Imagine going from being a tae kwon do champion to having stage two multiple sclerosis and being confined to a wheel chair.

Now add in chemotherapy and extensive drug treatments only to keep getting worse…

What if you could fix yourself and reverse your disease with… food?

That is exactly what Dr. Terry Wahls did.

This video is definitely a must-see if you want to take care of your health, your energy, and your vitality.

Please check it out:

I watched it twice, the second time to take some notes for you:

2000 diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis

Took the latest drugs.

By 2003 it had progressed to stage 2. She took the chemotherapy and got a motorized wheelchair.

Tried more drugs, became more diasbled.

Afraid of becoming disabled.

Found out that brains with MS shrank.

Started finding more research about shrinking brains, found that the mitochondria don’t work well, which leads to shrinking brains.

Found studies that showed mouse brains and mitochondria had been protected by using fish oil, creatine, and co-enzyme Q 10.

Slowed her decline by translating the mouse-sized doses into human sized ones.

Was happy, but was still declining.

There are a billion cells in our brains, with trillions of connections. All of those connections must be insulated by myelin.

In order to make myelin, your body needs B vitamins, especially B1, B9, and B12. It also needs omega 3 fatty acids and iodine.

For your body to make neurotransmitters, it needs vitamin B6 and sulfur.

The energy for each cell in your body comes from mitochondria. Without the energy from your mitochondria, you would be no larger than bacteria.

In medical school, Dr. Wahls learned all about mitochondria, but she wasn’t taught what her body could make compared to what she needed to consume to make those mitochondrial systems run properly.

She found that out mitochondria need lots of B vitamins, sulfur, and antioxidants in order to thrive.

First, she added in the nutrients with supplements, then came to the realization that getting her nutrients from foods would provide her with hundreds, maybe thousands of trace compounds also needed for health.

Medical and nutrition textbooks didn’t tell her food sources, but internet research led her to design an eating plan that would support her brain and mitochondria.

She then quizzes the audience on how many fruits and vegetables they ate.

Then she shows how Americans are eating too few nutrients and too many starches.

“We are all starving ourselves. We are alive because of complicated chemical reactions. If you’re not providing the building blocks – that is the vitamins, minerals, essential fats – those reactions cannot happen properly. Leading to the wrong stuctures being made… or structures simply not being made at all, which sets the stage for chronic disease.”

Due to lack of nutrients children are born with smaller brains and smaller jaws that lead to crooked teeth.

This is why blood vessels become stiff as you age.

This is why children will become obese or diabetic as children or young adults.

This is why the number of children with learning problems and behavior problems are becoming more common each year.

For 2.5 million years humans ate what they could hunt and gather – leaves, berries, meat, and fish.

Hunter-gatherer foods were locally obtained, fresh, in season, and of course, organic.

People in the arctic ate differently than people on the savannah, but both groups exceeded the RDA of nutrients by 2 to 10 fold.

“These ancient peoples know more about eating for optimal health and vitality than we physicians and we scientists.”

The hunter-gather diet has more nutrition than any modern health diet.

Dr. Wahls started on a paleo diet, but she structured it to make sure she was supporting her mitochondria and brain health.

Here is her diet: 3 cups of green leaves, 3 cups of sulfur rich vegetables, 3 cups of bright color, grass-fed meat, organ meat, and seaweed.

3 cups is a dinner plate piled high.

Greens are high in vitamins B, A, C, K, and minerals. Kale has the most nutrition per calorie of any plant.

Plus, a plate full of greens will dramatically lower your risk of cataracts and macular degeneration.

3 cups (plateful) of sulfur-rich vegetables every day to support your brain, mitochondria, and to remove toxins.

The cabbage family is rich in sulfur – cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, brussells sprouts, turnips, rutabegas, radishes, and collards.

Onions, garlic, leeks, mushrooms, asparagus, and chives are also all rich in sulfur.

3 cups (plateful) of colors, preferably different colors.

Colors are flavonoids and polyphenols. These support your eyes, mitochondria, brain cells, and toxin removal.

Get colors from vegetables like beets, carrots, peppers, and red cabbage.

Or get your colors from berries and brightly colored fruits.

Eat high quality protein that is rich in omega 3 fatty acids. This will help build the myelin to insulate your nervous system and is essential for proper jaw formation (straight teeth).

Good sources are wild fish – salmon and herring in particular – and grass fed meat.

Ancient societies all valued organ meats. Organ meats are good sources of vitamins, minerals, and coenzyme Q.

Organ meets are very potent for supporting your mitochondria.

Seaweed is a valuable source of iodine and selenium.

Your brain needs iodine to make myelin.

Iodine also removes toxins – particularly mercury, lead, and heavy metals.

Plus, iodine lowers risk of breast cancer and prostate cancer.

80% of Americans have low iodine, so eat seaweed at least once a week.

Eat the fruits and veggies BEFORE you eat any grains or starches.

Eating fruits and veggies will dramatically lower your risk of food allergies.

Grain and dairy allergies are associated with a wide variety of health problems including excema, asthma, allergies, infertility, irritable bowl, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, arthritis, chronic headache, neurological problems, and behavior problems.

It will cost more to eat veggies and berries. But you’re going to pay the price either way. Wither you’ll pay the price now for food that restores your health and vitality or you will pay the price for doctor visits, prescription drugs, surgeries, time off work, early retirement, and nursing home care. The choice is yours.

