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Welcome to The Autoimmune Wellness Podcast Season 2!

Bonus Ep: Cooking For Life, Multiple Sclerosis, and a research update w/ Dr. Terry Wahls is our second bonus episode, and an introduction to Season 2 of the podcast. In this episode, we interview our personal inspiration, Dr. Terry Wahls, the creator of The Wahls Protocol and the author of the new book, The Wahls Protocol Cooking For Life.

In addition to discussing Dr. Wahls’ new book, topics we cover include how to embrace a healing diet on a budget, approaching your doctor about utilizing nutrition for health, why we believe in templates over recipes, Dr. Wahls’ go-to meal, and much more. This is a juicy and informative episode with one of the most inspirational voices in the chronic illness community. It’s perfect for folks looking for some practical advice on how to sustain a healing lifestyle. Scroll down for the full episode transcript.

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Mickey Trescott: Welcome to the Autoimmune Wellness podcast, a complimentary resource for those on the road to recovery. I’m Mickey Trescott, a nutritional therapy practitioner living well with autoimmune disease in Oregon. I’ve got both Hashimoto’s and Celiac disease.

Angie Alt: And I’m Angie Alt, a certified health coach and nutritional therapy consultant, also living well with autoimmune disease in Maryland. I have endometriosis, lichen sclerosis, and Celiac disease. After recovering our health by combining the best of conventional medicine with effective and natural dietary and lifestyle interventions, Mickey and I started blogging at www.Autimmune-Paleo.com, where our collective mission is seeking wellness and building community.

Mickey Trescott: This podcast is sponsored by The Autoimmune Wellness Handbook; our co-authored guide to living well with chronic illness. We saw the need for a comprehensive resource that goes beyond nutrition to connect savvy patients, just like you, to the resources they need to achieve vibrant health. Through the use of self assessments, checklists, handy guides and templates, you get to experience the joy of discovery; finding out which areas to prioritize on your healing journey. Pick up a copy wherever books are sold.

Angie Alt: A quick disclaimer: The content in this podcast is intended as general information only, and is not to be substituted for medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Onto the podcast!

Topics:

Angie Alt: Hi everyone! Welcome back to the Autoimmune Wellness podcast. Angie here; today we are bringing you the second of our pre-season bonus interview episodes, so you guys are super lucky, these are going to be great. Mickey, how are you doing today?

Mickey Trescott: Super awesome, especially because I am so excited about chatting our guest today. She’s one of our favorite people in the autoimmune world. And we got feedback from you guys last season that you really value these expert interviews, and we didn’t really have any in the can for you guys for season 2; but then we decided we had this incredible opportunity to interview a couple of really awesome people; one of them today. And we got her on the line for you. So, Angie, do you want to tell our listeners about who this super special, amazing person is, who happens to be a total rockstar in our world?

Angie Alt: Yeah, sure I would love to. Our guest today is the amazing Dr. Terry Wahls, a fellow autoimmune warrior, who went from secondary progressive multiple sclerosis that had left her in a wheelchair in 2003, to the vibrant, dancing; more on that in a minute; and world-changing lady we are honored to speak with today. Terry is the author of several books, including The Wahls Protocol, and her latest, The Wahls Protocol Cooking for Life. In addition to over 60 peer-reviewed abstracts, papers, and posters. She also runs a groundbreaking lifestyle clinic in Iowa, and conducts clinical research that is changing how we treat MS and other autoimmune diseases. Additionally, she is behind the Wahls Foundation, a nonprofit created in 2011 whose mission is to replace the epidemic of chronic disease with an epidemic of health; I love that. To say Terry is purpose driven is basically an understatement, you guys. Thanks so much for being on the show today, Terry!

Dr. Terry Wahls: Hey, thank you so much for having me.

Mickey Trescott: Awesome. So Terry, most of our readers are familiar with your story at this point, and your TED Talk. And if anyone listening goes; “Wait a minute; I haven’t heard about that.” You guys should definitely check it out. Just Google Terry Wahls TED Talk and start there; it’s awesome.

