Adrenal Fatigue Be Gone

Over the years I’ve developed a couple “foundation” energy foods recipes. They’re called that because 1) I can eat them anytime or season and they will increase my energy and help me feel better – immediately. 2) The recipes are super easy to make and use just about anything from your panty or fridge and 3) They are extremely economical and can be eaten, in a variety of ways, all week long if need be. And sometimes they need to be!

BTW – Energy foods are economical. I’ve cut my food bill in half since I stopped buying pre-packed, sugar and preservative laden, cereals, crackers, breads and other “fast-food” prepared meals and fancy sauces. I’ve also lost ten pounds and my husband dropped forty pounds! Anyway … back to my easy Black Bean Soup recipe!

Black Bean Soup ala FatigueBeGone.com

Pantry Ingredients:
1 Can Black Beans
1 Can Pinto Bean
1 Can of Lentils
Baby Portabella Mushrooms (I buy these “dry” – great time saver!)   
Seaweed (ditto above)
Italian Seasoning. (Emeril’s Italian – preservative Free)
Garlic Salt
Sea Salt/Kelp Mix * (I mix Sea Salt & Kelp 50/50 and keep a bowl of it handy by the stove.)
Tumeric
Parsley
1 Can of Spinach
1 Can of Green Beans
1 Can of Lentils
Dry Sherry
Refrigerator or Freezer Ingredients:
Chopped Garlic

Fresh Ingredients:
Potatoes Baked with Skins or Sweet Potatoes Skinned
Red Onion
Celery
Daikon (Specialty Grocer if you can)
Organic Chicken, Sausages, Turkey or Meat

Mestemacher Bread (Sugar and Preservative-free bread)

Black Bean Soup Directions

Step 1:  You will want to use a large sauce pan that has a tight fitting lid. This is a one-pot meal!

Sauté the below together for two to three minutes, or until the onion is clear.

2 Stalks Celery Chopped
4 Cloves Garlic Minced
½ Red Onion
Let dry mushrooms “revive” by soaking in a bowl or glass of water. Just a few minutes will do.
(Of course, you can always use fresh mushrooms.)

Step 2: Add to the pot and sauté until light brown
5 Baby Portabella Mushrooms chopped

Step 3:  Add to the pot, raise to a boil then lower to a simmer for 90 minutes.

2 to 3 carrots chopped into small/medium size pieces
1 Can of Black Beans with the water from the can
1 Can of Pinto Beans with the water from the can
2 Rounded TBSPs of Dry Seaweed
2 TBSP Dry Sherry

Step 4:  Add final spicing and allow to simmer for 30 more minutes

2 TPSP Italian Seasoning. (Emeril’s)
½ tsp Garlic Salt
1 tsp Sea Salt/Kelp Mix * (see below)
1 tsp. Tumeric

Step 5:  Serve it while it’s hot!

There are many serving options which is why I call this is an energy boost “foundation” recipe!

* Pour in bowl and eat “as it” with a slice of toasted Machmeiker bread and a serving of Goat Cheese
* Have a small bowl with a grilled gourmet cheese sandwich. (M bread plus Goat Cheese and basil)
* Pour it over a baked potato and sprinkle the top with parsley
* Pour it on top of a bowl of brown rice
* Add in a couple sausages or chicken on or off the bone
* Have it as a “starter,” just a small bowl, for any meal.
* Add in extra fresh or canned veggies according to your own personal preference. For example, I love spinach and add LOTS of spinach into mine. My husband hates spinach so I leave his alone!

The final ingredient to any delicious meal is a loved one. If you are not living with a companion, please make this an occasion to invite a girlfriend or guy friend to break bread with you!  Or, take it to them. Make it an hour and a half visit – even someone suffering from fatigue would enjoy that. Yum.

For more information about how to boost your energy please read this recent article: How to Boost Energy Naturally  You can feel better faster with these energy foods, drinks and supplements.

To purchase recommended food and condiments supplies referenced in this post, please visit our Energy Foods Store which is safely and securely powered by Amazon.com.

Finally, are you registered to receive our boost energy and feel better – FAST newsletter? Click here to review a past issue on the re-energizing power of friendship. This is published bi-monthly and features get rid of fatigue tips, tools, techniques & recipes!

