Diet 2.0

I have to start by saying thank you for all the wonderful feedback and amazingly supportive messages I've received following my first blog entry. I'm really glad you enjoyed it (and frankly blown away that 1,000 people read it in the first couple of days). You've given me some extra motivation to keep going with the blog (I'm slightly feeling the pressure to avoid grammatical errors to be honest!), and I hope you're getting something positive from reading it too - loads of love out to you all!

So, this entry is all about my new diet, or "Diet 2.0" because like an early release iphone, I'm not expecting to get everything right straight away, and there will no doubt be plenty of improvements to make along the way.

My 'old' diet wasn't exactly unhealthy. I've always loved vegetables and hated even the smell of fast food. But it's fair to say I am a fan of convenience which is why (as anyone who has ever lived with me will know) I've often thought a big bowl of peas topped with chilli flakes and grated cheese was a perfectly acceptable dinner!

However, neither the peas nor the cheese made it through to Diet 2.0...

My neurologist didn't mention anything about diet other than recommending a very high dose of Vitamin D. Studies suggest that the 'sunshine vitamin' Vitamin D is closely linked with MS and various other diseases (Harvard research study here and an article in the Telegraph here) People living in counties further from the equator or who spend most of their time indoors or covered up are very likely to be deficient, plus it can't be absorbed when you're wearing sun cream. So I now take a high daily dose of Vitamin D3 (4000IU) and because we are aware of the links with other diseases and London sadly isn't that sunny, Nick my husband is taking it too (at a lower dose).

Once I knew that I was probably facing multiple sclerosis, I felt a new sense of curiosity about how other vitamins, and food groups more generally, that could either help or hinder MS recovery. Until August, I'd tried to avoid googling anything to do with MS, because I didn't want to depress myself with the inevitable misery of 'worse case scenarios'. But after the results of my second MRI scan, I plucked up the courage to start researching diets and seeking out success stories. At first it seemed that I'd opened a very complex can of worms! The various MS / autoimmune diets aren't 'proven', nor is one particular approach recommended by medical bodies, and much of the advice found online is in fact contradictory. However, I told myself that it would be better to start somewhere than not at all. So I read around and identified two big themes associated with MS - dairy and gluten, and decided that would be my starting point. At the same time, I decided to cut out alcohol and caffeine. Alcohol was actually an easy decision to make as recently (after years of having no issues at all with booze!) every time I'd have a glass of wine, I was getting horrific headaches and my body seemed to be rejecting it. I cut out caffeine to try and deal with the anxiety attacks that had accompanied by other symptoms. My mum had suggested trying it on the basis that she noticed how much strong coffee I was drinking (to stay awake in the periods of extreme fatigue) and that I looked "jumpy" - which I had to admit was also how I was feeling.

So on August 7th 2014 I started with Diet 2.0, which featured no gluten, dairy, caffeine or alcohol, but benefited from the addition of Vitamins D and B12. Well, the first three days were horrendous! I had the most extreme headaches, and felt utterly awful. I told myself that it was just withdrawal symptoms from the caffeine and kept going. Amazingly I soon started to feel much better. Not only did the headaches go, but my energy levels started to increase again. Feeling the obvious results spurred me on to continue. Even Nick, who has no medical problems but who was largely doing the diet alongside me, started to notice that he had more energy too.

I'll fast-forward over the following weeks to bring you up to today, so that you are not reading this all day! I've continued to research books, medical journals and the internet, and alongside that I've been keeping track of my own diet, lifestyle and symptoms in a diary, so that I can see what is and isn't working. My diet today (still definitely not the final version, but no doubt an improvement on my old diet) features strict avoidance of foods that potentially cause or worsen MS, and abundance of foods that heal the body or have natural anti-inflammatory properties. Much of this new approach is based on my research around the "leaky gut"; the idea of this is that certain foods can cause the gut lining to 'leak' (in some people) which allows food proteins to leak into the blood. The presence of these foreign food particles sets off an immune response, hence the link to autoimmune diseases. (You can read a much more thorough explanation of leaky gut here if you are interested).

Avoidance of foods that potentially cause of worsen MS:

I no longer eat or drink:
Gluten
Dairy
Alcohol
Caffeine
Refined sugar (I avoid it most of the time anyway!)
Animal fats (I've replaced butter with coconut oil)
All heated oils other than coconut oil (other oils denature when heated and can cause leaky gut)
Red meat (I'm still eating chicken and turkey in moderation)
Legumes (e.g. peas, beans, peanuts, soy)

Abundance of foods that promote healing of the body or have natural anti-inflammatory properties:

I eat or drink quite a lot of these to help my body repair itself:
Green and white vegetables that aren't legumes (e.g. kale, cabbage, spinach, broccoli, cauliflower)
Colourful fruits and vegetables (e.g. blueberries, raspberries, cherries, carrots, beetroot)
Avocado
Turmeric (I add it to rice or make it into 'tea' with cinnamon and almond milk)
Fish (especially oily fish)
Coconut milk kefir (a non-dairy pro-biotic)
Coconut oil (cold or heated)
Olive oil (cold, not heated)
Nuts (but not peanuts)
Water and lemon water

I'm also currently taking daily doses of Vitamin D3, B12 and either Cod Liver Oil or Flax seed oil.

This list might seem restrictive, but it's actually opened my eyes to different, and delicious ways of eating. Many kind friends have recommended various healthy eating blogs and apps, and I've expanded my cookery book collection too! It's actually refreshing not to be eating the same old meals, and even better to feel the positive results in my body. If you're interested in seeing some of my cookery attempts (I've expanded my repertoire since the peas and cheese days!) check out my Instagram

Here's a pic of chicken breast cooked in coconut oil with black pepper and Maldon sea salt, served with courgetti (spaghetti made from courgettes) in a raw avocado, spinach, kale and brazil nut pesto. It was incredible! (cooking credit to Nick, I just wizzed up the pesto!) x