Lifestyle - The Lo-fat Diet, Stress Control, Exercise Food Supplements and most importantly attitude

My attitude toward MS is that the Good Lord has chosen to make my life a challenge so I must accept that challenge. Very simple.

Dr. Swank and my father, who was also a doctor, teach, "Never allow yourself to become sick by simply not taking the best care of your body that you can. Staying well is always preferable to trying to get well again."

That translates to eat right, sleep well, exercise regularly and live a mellow life rather than a frantic life.

A big part of my lifestyle is where I have chosen to live. Florida is ideal for me. Oh sure, it gets hot. But only for a few months and everything here is air conditioned so the heat is not a problem. And the rest of the year is magnificent. October to May don't require air conditioning and it only gets cold enough to really need heat for a couple weeks in January.

Here I can swim every day and sleep with the windows open most of the year. Sleep well and regular exercise! And the South is pretty well laid back. The frantic people live somewhere else.

I could not live somewhere that had ice and snow. With my amputated leg and MS balance I'd probably end up breaking my neck.

Florida's climate fits right in with the Lo-fat diet too! Our yard is what we call Barbara's orchard. We have fresh citrus on our trees starting with tangerines in October and go straight through to grapefruit in May. We have so much fresh citrus juice that we can freeze plenty. So, taking my Twin Lab Dale Alexander orange flavored Cod Liver Oil is never a problem.

And there is always fresh fruit to snack on out of our yard. Five varieties of bananas, nectarines, mangos, persimmons, peaches, apples, two kinds of cherries, two kinds of figs and sapodillas. Oh, also blackberries, raspberries, pomegranates and even some artichokes and hot peppers.

And of course we do a few tomatoes, green pepper, onions, carrots and lots of herbs. Farmer Barb keeps the larder full and the juicer going.

The result is that we are involved in what goes on to our table. We don't miss the foods I can't have on the Lo-fat diet because we make sure we have plenty of other things.

Living successfully with MS is all about attitude and Lifestyle.

The foods that must be totally abstained from include: All Red meat for one year. (Beef, Pork, Lamb, Venison and even Salmon.) They all contain too much hard fat in their tissues. Rule of thumb; the darker colored the flesh, the more hard fat is in the tissue.

Also to be abstained from, not for just for a year, but forever. All cheese. (don't be fooled by cheese substitutes. Sorry to say, but low fat or no fat cheese simply isn't. It has manmade chemical fat substitutes that are even worse for MS'ers than the real stuff) As of this minute the taste of cheese can no longer exist for you or me. Forget there ever was such a thing. Put it in the same category as chocolate covered ants or pickled rattle snake. Interesting and thanks for the offer, but NO THANKS.

Also never to be eaten: Any sausages, bacon, processed lunch meat and pre-prepared foods. Americans have the worst diet in the world. Not the least abundant nor the least in calories, but the least in nutritional value of all of the developed nations. We have, through our own laziness and by demanding quick, easy and cheep food, allowed the food industry to bastardize our taste buds. All the fast food burgers, chicken, dogs, tacos, fries and all that stuff only have sleight variations on ONE single taste theme, Salty Fat.

Americans die of heart disease, diabetes, obesity and stroke at an alarming rate, simply because we dig our graves with our own (or more likely store bought) teeth. What we as a nation allow the food and the drug industries to do to us in the name of profit has got to be one of the greatest mass crimes in history.

Changing your eating habits and your lifestyle can and should be very rewarding if you let it be. But first you must gain the attitude that you eat Lo-fat because it is better for you and even tastes better and you change your lifestyle to be as good and healthy as you can be. The frequency and severity of MS exacerbations can very successfully be controlled by diet and improved health. So can heart disease and diabetes. The possibility of living longer with less physical problems is real if you are willing!

For your convince we have sections of this web site for Breakfast and Snack recipes. Luncheon and desert recipes and Supper recipes. We are always adding to these sections and invite you to send us your favorite Lo-fat recipe.