 

Energy Boost Essentials * February 2012
Reading * Eating & Drinking * Doing

Did you know that February is “American Heart Month?” Nothing gets our blood pumping and our energy balancing better than this month’s energy boosting essentials. Try them for yourself and see if you don’t feel better Fast!

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Read to inspire your heart and mind, then sleep in peace with the angels. One of the best ways to transition from the energy of day into the peace and slumber of night is with an exceptional, inspirational read. A key to regaining your energy is quality sleep.

To help recharge and re-balance your adrenal glands you must sleep eight hours a day AND be in bed, asleep, by 10:00 p.m. (Ten P.M.)

This month, try one of more of these feel-good, do good books:

The Happiness Project: Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun by Gretchen Rubin with its companion, The Happiness Project One-Sentence Journal: A Five-Year Record

Next, I recommend, The Hidden Gifts of Helping: How the Power of Giving, Compassion, and Hope Can Get Us Through Hard Times

If you’d like a more extensive listing, please feel free to visit the Fatigue Be Gone library.

Note: If you have difficulty getting to sleep and staying asleep, click here for sleep remedies that have worked for me!

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Eat and Drink to Boost Your Energy and Feel Better – Fast!

I must give a HUGE thank you to my good friend Russ Merrill Click here to read the rest of this entry »

Energy Boost Secret: Walk pups in need and you’ll loose LBS while gaining the energy you need!

I have three doctors. My left leg, my right leg and my dog.
- Viveca Stone-Berry

One of the easiest and most enjoyable ways I’ve found to boost my energy, physically and emotionally, is by volunteering as a dog-walker at my local shelter. I call it an “energy-boost secret” because so few people seem to know about it!

While it is no secret that exercise is essential to boost our energy and maintain our brain-power, we who battle fatigue also know how easy it is to bail out of the commitment we make to ourselves, even to our friend who is expecting us at the gym … When you’re tired all the time the couch looks huge and comfy and the gym is so far, far away. One tomorrow leads to the next …

What you don’t know is how next-to-impossible it is to Click here to read the rest of this entry »

Do “exercise” and “Monday” belong in the same sentence? Well – for the past six months exercise hasn’t seemed to fit into any particular day of my week. Am I looking forward to this? No. No way. Bleh. Why me? Tomorrow would work better. Morning works better for me than afternoon. I have too much to do today. I am too tired to work out today.

I think I have pretty run through my usual gamut of excuses. From this point they would start to repeat and get a little whiner and a little more shrill.

I have a fantasy in which I love to exercise. Then there is the past-tense fantasy where I love-d to exercise. Whereas I certainly do enjoy certain types of exercise much more than others (Salsa dancing, bicycle riding around the coast in Newport, R.I.) I am basically a lazy person. Give me a couch and a good book and a bowl of ice cream and I am in heaven. My fondest memories from my childhood involve stacks of books, a comfortable perch and snacks. Oreos and milk anyone?

Anyway today is not about me giving in to my loveable lazy self. It is about a New Year,a happy and energy boosting New Year. And, it is about me doing more of what is good for me vs. what feels good to me!

The inspiration behind this “Exercise on Mondays – Always” resolution is a book I want to recommend to one and all:
The Happiness Project: Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun

The author is Gretchen Rubin, a woman after my own heart. Without this resolution she’d be on the couch next to me (and you?!) Her year of happiness begins with boosting her own energy in the month of January. Two ways she does this is by launching this exercise practice and committing to going to sleep earlier.

Could going to sleep earlier – like now – be a good excuse to postpone the inevitable? No – I’ll go. Soon, after I’ve done it often enough I may actually start to look forward to it and to Mondays.

Miraculous Health Benefits of doing the right things, together.

Walking is, simply put, too much to do for those of us under the spell of adrenal fatigue. Not only is our get-up-and-go gone, other companion side affects keep us couch bound. Fatigue aside, feelings of overwhelm, anxiety and depression make it easy to cancel outings with friends and exercise dates with anyone, especially ourselves. I am speaking from experience.

What jumpstarted my walking program? Two unstoppable reasons — my local shelter needed volunteers to walk dogs and I knew I had to get out of the house, make new friends, smell the roses and all that jazz.

The results were nothing short of miraculous.

To make a long story short – my volunteer dog walking stint Click here to read the rest of this entry »