Nothing else is a complete no-no as long as your fatigue continues to improve. Be extremely frugal with sugary, starchy foods and drinks. Toxin-producing bacteria can never be completely eradicated from your intestines - only controlled by depriving them of undigested starch and sugar. Foods containing added sugar can also interfere with your hormonal balance by stimulating the production of too much insulin. Avoid artificial additives - they are a frequent cause of food intolerance problems. Alcohol damages your intestinal lining and is turned into toxic acetaldehyde by bacteria in your intestines. Tea and coffee stress your adrenal glands. Continue to eat little and often to keep your blood sugar on an even keel.		Continue as in Phase II for a further 4 months, then experiment with reducing the supplements one at a time. If your fatigue begins to worsen after a few weeks, resume taking the product which you discontinued.
*All doses are for adults. Children's doses are in proportion to their body weight. So a child who is half the weight of a small adult should be given half the adult dose, and so on.
Common mistakes: 1. Overdoing things after the rapid initial improvement which often occurs on this program. You will have a relapse unless you continue to conserve your energy. Calculate how much energy you think you have, and never expend more than half of it. 2. Not allowing enough time for the program to work. After the initial improvements your progress may be so slow that you do not notice it. Some days you will feel a little better, other days you will feel a lot worse and think you are getting worse rather than better. If you are a severe bed-bound case of CFS, you should allow a year to regain 75% of your energy. Additional advice: Do not rush into this program. Wait until you are properly organized and mentally prepared. You will then be more likely to cope with it on the required long-term basis and see its benefits. When eating, do not overload your stomach; this puts a strain on your digestion. Food which you have not completely digested ends up feeding toxin-producing bacteria in your intestines. Don't dilute your digestive juices: drink liquids before meals, not during or soon after. Some people with CFS are greatly helped by lying in a cold water bath every day. A cold shower is also helpful. The cold temperature stimulates healthy mitochondria, which communicate this stimulation to the defective mitochondria. Investigate the possibility that environmental contamination may be affecting you: e.g. carbon monoxide, mould (mold) spores, house dust mite, fumes from air fresheners, chemicals outgassing from new carpets and soft furnishings etc. Keep windows a little open whenever possible.
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