More Info on Diet (since you asked)

Fermented veggies are awesome and promote good gut health!

Roasted sweet potato with roasted kale and chicken hearts.

 

Roasted kale, brussel sprouts, with our own version of fried fish

This is how we cook most of our veggies, tossed in olive oil and roasted on parchment in the oven.

Spinach caesar with roasted veggies and chicked with a balsamic glaze

Important books that help us stay on track, all available on Amazon

The finished product! Cod simmered over our garden tomatoes, parsley and onions on a bed of spinach with roasted veggies

Roasting the veggies, here with walnuts

Cod on top of the tomato, parsley, onion mix

Beautiful colour from our own yard

Today's snack

Smoothie ingredients (missing avocado here)

the Smoothie! 

I decided to offer up more information in a concise format so I do not have to keep answering questions individually as many folks want to hear details about what we are doing. 
I will include a few more links and some pictures to help but the most important thing you can do for your own health is your own research! That being said, I will share some of what I have learned and some of what I think. Take that last part with a grain of salt, so to speak. 

Generally, we understand the difference between good foods and bad foods. Morgan Spurlock's documentary "Super Size Me" from 2004 was not exactly shocking in that his outcomes could have been predicted by anyone. He ate McDonalds daily and got fat, tired, and sick. He also got addicted which is a much more curious effect than the more obvious ones. His body and brain began craving that high saturated fat and ending his experiment was harder than he had imagined it would be. 

The western diet which refers to a North American (and European) manner of eating has evolved since world war 2 to make it easier, faster, and more convenient to consume the calories we need to keep moving. Sadly that effort to make things quicker and easier has meant that the quality of food goes down, the calories go up, and nutritionally, some of us are starving our bodies of necessary fuel while our pants size just keeps going up. 

Food is our comfort, our pass-time, our friend and our nemesis. We eat to celebrate, to mourn, and often for no good reason at all. I have been fat and thin many times in my adult life and I always knew it was on me to make the changes necessary for improved energy and health. Sometimes I just wanted to eat crap, and my body paid the price. When I ate well and exercised enough, my energy came back and my body shrunk, but it was never front-of-mind to eat for the health of my mitochondria or to protect the myelin sheath around my nerves. Who the hell thinks like that? 

Well my friends, now I do. 

And if we are being honest you should be too. Many people, even after a diagnosis of diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, or in my case, MS, assume that the treatment their doctor offers is the most effective and responsible route they can take, and often that is at least part of a good approach. Unfortunately it is a rare physician who has the training, time, or understanding to delve into your eating habits, recommend changes, and explain to you how the fuel you ingest can alter the course of the disease you have. They REALLY don't have time to tell all their as-yet healthy patients how to stay that way.

I am not dissing doctors. I LOVE my doctor and have utmost respect (and awe by times) at the dedication they have to a job that frankly bleeds them dry. They are terribly over worked and many do not have the time to care for themselves in a meaningful way let alone take a proactive approach to healthcare. They were not trained to do that. Ours is a reactive medical approach. Once we are sick, we go see a doctor and they attempt to aleviate symptoms. Very seldom is the question asked 'but why are you so ill?' It is simply not the way our system works. 

We must take responsibilty for our own health. It is not on anyone else to make you well and keep you that way. It is your body and the only one you get. It WILL fail you someday and you WILL die. The question is how will you live? With chronic pain? Low energy and brain fog? With a disease that will slowly worsen and cut your years on this earth short? 

The other option is knowledge and a little effort. If it sounds too hard, too restrictive, or any other excuse you can think of, that is your choice. Personally, I want to stay on my feet, keep working, and keep living a life I have worked so hard to make amazing so whatever it takes, I am doing THAT.