So we know; your healing has progressed considerably over time. When I actually met you at the Ancestral Health Symposium a few years ago, you showed the audience that you weren’t able to raise your arms over your head. And last month, Angie and I were hanging out with you at the NTA conference, and you were pulling some dance moves where your hands were definitely over your head.

Dr. Terry Wahls: {laughs}

Mickey Trescott: So, you know, your healing has increased a lot even since you’ve been on this journey. I am always shocked at how you look younger and more vibrant as time goes on. Can you give everyone a little bit of an update about those changes that you’ve noticed in your long-term healing; especially since you gave your TED Talk.

Dr. Terry Wahls: Sure. So, I’ll sort of give a quick high-level synopsis. I do this wonderful thing with biological age; and there are several online calculators that you can use, it’s pretty fun. I did mine based on what my answer would have been at 52, which was at my worst, and my biological age at that point was 69. Which is probably pretty accurate; I couldn’t sit up, I couldn’t do a pushup; I was struggling to walk 10 feet, I had all these markers. So, I have since calculated that biologic age using that marker, and I’m down to the age of 39.

Mickey Trescott: Wow!

Dr. Terry Wahls: And that’s pretty cool. When I was 39, I was developing my MS symptoms. I was still skiing, still jogging, still biking, but I certainly could not bike as far as I can now. So already I was beginning to have problems with the MS, that had not yet come to diagnosis. And if we line up photos of me, you see that rapid aging, that aggressive decline; and then you see what literally looks like this stunning recovery from 2007 to 2008; the wheelchair, looking pretty sickly, to being on my bike. But people noticed that if you line up photos from 2008, and keep going; I just keep looking younger and younger.

Now, my hair is still graying, so we have to take the hair out. But the quality of my skin looks younger and younger; I can walk further, I can get my arms up over my head. I’m doing pushups; and I’m up to 10, so that’s pretty exciting for me. And you know, I keep working closely with physical therapy, and they can keep advancing the exercises that I do.

I did get sidelined last year, because I ended up having surgery for some severe back pain. So since I was 60 when I had that, that has taken a little bit longer to recover from than I expected, but still, I’m out on the floor dancing; I’m walking, hiking, and biking once again.

Mickey Trescott: That’s so amazing. I better stay on my game, Terry; because your biological age is only a year older than me. You’re going to be younger than me soon! {laughs}

Dr. Terry Wahls: You know, my kids are laughing. They’re like, “Oh my god, mom. Are you like Merlin? You keep getting younger and younger.” So.

Mickey Trescott: Right.

Dr. Terry Wahls: We have a lot of laughter with that.

Angie Alt: So Terry; at the Nutritional Therapy Conference, one of the talks I attended was the panel discussion you were on about serving diverse and working class groups. That conversation is one that is just really extra close to my heart, because I don’t think healing has to be limited to certain groups, or those with upper class incomes. What are your kind of top 3 pointers on how to make a healing diet and lifestyle work, even on limited budgets, or in challenging settings; maybe geographic locations with limited access.

Dr. Terry Wahls: Oh sure. For years I worked at the VA, and in both my Traumatic Brain Injury Clinic and in my Therapeutic Lifestyle Clinic at the VA. Most of my patients did not have money; they were on fixed incomes. What they did have, was they had access to me, so they could come see me; Traumatic Brain Injury Clinic I would see them once every 6 months. The Lifestyle Clinic we could see them monthly for a year. And we could give cooking classes in my lifestyle clinic.

So in the cooking class, we taught people how to cook at home. I helped them understand that the food budget is everything you put in your mouth. It’s your alcohol, tobacco, fancy drinks, fancy coffees, lattes, fast food, restaurant meals; plus your grocery bill. And we total all of that up to get a food budget. Then I let people know what we have to do is begin cooking at home with vegetables and your source of meat. We had a different plan if you were a meat eater, or if you were vegetarian or vegan. We certainly still had people, even in the VA, who were vegetarian and vegan.