Stress control is one of the most important parts of our lifestyle modifications. Again I have a theory about stress and MS. Theory is probably too strong a word. I have a gut feeling based upon my own MS reaction experiences with stressful situations in life. My body does not react well to stress. Any significant stress will bring on at least a mild MS attack in me.

In our 1997 survey (the results found elsewhere on this site) of MS patients about 90% of those responding felt the same way I do. They felt sure that stress reacted negatively on their MS.

So, I actively attempt to keep stress at arm's length. One of the ways I do this by using a small portable biofeedback machine. This alerts me when I subconsciously get uptight. I also do yoga and daily water exercises in my heated (warm not hot, 80 degrees only) exercise pool and hot tub. I meditate daily. And finally my wife and I spend approximately one hour every morning sitting together sipping coffee and talking. Our communication hour is probably the most important stress control action of all. If two people who love each other can talk candidly about any and all subjects then no little misunderstandings will ever grow into big stressful problems.

Speaking of exercise, that is a very important part of life for every human being, MS'er or not. Regular, planned and scheduled exercise lets our muscles stay supple. And it keeps our circulation up and running and allows us to breath deeply and stretch our lungs. A feeling of well-being and energy always follows exercise well performed.

One caution: We MS'ers never know from one day (or even from one hour) to the next how much exercise we will be capable of on any day, or even what kind. Never go into an exercise period with the feeling, "I must accomplish this, this and that today or my exercise period will not be complete." Each day at a specific time, do what you can comfortably do. Don't get lazy, but don't stress yourself by demanding more of your body than it is capable of. Tomorrow is another day. What you were unable to do today may very well be as easy as falling off a log tomorrow.

My favorite exercise is swimming. Now that I only have one leg it is the only exercise I can do well and consistently. I did find that I had to make some special equipment changes to do water exercises.

First, if your legs don't work right as in MS (or an amputation) neither a regular in-ground or above ground pool is satisfactory. You must have a pool with an 8 to 10 inch flat top which has hand rail grips bolted in for leverage transferring from a wheelchair to the pool. Normal in-ground pools are too low. Getting down out of the chair and then back up into it is very difficult. Those portable above ground pools are too high above the chair and even more difficult.

I went to a pool builder and drew him a picture of what I needed. A semi-in-ground pool. The top is the same height as my wheelchair seat (23 inches in my case because I'm 6'5" and have a larger and higher wheelchair than most people). Using built in hand rails I can transfer to the top of the pool and swing my legs around to the water. I had the steps down into the pool made with a large surface and at a comfortable depth for me to bounce up and down on my backside.

Because massage makes my legs feel so good and helps my feeling and balance, I made the end I get into a hot-tub configuration with 5' benches down each side and the strongest and heaviest water jets I could buy. (each side has its own jet pump motor). When I crank it up it really gives my legs and back muscles a workout.

At the end of the side benches the bottom drops off from the hot-tub depth to a full six and one-half foot depth to the other end. That gives me seven feet of exercise space. (If I had it to do over I would make the pool length 14' rather than the present 12') I had them build in some hand and foot rails in the deep end so I can hang on to the side or end and kick my leg and stump or hook my feet in and stroke with my arms.

Florida is pretty warm, but it still gets too chilly to go in the pool during the winter months unless the pool is heated. So, I did the propane gas heater thing. Of course a HOT water hot-tub is a total NO-NO for an MS'er so I set the thermostat for a pleasant eighty degrees. Warm enough to be very comfortable on cool days, but not hot enough to drain all my energy.

I have figured out an exercise routine that takes me about an hour to complete. It gives me a good workout seven days a week. But, like you, I'm not up to the whole strenuous routine every day. So some days I spend more time in the water jet massage end and less time exercising. I always stay about the same total amount of time, but might do a set or two less exercise. I don't put myself under that stress of, "I've got to do five hundred kicks with each leg before I can stop!" Some days 3 or 400 is enough.