When I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, it felt like a slap in the face. I thought, hey, I’ve always been healthy! I’ve never been overweight, heck I go to the gym five days a week, then where did this come from!?

I wanted to point fingers at my genes, at ‘fate’, at anything that could explain why this happened.

Eventually, I was left with the last possible explanation – me.

I needed to take responsibility for being in this current state.

I read a host of material about multiple sclerosis, about the drugs my doctor recommended. And I realised that the best I could hope for, on medication, was to slow down the eventuality. And the eventuality was ending up in a wheel chair, being bed ridden, having someone else clean up after me as I suffer from incontinence. I had to ask myself, “Really? Is that really the best I can hope for?”

I won’t.

In the past, I’ve had doctors tell me there is no cure for sciatica, the best I can hope for is to take pain killers, or steroids. I was at a point where I was writhing in pain, even while lying in bed, and having great difficulty walking to the bathroom. I would lie in bed each night and visualise myself running, in a huge empty field. It was like a dream for me, to be able to get back to a stage where I could run. On days where the pain subsided, I would get in some physical activity, mostly walking in laps around a park near my house. I got to a point where I was able to go the gym, and start strength training. The improvement was slow, but it was there! It’s been 3 years now, and I have had no sciatica pain whatsoever. I’ve noticed that when I slack off from working out for a few weeks, mild pain starts to come back. So I know what needs to be done to keep it in check. Continue strength training!

I have great faith in what the human body is capable of. Also, in the healing power of nature, and what it provides to us, in the form of whole, fresh foods.

In my quest to crush multiple sclerosis, I discovered this:

Every single thing we eat has a straightforward connection with our bodies. It becomes a part of us, quite literally.

Supplements can never substitute for eating whole foods. There is a multibillion dollar supplement industry that will tell you otherwise. In truth, the process of how each nutrient interacts with our body is extremely complex and may never be discovered. So taking a pill of an isolated vitamin is not only pointless, it can even be dangerous.

What determines our genes’ activity or dormancy? In aviation, we are taught that an accident never happens due to an isolated event. There are always a chain of events, one bad choice after another, that leads up to something going drastically wrong in the airplane. Our genes don’t just switch into ‘disease mode’. It is the result of a chain of choices made by us, our environment, and most importantly, our nutrition. Nutrition is the factor that determines the activity of genes. Many studies have shown that as people migrate, they assume the disease risks of the new environment.

Present day treatments of chronic diseases are an unquestionable failure.

Research shows that skin cancer, melanoma can be reversed through lifestyle changes. Read more about it here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9359807

Dr.Roy Swank’s research on multiple sclerosis patients was published in The Lancet in 1990 and in Nutrition in 1991. 144 multiple sclerosis patients took a low-fat diet for 34 years. For each of three categories of neurological disability (minimum, moderate, severe) patients who adhered to the prescribed diet (less than or equal to 20 g fat/day) showed significantly less deterioration and much lower death rates than did those who consumed more fat than prescribed (greater than 20 g fat/day).

Rheumatoid arthiritis can be slowed by diet, read more here: http://www.amazon.com/Challenging-Second-Opinion-John-McDougall/dp/0832904481

Nutrition primarily determines whether the disease will ever do its damage.

John A McDougall MD in his book, ‘A challenging second opinion’ says, “Patients should not only refuse ineffective treatments, but they should pursue real solutions provided by changes in their diet and lifestyle.”

Nutrition and exercise combine to form a whole that’s greater than the sum of the parts.

There are many people out there, who have had success with altering their lifestyles and getting off their prescription drugs. Take the example of Terry Wahls MD, who came up with the Wahls Protocol. It is a diet & lifestyle program that helped her beat primary progressive multiple sclerosis. She is no longer in a wheel chair! http://terrywahls.com/

Another wonderful example is Joe Cross from the documentary, ‘Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead’. He suffered from an auto immune disease called chronic urticaria. His juicing revolution lead to 220,000 people getting off their prescription medication!

My doctor wanted me to get on Copaxone, an intravenous drug that had to be administered three times a week. She gave me two weeks to come back to her with a decision.

Essentially it came down to choosing between:

1. Injecting myself with drugs, that did not guarantee a slow down in the progression of the disease. Not to mention side effects of all kinds. And a resignation to the fact that eventually, sh*t is going to hit the fan.
2. Or, overhaul my life. Cut out saturated fat, junk food, processed food, and eat ‘real’ food, exercise, meditate, and sun bathe.

The Swank diet spanned 34 years officially, and unofficially, 50 years. Of the 144 patients, 72 stayed on the diet, i.e, they consumed less than 20g of saturated fat a day. The other 72 did not stick to the diet. On the disability scale, which essentially went from 0 (no impairment) to 6 (deceased), the disease progression for people who stayed on the diet was between 0.9 to  1.5 points. 95% of them still being active, after a span of 34 years. Poor dieters ended up progressing over 5 points, and only 7% of them remained active. 58 of the 72 poor dieters died before the end of 34 years.

I just cannot understand the logic behind pumping my body full of chemicals when in fact, it is suffering due to a lack of.. not chemicals, but nutrients. Then it makes complete sense to feed my body nutrients.

Passive resignation is just not my style.

Read more about nutrient dense foods, here: https://empoweredliving.co/2015/10/26/prana-or-life-force-in-food/