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Your dinners are one of those few things in life over which you do have control… so… if I can control my meals… maybe I can control my health?

I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis in 2008, but have since been given the hindsight to know that this has been an active/inactive part of my life for about twenty years. Improving my health as much as I know how is paramount, but I had focused mostly on losing weight and overlooked the role of nutrients I put into my already tenuous body.

Hippocrates had it right centuries ago when he wrote “Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.” I have spent almost three decades putting only godknowswhat into my gut and it has gotten me backwards from nowhere; it is time to pay attention.  Remember those food pyramids you never did pay much attention to as posters in your school cafeteria? Well, if you don’t, good. I do my best to live by a new one — maybe it’ll help you, too?

Trying to accommodate the inflammatory processes is one key I feel unlocks a wealth, and this is what else makes an enormous difference not only to people who have MS but anyone with a chronic illness. The better I feed the machine, the better the machine works; I cannot follow the Wahls Diet (per above link) to the letter I’d like, but doing what I can with what I have is the letter of  the… law… wait, law of the land? Something like that.

I have lost 100 pounds after years of trial and error (largely error) put me on a path that now excludes a lot of the animal-related food world (this, coming from a girl with childhood family vacations to the closest cheese factory*) and all artificial sweeteners (Google “excitotoxins”). I try to eat as many colors as possible. Financially that’s tough (food stamps are not very forgiving), but having some things on hand in the pantry help keep it real, yo: turmeric, asafoetifa (hing), fresh garlic and onion, beans, rice (and coffee). The monthly card-nundrum is aggravating, but no more so than, say, a video game whose level you must surpass to save a princess. So, well, that. And in that metaphor I guess the princess is my health.

Funny thing is, the better I treat my body the more pounds I seem to shed with almost no effort… this is awesomesauce for someone who can go blind from exercise. I know now that I truly am big-boned (ha! It never was a lie!) and for the first time in a lifetime can be proud of what I’ve been given.

* True.