Dear Michelle,
I am very sorry to hear of your CFS. Chronic fatigue syndrome is a very disabling disease, whose treatment is largely ignored by Western medicine.
I applaud you on your embrace of the macrobiotic diet and lifestyle to cure your CFS. When one initially converts to a macrobiotic diet, one often feels incredible... absolutely the best they have ever felt in their lives. That usually subsides over a period of six months, never to be regained again (sad, but very true!). That initial high is definitely worth the experience, goodness knows it's great, but after following the diet for many years other difficulties may set it (and often do!).
Have you ever noticed how many of the leading macrobiotic counselors look anemic, pale, and sickly (I won't name names!)? All I'm saying is, don't be too dogmatic. Do not be obsessed about a particular condiment, and PLEASE do not become obsessed about food!
Often times one's attitude about food is what imparts physical and mental strength and health. If you feel restricted, or constrained, or you think certain foods are bad for you -- then guess what? they will be bad for you, and bad for your health. If you feel guilty or anxious about foods, then you are not going in the right direction!
Please continue to eat whole organic foods in a healthful fashion, but please be open-minded about your treatment protocols.
Macrobiotics can be a great starting place to increase your consciousness, increase your connection to the universe, and become closer to nature and to your divine self. But do not let your exploration end there. That would be short-sided and unidirectional. Read the writings of Emerson, Tolstoy, Troward, and Goethe.
Macrobiotics emanates from a complex tradition of Traditional Chinese Medicine (although macrobiotics distorts the primary actions of yin and yang, and categorizes food with an undue importance of being yin or yang, rather than a more complex system based not primarily upon food energetics -- although that is there -- but more specifically upon the actions of a specific food upon an individual's needs based upon internal and external conditions -- e.g., damp, heat, wind, deficient, excess, and so on). In TCM, no foods are considered bad or excluded from consumption, but rather all foods are considered relative to an individual's needs.
My boyfriend was macrobiotic for most of his life (of which years were spent being strict macro) and he still developed CFS! He is currently 75% better, and on the road to complete recovery -- however, this recover emanated from TCM and other herbal approaches.
Embrace macrobiotics, but keep an open mind and always seek truth with an open mind.
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