Let's face it, nutrition can be complicated and managing MS is definitely complicated. So trying to figure out the two together, a nutrition plan for managing MS, that can feel near impossible. It makes you want to just throw your hands up, but you can't because you need to manage MS. You want to keep it stable at all costs. You just need some simple steps to help get you started. Well, that's exactly what I'm offering today. I wanna help to set you up for success this year. So as a nutrition coach specializing in MS and autoimmune disease, I'm sharing my top three nutrition tips for managing multiple sclerosis. And my friend, if you want a more personalized approach to creating your MS diet and lifestyle, check out my private coaching program.

It includes a comprehensive assessment, personalized strategies, and lifestyle support. Each month, I accept only three new clients. So if you are interested, apply at Alenebrennan. com/ coach. Now onto today's episode. There are 1 million people diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in the US. So that makes you one in a million. And you have a special purpose in this world that no diagnosis can take away from you. So if you are ready to reclaim your body, mind, and life from multiple sclerosis, welcome to my MS podcast. I'm your host, Alene Brennan. When I was diagnosed with MS in 2016, I was overwhelmed with trying to figure out which were the best foods to manage multiple sclerosis. And I'm a nutrition coach. So let's just start there.

If you're feeling frustrated or getting down on yourself because you don't have this MS diet thing figured out yet, drop the guilt. It's not your fault. Nutrition should be simple. Yes, but it's not. And this idea that we feel like as soon as we have this diagnosis and we understand that food can help it. We should be able to figure out which foods we're eating and which foods we're eliminating and then convert that into a grocery list and convert that into a meal plan for the week and recipes and what you eat out at a restaurant. These changes have layers to them, deep layers. And then of course, there's the aspect that food can be deeply emotional too.

So at a time when you may be struggling the most because of a new diagnosis or because of something that threw you off track when you were on a good routine with food, many of us do turn to food for comfort or for stress relief or for insert pretty much any emotion there. So while it may seem easy on the surface, It's not easy when you actually start putting it into practice. It can be, and that's my intention of today's episode to help simplify this for you. But I just want to acknowledge the fact that if you're feeling the tension, the frustration, the overwhelm, the doubt, like all of it, if all of that is swirling around in your head or in your heart, you're not alone. You're not alone.

Because I am a nutrition coach. I've heard it from so many people, but I also experienced it and I've studied nutrition for years. So don't get down on yourself. Give yourself permission to be frustrated and to have a learning curve with all of this. That's what I think is one of the biggest things that we need to understand is that there is a pretty big learning curve. But it's just that, like it's this hump that you have to get over. And then once you're on the other side, these diet and lifestyle habits that really do support MS become part of your new norm. But if you never get over that initial hump, you tend to just stay in that stage of frustration. And I don't want you to be frustrated this year.

I don't want you to be frustrated now, let alone an entire year. So I want to help to simplify this process for you. I love the approach of Michael Pollan. He's an author of many, many food books, but I love his theory on nutrition. Eat food, not too much, mostly plants. Like it couldn't be more simple than that. Eat food, not too much, mostly plants. Keep it simple, especially when you're dealing with brain fog and fatigue. When we look at all the different diets out there, the one thing that pretty much is the same across all the diets is eating more vegetables. So let's just start there. Now, of course, you hear that and you're like, okay, but how much? Which vegetables? Am I eating them cooked? Am I eating them raw?

Do I need to buy them organic? Like all, again, the layers, the layers of questions. Before you dive deep into it, dip your toe into the shallow water. You don't need to have everything figured out to take that first step. I think that's so true in so many aspects of life, but it's especially true when it comes to nutrition. So keep it simple. But if you need a direct answer to how much should you eat, I'm going to keep the answer simple. More than you're eating right now. If you're not eating one serving of veggies every single day, start there. Start having one serving of vegetables every single day. Then gradually increase to having one serving of veggies at each of your three meals. So maybe that's some roasted or sautéed vegetables for dinner.

You have a salad for lunch and then, oh, wait a minute. Did she say at each of the three meals? Alene, I'm having vegetables at breakfast. What? How does that work? Well, if you eat eggs, you can have a veggie omelet or make those like egg muffins where you make the egg batter, like an omelet batter, and you put them in the muffin tin trays and then bake them up. You can certainly put spinach or mushrooms or bell peppers. There's so many different things that you can incorporate with eggs. Again, if that's something that you tolerate, or you can add spinach to a smoothie. And if you need some good smoothie recipes, you can always check out my five-day smoothie challenge at alenebrennan. com/ smoothies.

