Difficulties of Diet Change

It wasn't easy, but changing my diet changed my life. As it turns out, what you eat matters.

A few months into my diagnosis, feeling like absolute shit, I knew I needed to do something. My current habits were no longer suitable, and I desperately wanted to feel better. Not to mention I had just done a round of intravenous steroids and started a weekly medication that also made me feel like crap and gave me excessive fatigue. It was too much.

It was time to call Stella, a friend of mine that was a nutritionist. She had generously offered to help me make some diet changes knowing that an anti-inflammatory diet and focusing on my gut health could greatly benefit me. She was an early mover on this trend, back in 2007.

(If you want to skip to my Top Five Tips for Diet Change, scroll down ⬇️ to the bold title, I won’t be offended 😉 …otherwise, read on to hear my story and then get the tips. BONUS PDF for subscribers with meal plan tips and basic grocery list too!)

I had zero idea what that meant at the time, but I was all ears. If it could help me, I was ready! Bring it!

We started with a protocol that included an elimination diet and very strict rules on what I could eat. It basically stripped my diet down to the basics, got rid of all the processed junk I was eating, and supported my body in detoxing.

And boy, did it detox.

I also did extensive blood work alongside food allergy testing. The results supported Stella’s research and studies—I had a sensitivity to gluten and dairy.

It was a very difficult 3 weeks for me, but luckily I was living at home and my mom is amazing. She helped me initially as I navigated this new lifestyle, supporting me by not only buying me groceries weekly, but helping me cook these new foods in a way that tasted good as well. Not an easy thing for me to do on my own at the time.

I was 24, didn’t really cook, didn’t care about what I ate, never had to diet or restrict anything up to this point in my life. I was “skinny” so what I ate “didn’t matter”.

I’d soon find out how wrong that actually was.

Up until this point, I indulged in whatever my heart desired. Sure, I ate some healthy food from time to time, but rather than it being a regular thing, it was an option like choosing between Italian or Mexican, something “healthy” used to also be an option. But the majority of the time, I ate whatever I wanted.

Nacho cheese, or any type of cheese was in heavy rotation, take-out, late night trash from places like Jack in the Box after a heavy night of drinking and partying. Breakfast was typically a coffee and some sort of carb like a bagel with extra cream cheese. I ate some vegetables, but by chance, and rarely ate at home. My fridge in college and after had minimal things in it, most of the time it was pretty empty. Cooking at home was a novel idea leaving home cooked meals exclusively for my mom to make when I was visiting.

On this lovely diet of trash, I also got to enjoy days of constipation that I thought was “fine”, excess bloating, PCOS, eczema, headaches, bladder infections, and more. All things that I simply tolerated as “normal”. I thought that was “just the way I was”.

But, despite all those lovely symptoms, I was “skinny”. Like many with a fast metabolism, nobody questioned how I was living what I was eating, including myself. Skinny is what we want right??

Again, wrong.

I had it so backwards then. External appearances are very deceiving and when the focus lies too much on the external, the big picture is totally overlooked. Like we have skinny blinders on. As long as you’re skinny, everything must be OK. Who cares if you take laxatives on vacation because you can’t take a number two, but you still want a flat stomach in your bikini. It’s fine, right?!

So wrong.

And while this new diet was one of the biggest challenges that I had to overcome, I did it. Somehow, one day at a time, I managed. I persisted. When my peers were drinking on the weekends, enjoying Sunday Funday, I was drinking water. While they continued to eat what they wanted, I was now making all my meals, bringing food with me places, asking questions about the menus in restaurants, modifying my orders.

The most annoying part, all the comments… people always have something to say.

But why Vas?! You’re so skinny? You need to eat more. Who says gluten is bad for you? And what is gluten, anyway? And cheese? Cheese is good for you! Just have some. Why are you on a diet? What does anti-inflammatory mean? What can you eat?

Those first few years were brutal when it came to the “peanut gallery”. People had zero idea about a healthy gut, that language hadn’t become regular yet. Nobody was discussing their microbiome, food sensitivities, digestion, or inflammation. Dr. Weil wasn’t a common name, in fact, he hadn’t even opened his first True Food Kitchen yet.

This language in wellness was all brand new, especially to the general public. My neurologists didn’t even get it, although they never denied that taking care of myself was a good thing. They just couldn’t confirm any of my lifestyle findings.

Despite all of the above, I continued.

It took me several years to get used to this new way of being. Lots of ups and downs, falling off the wagon only to realize that the way I felt when I was off the wagon wasn’t acceptable. But finding balance and rhythm can be difficult, even harder than knowing what to eat is actually eating it.

Year one I was VERY strict, not one bite of anything that wasn’t on the protocol. But that wasn’t sustainable. The next several years taught me how to find balance, how to live in the world around me, to let go of extremes, and to do my best. To let go of control, most importantly.