With 3 months on the hunter-gatherer diet Dr. Wahls could walk with only one cane.

A month after that, she could walk without a cane.

After 5 months on the paleo diet, she got on a bike for the first time in a decade and rode around the block.

Nine months into paleo and she rode her bike 18 miles.

One of my friends sent me this video yesterday.  It’s a quick portrait of Ernestine Shepherd, a super-cool 72 year old who puts most 20 year olds to shame!

Ernestine wasn’t always interested in health and fitness – she didn’t start exercising until she was 56!  She decided to get started after shopping for swimsuits with her sister and not liking what she saw in the mirror.

Check this out:

I don’t know about you, but I’m totally inspired!  Forget all the excuses of “I’m too old” and “I don’t know what I’m doing.”  Ernestine got a trainer, worked with him for 15 years, and now spends her days doing what she loves: Keeping fit and helping others.

Thanks Ernestine!

A quick intro: John is one of the hardest-working, coolest people I’ve ever had the pleasure of training.

He wrote this last week, and this weekend a pair of 30″ waist shorts were too big for him.  So this post should be called 56+ pounds and 9 inches later!  Also, if you look at bodyfat percentage instead of just scale weight, John has lost about 80 pounds of fat!  Look at the top two pictures on this page and compare them to the two on the bottom…

Want to find out how this stud did it?  Read on!

~ Luke

I couldn’t do it. There was no way I could get up to work out at 5:00 in the morning.

I couldn’t do it. There was no way that I could give up those tasty treats I convinced myself I deserved and needed.

I told myself I was “big boned” and carried the weight pretty well but people from work were talking about this amazing trainer and these boot camps he ran in the mornings. I was kind of interested. They worked on me for months. Finally Luke got my e-mail from one of my co-workers and offered me a free trial. I’m a frugal guy by nature and thought, hey, free is free, I could do it!

And then I tried it and, seriously, I couldn’t do it. Three push ups that is. Oh, I made it through the warm up alright and a couple of other things. And then that jerk had me do push ups. In my flippant way I remember asking how he wanted them. And then I “did” three and thought he was going to have to call 911.

(Note from Luke:  To be fair, he told me he could do ten!)

I realized that night that fat and nearly forty wasn’t going to work for me. I was a 218 pound, 37 year old man (technically middle age if the life expectancy of the average American man is 77), with a 38 inch waist and high blood pressure. I have all the same excuses as everyone else, but bottom line, I ate too much and moved to little. Combined with a family history of heart disease I was a recipe for disaster and really had no idea what to do about. But Luke did.

I can guarantee that Luke thought he would never see me again after that night. (Very true – Luke) Turns out I had other plans and he was going to be the guy to help me implement them. Something in me changed that night and over that weekend. It may have been the fact that I seriously thought I was going to die after three push ups and couldn’t move my arms more than about six inches in any direction. It may have been that the other two people, the same age as me (and girls!), working out that night could do it and I couldn’t. And I realized that I desperately wanted a different life and a different body.

So that weekend I sat down and wrote out some goals. I knew I was going to need help. I knew it wasn’t going to be easy. I knew it was going to require hard work. I knew all kinds of things about my life were going to have to be different. Behaviors were going to have to change. What could I do immediately? What could I commit to?

1. Show up. Being the aforementioned frugal guy, if I was going to be paying for personal training or boot camp I could commit to showing up. That meant changing behavior and would mean being in bed by 9:30 p.m. or 10:00 p.m. in order to be up by 5:00 a.m. I could do it.

2. Eat differently. For me, that meant not skipping meals. I often used to skip breakfast. It meant drinking either a pre or post workout drink. It meant planning what I was going to eat and making sure it was ready to go if I was in a hurry. It meant more vegetables and lean protein and less processed foods and carbohydrates. And I committed to give up adding sugar to things and not eating anything with white flour. I could do it.

3. Share my goals. I decided that I was going to be happy with small changes and I would be okay if it took a while. It took a lot of years to get fat it would be okay if it took a while for it to come off. If I could get under 200 pounds and to a 34 inch waist and to the weight on my drivers license all would be good. But if Luke was going to be my “go to guy” he was going to have to know what my goals were in order to hit them. It meant my group of friends and co-workers were going to have to know what my goals were in order to be a support systems for me. I could do it.

So I started personal training. I was too fat and slow for boot camp but wouldn’t be for long. These workouts turned out to be fun and I was kind of liking them. And I lost weight right away. And then about three weeks after I started I began having some blood pressure problems while working out. But not high blood pressure, too low. It took me a week to get a Doctors appointment but it turns out that I had changed enough in a month and was working out hard enough that my Doctor suggested that if I was going to commit to this that perhaps I should go off the blood pressure medication. Really? After three weeks? I was feeling better and looking better and off blood pressure medication in three weeks? Hell yeah, I can do it!

And do it I have done for 14 months now using a combination of Luke’s personal training and Luke’s boot camp. And I’m still having fun. From 218 pounds to 162. From a 38 inch waist to a 30 inch waist. Turns out, I’m not “big boned”. You might think it would get easier but because Luke is always changing up what we do and different intensity levels it never gets easy. Luke lit a fire in me that I didn’t know was there. I have no idea if I am a “typical” example of someone who has gone through a transformation but I know I couldn’t have done it without boot camp and without him.

So if a former fat boy like me can do it so can anyone else. You just need to get the right people and decide this is what you want the rest of your life to be like. I can do it! You can do it!