5.0 out of 5 stars Our Lives are Greatly Improved, June 26, 2013
This review is from: Minding My Mitochondria 2nd Edition: How I overcame secondary progressive multiple sclerosis (MS) and got out of my wheelchair. (Paperback)
After seeing Dr. Wahls Ted Talk I ordered her book. I am in my early 60’s and had brain fog. My creative self could not be accessed and I missed me. I enlisted the help of a friend because eating is a social thing and we both moved in the direction of The Wahls Diet. We greatly increased our intake of highly nutritious foods, the large helping of vegetables and removed from our food habits any processed foods and wheat. Once replacement food choices for wheat products were discovered giving up wheat was so easy and so rewarding I could hardly believe it. Sugars went as well. My afternoon Mocha treat was the hardest change for me but again so well worth it. Like a bad friend, it had to go.
My friend and I were immediately rewarded with better sleep, loss of anxiety, no brain fog, and weight loss. Without trying or ever feeling hungry pounds just left on their own. I started at 140 and loss 15 pounds. We wished we had taken our measurements when we started because we lost inches, lots of inches. We continue to explore the road to our wellness with hood habits and to increase our knowledge of the nutrition to be found in different foods.
So many of the tiny losses of wellbeing that I had, like slowness in waking up the stairs, small but constant aches and pains, brain fog and lack of energy, things I thought were because of my age have all become replaced by increased wellness. They are, for the most part, gone. Before I was fearing growing old now I am embracing it. What comes will come but I do not have to be a brain dead zombie. I am back to thinking 60 is the new 40, maybe even 30. ok, 30 is pushing it. 🙂
With my own success I offered the wisdom of the diet to another friend of mine who has had MS for 20 years. She is in a wheel chair with low mobility and poor use of her hands. Her thinking abilities are also affected. Moving towards the Wahls Diet has rewarded her greatly. Her hands have stopped the nerve tingly business, her depression has lifted, her legs are cooperating more and are often less stiff and solid. When you have been sick for a long time and sliding down into more sickness Hope can be an emotionally expensive stance but we have grown some Hope within her. Also a sense of personal empowerment. Her choices are affecting her health in positive ways. Being in a wheel chair losing weight was not easy until she gladly and with ease gave up wheat. She has lost ten pounds in two months. We will continue in our efforts for wellness and are very excited to have the useful and result offering information in Dr. Wahls book and talk.
Another result of this diet has been for me what I might describe as spiritual. Eating the proper nutritious foods I feel so well met by the plants that offer their nutrition and the planet that grows them. Every day I celebrate and give thanks for the miracle, the perfection of nature and how perfectly me and my bodies needs fit into it. I have joyfully replaced the false promises on brightly colored boxes from the store with bunches of greens from local gardens. I am fed by my time in my small garden. There is poetry of appreciation available to me now by my new habits and hobbies. Yes, joy. I sometimes wonder what on earth was I thinking before. I had always been told to eat my greens. I just never knew what it meant or what I was missing. Thank you Dr. Wahls.
How long did it take for the brain fog to lift?