I teach you all kinds of recipes on how to make smoothies that taste good. So you're not gulping down gross smoothies because who wants to do that? Or maybe you take the non-traditional route and you have dinner leftovers for breakfast, that's what I love to do. I actually have an entire blog post on alenebrennan. com of 17 Wahls protocol breakfast ideas that you can check out. Just go over to alenebrennan.com. Click on blog, and then you can search for 'Wahls protocol breakfast' and you'll see the posts come up. And there's 17 different breakfast ideas that are all wall-approved. So check that out if you're looking for ideas as well as the smoothie challenge. Five-day smoothie challenge. You get recipes, shopping lists, there's demo videos in there. So lots of resources over on Alenebredin.

com. But honestly, if you hate the idea of eating veggies for breakfast, fine, don't have them for breakfast. You can have them as an afternoon snack. So maybe for your afternoon snack, that's where you're getting your third serving in and you're having carrots or bell peppers with some guac. Or you're having some celery with some nut butter. There's a lot of different ways that you can incorporate them in there. And which are the best veggies? Well, from a nutritional standpoint, there's a lot that can be said here. But if you're looking to support mitochondrial health and myelin production, two very important things if you're living with MS, leafy greens are amazing to add to your diet. Leafy greens are the powerhouses of antioxidants.

They have great vitamin C, they have vitamin E, both of which help to protect from oxidative stress and reduce inflammation. They're also rich in folate, which plays a critical role in promoting nerve function and supporting healthy DNA. So we get a ton of benefits from leafy greens. So if you're looking for which are the best ones, personally, I would start with leafy greens, and that could be spinach, arugula, spring mix, like so many different leafy greens. Typically speaking, the darker the green, the more nutrient-dense it will be. But that said, it might also mean that the more bitter it's going to taste. So again, start simple. Which of the leafy greens do you like best now? Start there. Even if that's iceberg lettuce, which basically has no nutritional value; it's basically just water.

Start there and then graduate to Romaine and then graduate to a Spring Mix and then graduate to Spinach. One step at a time. In terms of understanding if you should eat organic versus conventional, I always lean on the Dirty Dozen list, which is a list that the Environmental Working Group (EWG. org) puts out every year. And the Dirty Dozen list are the top 12, quote unquote, dirtiest foods that just by nature in which they're grown, they require a lot of pesticides and sprays and things. So those are the ones that are best to choose organic. So what I always recommend to my clients is that you look at that list and identify which foods on there that you eat the most frequently or you eat the most of.

Start investing in those organic options, and then look at the Clean 15 list. And these are the top 15 foods that just by nature of how they're grown, they don't require a lot of sprays. So they would be better options to save your dollar and just buy conventional versions of them. So that kind of helps to give some clarity on the conventional versus organic. But again, always work with what is in your budget. Don't not eat vegetables because you can't afford the organic version of them. A conventional version of vegetables is still going to be better than something that's packaged in the middle of the grocery store. It's still going to be better than the Doritos or the Oreos or whatever it may be.

And then, in terms of cooked versus raw, there's a debate on both sides. I personally like to have a variety of each because the raw ones, you will get more of the live enzymes in there. And the cooked ones, though, by cooking vegetables, you can actually make some of the nutrients in those vegetables more bioavailable, meaning that your body will be able to use those vitamins and minerals in the vegetables easier than it would if they were raw. So again, the schools of thought on either side are pretty compelling. So I personally like to have a variety of each. And it also can depend upon your digestive system right now. If your digestive system is struggling a little bit, it's not at its optimal point, you might do better with cooked vegetables because cooking actually starts the digestion process for you.

It starts to break down those foods. So it makes it easier for your body to be able to digest them. But the bottom line is the very first step to simplifying this approach of managing an MS diet is to simply eat more vegetables. Eat more than you did yesterday. If you didn't have any yesterday, stick with one serving today. If you already have one or two servings, then maybe you graduate to having one serving at each meal. If you can choose organic, great, if your budget allows that. If not, get conventional, it's still going to be better than not eating the vegetables. And you can check out that dirty dozen list at ewg. org. I'll also, of course, include that in the show notes or the blog version of this podcast.

If you didn't know that each episode of this podcast that I do, I have a blog post over on AleneBrennan.com. Com that has basically a summary of the show, as well as any links to resources that I'm mentioning on the podcast. So, so hopefully that's helpful. So, eat more vegetables than you did yesterday. If you can get some leafy greens in, all the better. Choose to have more vegetables today than you did yesterday. Have a little variety of cooked versus raw if you want to. Choose organic if you want to, but don't overcomplicate it. Don't overcomplicate it. Just get one more serving of vegetables in today than you did yesterday. Just start one meal, one bite at a time. And this naturally leads me to my next step, which is eat less processed foods.

So we start by focusing on what we want to add in, because if we're focusing on what we're eliminating first, we don't have anything to put in its place. And then that often leaves us feeling hungry and deprived. Nobody wants to feel hungry or deprived. So by making our first step, something that we're adding in, you're naturally just making less room for the processed foods or the foods that you want to eliminate. on your plate. So this is known as the crowding out theory. You want to add things in first, add the things in that you want to increase in your diet. So there's just less room for the things that you're trying to phase out, eliminate, or avoid. In this case, that's the processed foods, which is basically anything that's in a package.