Clean eating can become an eating disorder as well making people scared to have anything that isn’t “clean”. I was taking on too much responsibility at times, believing that I could control my MS with my diet. When I say it took years, I mean it. And during those years I was also in weekly therapy getting guidance and support from Dr. F, my amazing psychologist. Not to mention Stella, she supported me by answering all my questions, real time, as they came up. I had allies on my side that were professionals. I had family around me that supported me wholeheartedly and it was STILL HARD.

Hard, but so worth it.

Hear me when I say, please don’t wait until you‘re sick to do it, it’s WAY harder when you’re already sick. And if you get sick, because again, wellness isn’t about control and we cannot control everything, you are more prepared to take on your sickness or disease because you already have begun to build the tools to do so. Your body isn’t such a foreign place, you have a history of blood work, a network of medical experts to consult, to support you on your way to healing.

You aren’t starting from ground zero in the thick of a storm.

You see, most people feel that the onset of disease is the beginning, when it all starts. Unfortunately, it’s not. Once disease has manifested to physical symptoms it usually means it’s been well on it’s way for a quite some time, quietly working behind the scenes in your body, causing havoc, stirring things up, to finally yield your results—whatever disease/sickness you have.

When should you begin to care for your body and look after your health? Now. There is no better time. It doesn’t matter your age, now is the time to start your journey if you haven’t had the chance to get going. Forget about why you haven’t started, meaning don’t beat yourself up or get lost in excuses, and just get to it.

Top Five Tips for Diet Change:

I recently had the opportunity to have an interview with Wanda Malhotra at Medium.com where I share my top five lifestyle tips. You can read the full interview here, to compliment these Top Five Tips for Diet Change. 👍

1. Find support. Wether that be a Health Coach, Nutritionist, Naturopathic Doc, Functional Practitioner. It can be overwhelming in the beginning and it’s nice to have a “Stella”, an ally in your corner that can be the soundboard you need, to support you on your path, and to help you make a plan of action.

2. Mental health is a big part of the journey. Learning to build emotional intelligence and resiliency, how to navigate your inner world is paramount to your path. Mindset, outlook, and perspective are key elements as you journey onward, getting stuck in old loops, patterns, and perspectives can make things even harder. You can read more about how I developed my inner world in my last post, “Learning to Downshift”.

3. Diet and Lifestyle Journal for at least 2 weeks. I know that these can be a pain in the ass, but they are SO helpful. They can teach you and your support team so much, providing insights on key things that may be effecting your outcomes. Helping you see your big picture more clearly while also paying attention to small details, it’s the perfect way to get a micro and macro view of your current lifestyle. From there, you can make tweaks that align with your life and preferences rather than trying to fit someone else’s plan/preferences into your life. Things to note:

   1. What you’re eating. Take a pic, write it down, send yourself a voice memo, get an app, a new journal, whatever works for you—it can be as simple or as fancy as you’d like. Just get the info, that’s your main task.

   2. Meal times

   3. Any physical symptoms like gas, bloating, constipation, headaches, itchy skin, menstrual symptoms, etc.

   4. Any emotional symptoms, energy levels, are you feeling anxious, calm, forgetful, foggy, clear minded, etc… the perceived bad and good.

   5. Sleep. How many hours, time you went to bed and woke up, did you wake in the night, any night sweats, getting up to use the bathroom, trouble falling asleep or staying asleep… get as detailed as you can.

   6. Physical activities

   7. Wellness activities

   8. Stressful moments

      1. Once you have your journal, it’s a great tool to go back and use to make reasonable changes that suit your lifestyle. For example, if you were eating yogurt for breakfast with premixed fruit, we can easily elevate that… purchase plain yogurt, fresh berries, some nuts like walnuts, and some seeds like pumpkin or hemp. Now you’ve added some fiber, less sugar, and little more protein and a lot more fat, creating a more balanced breakfast, yet still on brand with your preferences.

      2. Or maybe your breakfast is great, you were just eating at 10am, maybe we try playing with 8am? Or vice versa.

4. Read labels. Getting to know what’s in your packaged food is a big part of educating yourself and learning to discern and make choices for yourself. And I’m not talking calories, I’m talking content—what is your food made up of? Do your best to make purchases with simple ingredients, if the list looks super long and is made up of a bunch of things that aren’t food, spices, herbs, go ahead and put it back on the shelf.

5. Clean out your fridge and pantry, take note of things that should be replaced, and begin to refill your fridge and pantry with the new stuff as your run out. You don’t need to throw everything away all at once. If you purchase vegetable oil for cooking, once it runs out, make the swap for a better option like organic coconut oil, avocado oil, or olive oil. Slow and steady wins the race in wellness, you don’t have to do it all at once. Small changes overtime will yield the best results.

Wherever you are on your path to diet change, keep at it. There is no step too small.

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