But really, the very most important thing is, most people had forgotten how to cook. Or their lives are too pressed for time, or for money. So they aren’t cooking. So we spent a lot of time teaching cooking skills, and we spent time teaching menu planning, prioritizing, and most importantly, how to eliminate food waste. Because most Americans are throwing away 40% of our food; whether we’re buying it in the grocery store, or at the restaurant. So learning how to better plan, so we actually consume all the food we buy, saves a considerable amount of money.

We were quite successful. We had many of our patients tell us; in the group classes the more senior folks would tell the newbies that you can do this and save money, but you’re going to have to plan. You’re going to have to pay attention in our cooking classes.

Angie Alt: Right. Those are such great tips, just kind of going back to; basically home economics 101 right there.

Mickey Trescott: Yeah, I can definitely also resonate with taking all of the restaurant meals and all of the stuff that people think of as an additional budget expense and really looping that into the entire food budget; and a lot of people on low incomes think that the grocery budget and maybe that other budget is separate. But when you put that all together, and you prepare all your food at home, and you brown-bag it for lunch, and you don’t do those extras that are also not helping your situation when you have health problems, like cigarettes and alcohol and coffees, and that kind of stuff; people find that they have a little more wiggle room there to actually afford that real food.

Dr. Terry Wahls: It’s really important to have that conversation of, “What is your food budget?” Because if you don’t, people will see the grocery bill doubling, and feel very uncomfortable with that. So, we learned that it was very important to have that big conversation about what’s in your food budget first. And then, we talk about planning, menus, and how we’re going to make this change in an affordable way.

Mickey Trescott: That’s great. So Terry; one of the things that really impresses me about you is your willingness to work within disastrously broken system with both creativity and perseverance. I don’t know anyone like you who is just like willing to dig in and get this work done. At the NTA conference, you told the story about how you figured out how to recommend dietary and lifestyle modifications while working with veterans; it was a little unconventional and kind of; it was hard to do within that system. And I think a lot of practitioners get discouraged or lose hope when they run up against the system.

So you recently received a $1 million grant from the National MS Society to further your research on dietary and lifestyle interventions with MS. That is so fantastic; we’re so excited for you. Can you tell us how you think things are shifting in the medical community to accommodate more of this research and recommendations for diet and lifestyle changes?

Dr. Terry Wahls: I think it’s very helpful to have the public awareness; of course, the medical community, the scientific community. I think it’s also incredibly helpful that our awareness of how the environment is speaking to our genes through epigenetics, and creating either an inflamed, sickly, disease prone-body, or a resilient disease resistant body. So the epigenetic insights are helpful. The microbiome insights are helpful, and understanding how food changes the microbiome; and you change the microbiome, of course changes the risk for autoimmune disease and the severity of the autoimmune disease, as well as many other complicated, chronic health problems.

So, as my scientific colleagues could now measure the mechanisms by which diet and lifestyle works, they began to realize that we are not so crazy in our approaches. The public pressure goes to their various non-profit organizations, insisting that you need to support these researchers.

And another thing I think is very telling; and I heard from people who are big donors with some of these nonprofits, that these major donors went to the organizations to say, “If you want to continue receiving our support, you’re going to have to fund diet and lifestyle research.”

So I became aware of that; I wrote my protocol when they put out their call for research in the dietary realm, and I was funded. And I should be, because I’m one of the few people who have actually studied it in the last few years. So it’s no surprise that our research lab is very competitive.

Mickey Trescott: That’s so great. Terry, what do you think is the key to having the public be so well-informed and push?

Dr. Terry Wahls: Well, I think the key is having people who develop untreatable, incurable, devastating diseases, get hopelessly disabled, recover, have the extraordinary good fortune to do a TED Talk that has 3 million views.

Mickey Trescott: {laughs}

Dr. Terry Wahls: That created; that experience, difficult as it was at the time, has been this incredible gift to me, and probably to humanity, because it put me in a position to learn all this stuff, experience all this stuff, recover, and because I happen to be well connected and I speak well. I told this story that’s deeply resonating; and then the public spread it in this pretty amazing way. I think this led then, I’m sure, to millions of conversations in doctors’ offices around the globe, saying, “What about diet?” And physician had to see that some of their patients would ignore the...