And I think one of the biggest ways to help eliminate these packaged or processed foods, which tend to be more of like our snacky type foods, like the chips, the pretzels, the crackers, the cookies, I know all the good stuff. But even if they're allergy-friendly, they're still not doing much for your health. I might even say they're not doing anything for your health. But one of the best ways to help make this elimination process easier is to make sure that you're eating a balanced diet at each mealtime. So what's a balanced diet? That means getting in high-quality protein, like chicken, turkey, salmon, with some healthy fats, avocado, olive oil, olives, nuts, seeds, coconut. Along with some veggie-based carbs. So basically just eating veggies.

So if at each mealtime, you can focus on having some protein, some healthy fats, and some veggies on your plate, you are going to be far less likely to be reaching for a bag, a box, a package of anything in between your meals. Because when you have a balanced diet, having those three components on your plate, you're feeling more satisfied between meals and you're supporting better energy. You're reducing cravings. You're basically supporting balanced blood sugar levels. And when blood sugar levels get out of balance, that's when you're more likely to have cravings, feel fatigued, which can make you feel like you want to eat more and just being hungrier. So make sure that you're getting some protein and some healthy fat in.

I emphasize those in particular because most often when I'm working with a client in my nutrition coaching practice, they will say, 'I'm doing good with the vegetables.' I feel like I'm eating vegetables all day actually, but I'm always so hungry. Like it never feels like it fills me up. So then we start to take a look at what they’re having and they’re not having any fat or any protein in there. Of course you’re going to be starving. You’re only eating vegetables. That’s not enough. You want to have a good serving of vegetables, a hundred percent, like load them up, but it needs to come alongside some healthy fat and some good quality protein.

And this just ultimately makes you feel like you’re less at battle with cravings, which I know can be a big barrier for people. So number one, we’re eating more veggies. Number two, we’re eating less processed foods. And now for number three, choose healthier options for sugar. Your sugar cravings will definitely start to fade the better you eat. So if that's something that you struggle a lot with now, know that that can get better in time. When you start to eat more veggies, you're giving your body the nutrients that it needs to function best. And you're addressing any potential nutritional deficiencies that you may be experiencing. So your body becomes more balanced from a nutritional standpoint. And therefore your energy is more balanced. Your mood is balanced.

Your hunger is balanced. Like all of these things start to feel better. So you're not having these like off the wall cravings all the time. But again, let's start with where you're at right now. So right now, if you're reaching for cookies or cake or ice cream, every night you tune into Netflix, you can start by just sticking with a single serving size. So maybe you're not even like eliminating the sugar yet. Maybe you're not even eliminating the ice cream yet. But instead of taking the pint over to the couch, you're putting one serving size in a bowl and then bringing that over to sit down. So maybe your first baby step is sticking to a serving size. Then maybe one night a week, you choose to have a date instead of candy.

Dates are actually really good. They were my go-to as I was trying to break my candy habit, which I can't say was like ever that big, but I did like the gummy chewy candy and dates really gave me that similar experience of that gummy sweetness. And now I especially love like the coconut roll dates. So maybe if that resonates with you, like I said, just one night a week, you choose to have a date instead of candy. Or maybe you choose to have frozen banana whip instead of the Häagen-Dazs ice cream. Everybody's at different stages of their journey. And that's why I include this in here. Because if you are just starting off and you're having the standard American diet, or maybe you were doing great for months, and then life threw your curveball, you fell off the bandwagon, and you slip back into your old habits, which can happen so easily.

And then you pick your head up and you're like, what am I doing? How did I get back here? I was feeling so good when I was eating well before. But you're struggling to get back there. So these tips are just as relevant for you if you're trying to get back on the wagon, so to speak, as they are for somebody who is coming into this completely brand new. It all starts with a simple, single step. And one of the things that I also have noticed from a nutritional perspective in my coaching practice is there tends to be two types of people when it comes to change. There are people who like to go, go completely cold turkey. And then there are those who want to make gradual change.

So some people feel that they need to go, like I said, cold turkey with sugar. If they have one bite of something sweet, then they are going to want the entire package. So for you, by all means, go cold turkey. But if that's not you and you feel like you fall into the other camp, the gradual change, you're that person that says, 'If you tell me there's something I can't have, I'm going to obsess over it until I finally cave in and just have it.' For you, the gradual approach will be far more sustainable. You have options. So just decide what works best for you and keep it simple. My overall point here is to not overcomplicate food. Keep it simple. Eat more veggies, eat less processed foods, and choose healthier options for sugar.

And in time, you will start feeling better, which is when motivation kicks in. We think that we have to wait to feel motivated to take the first step. But in my experience, both personally and professionally, you have to be willing to take that first step even when you don't feel motivated. Don't let lack of motivation stand in your way of feeling better and managing MS. Today, well, my friend, we've reached the end of this episode. Pick one lesson from today's discussion and put it into action now. It's time to reclaim your body, mind, and life from multiple sclerosis. And for more resources, events, and programs, head over to Alenebrennan. com. See you on the next episode of my MS podcast.