Here are some basic ideas to consider. As I said in the first post, food is either feeding you and allowing your body to function at its best, or it is stealing from you, causing premature cell death and storing fat that it  cannot use. Many foods cause inflammation in the body which is believed to be the root cause of most autoimmune diseases. Autoimmune diseases which include rheumatoid arthrtis, lupus, fibro myalgia, MS, crohn's etc, occur when the body mistakes its own cells for foreign bodies and begins attacking them. The same system that saves us from daily assaults of viruses and germs is actually attacking our good cells in error. One of the most common ways that cells get mistaken for foreign or dangerous cells is through ingestion. 
We are eating them. Proteins from problematic foods cause the immune system to be on high alert and our own cells are taken down in 'friendly fire'

This is what happened in my body. The myelin sheath (imagine the plastic covering on an electrical cord) came under attack by my own immune system and created breaks or lesions (multiple scarring)on my brain and spinal cord. Likely because I was lacking in vitamin D, eating inflammatory foods, and under stress. 

So here is what I do about that. Through many sources including the links I posted in Lemons and Lemonade, I am learning the basic science of nutrition and what I need to repair damage already done, and prevent damage from occurring in the future. Before I tell you what I do NOT eat any more, let me tell you that I am never hungry, never craving any foods, and have not felt this good in many years. I am mainly symptom free and take NO MEDS for MS. This is what works for me and is my choice. You can make choices that work for you.

I do NOT eat the following: 
Dairy of any kind, wheat or grains, legumes (which includes peanuts and beans etc), and refined sugar.

I DO eat:
Huge quantities of fresh vegetables, including leafy greens, cabbage, mushrooms, carrots, etc. I eat lean meat and fish and some organic liver, nuts and seeds (mostly roasted walnuts and small amounts of almonds) I eat a lot of berries and some fruit, including avocados(yes they are a fruit) I eat very few snacks but can have dark chocolate sweetened with agave or another natural sweetener. I still drink coffee but learned to drink it black. 
We use coconut milk often and I make a wicked cream sauce using a can of coconut milk, fresh squeezed lemon, fresh garlic and sea salt. I will make an amazing shrimp and veggie combo over rice noodles and covered in that sauce. I also make my own fish and chips at home using alternative flours suck as rice or quinoa for the batter.

It is not about giving everything up but rather re-learning how to make foods you love. It is fast and easy too! As soon as we get home from the studio, we turn on the oven, chop up some veggies and toss them in olive oil in a bowl with some steak spice or salt and pepper, spread them on parchment paper and stick them in the oven. While they cook, I make the protein and anything else we may be having. I even still make the curry potato salad made famous at my restaurant although I make it with sweet potatos over white. 

Smoothies are our breakfast but once a week I make eggs with huge amounts of veggies and smoked salmon on the side. 
Lunch is usually a snack of veggies and either canned fish with crackers or as pictured, some salmon or chicken for convenience! 

There are so many alternatives available right now in stores everywhere, it is probably the easiest time to make major changes. You do not however, have to change everything all at once. Take one thing out and add one thing in. How ever it works for you but let me stress, this is not a diet the way you've been lead to think of them. This is a permanent committment to health. I DO NOT cheat, as for me that would mean potential brain damage. The biggest challenge is being prepared by having a stocked fridge and some sense of planning what you will eat so you do not arrive home hungry and unprepared and ready to go to the drive-thru!

It is changing your life to end sugar addiction, to optimize the health you have and restore the health you have lost. We have been told that fat is bad and that calcium comes from cows and all kinds of other myths. I will not go into THAT nonsense here but watch some documentaries (Netflix, Prime, and Crave are full of great ones) and read some books. Listen to Dr Mark Hyman and follow Dr Terry Wahls. Become your own expert on what is good for you. Sadly we all seem to need a little fear to get motivated but if you haven't gotten that yet, do the work and maybe never get the scare! If you have the issues already, do not accept that that is your fate. Eat yourself well, and more importantly, STOP eating yourself sick! 


https://drhyman.com/
https://mariamarlowe.com/blog/10-best-food-documentaries-netflix/
https://mshope.com/#cookbook
https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/gut-microbiome-and-health