Living Well with Multiple Sclerosis

Ask Jack: Meat replacements | S4E12

Welcome to the second season premiere of Ask Jack, featuring the prodigious culinary talents of professional chef, writer, and OMSer Jack McNulty answering food and cooking questions from our community that inform their healthy OMS lifestyle. Check out the show notes below that dig deeper into this episode’s topic. You can submit your questions for Jack anytime by emailing them to podcast@overcomingms.org.   Introduction   Welcome back for this season’s second installment of Ask Jack, and have we got a ‘meaty’ topic for you today.   This episode’s topic: meat replacements.   Jack has carefully curated several questions around this topic, and we have solicited some directly from the OMS community. With summer around the corner, at least for those in the northern hemisphere, we expect people will be cleaning off their grills and readying them for action. But since research shows meat is a no-fly zone for people with MS, how do you capture that texture and flavor without the negative health consequences?   Thanks to Jack McNulty, we are about to get some answers. Happy to chat with you again, Jack. We’ve got an audience hungry for advice on this episode’s topic, so let’s dig right into our first question.   Questions   Jack, some people can give up meat itself, but not the taste or texture of it. Are meat placements OK in general within the OMS program? Also, if one does choose to use meat replacements, what should they be on the lookout for in the ingredients? Are there specific ones to avoid? Do you have any fun ideas for creating meat-like yet OMS friendly foods with ingredients like seitan and tofu? Jack, what is your absolute favorite type of veggie burger, and how can our audience source your favorite recipe for it? Switching gears to hear from some specific members of our global OMS community, Linda from Germany has taken to using soy crumbles which have to be rehydrated, making them like chicken or meat. Are they OK to use or are they too processed? And jumping continents but on a related note, Vickie from the US has another soy question. She’s curious about your take on soy curls. She’s not sure if you can access them everywhere, but her understanding is they are extruded and dehydrated soybeans. Can you explain the differences between Soy Curls and TVP? Here’s a question from Leissa: there are so many different types of vegan meat alternatives. It’s often easy to use these alternatives when cooking for a mixed crowd or for the family when you’re tired and need a quick meal. Can you recommend specific options for a quick, easy, OMS friendly, meat alternative meal? Nicola from Canterbury in the UK had a saucy question… about Bolognese. She wanted your best advice for a good ragu. She’s used red, green and brown lentils, but others suggest finely-chopped mushrooms or crumbled tofu. What are your thoughts, Jack? Finally, Jack, I know you’ve been vegan for a long while, so meat has been nowhere near your radar. When one makes a health-based or ethical choice to forgo meat, do you think it’s a good idea to even find substitutes that taste similar, or just leave it behind and explore the bountiful world of other delicious options that are nowhere near the same flavor profile?   Thanks for another illuminating episode, Jack. And I look forward to having you back in the thick soup of more questions on the next episode of Ask Jack, which will premiere on July 6th!   About Jack McNulty:   Jack McNulty has been involved in food and cooking most of his life. He’s walked many paths during his culinary journey, including transforming himself from an interested amateur ‘foodie’ to a professional chef with classical training. He has worked for talented and knowledgeable chefs in high-end restaurants in Switzerland, Italy, and France. Jack has operated his own catering business and cooking school, while also finding time to write about cooking. He is currently operating his own subscription-based website providing instruction and recipes supporting a vegan lifestyle. Jack has followed the OMS lifestyle since 2009. He has actively worked on providing recipes and information to the OMS website, was the contributing editor to the OMS Cookbook, and authored the Eat Well chapter in the Overcoming Multiple Sclerosis Handbook.   Jack’s Links:   To get the veggie burger and grilled tofu recipes Jack mention in this episode, click here. Visit Jack’s website com for mouth-watering OMS-compliant vegan recipes, ingredient information, and to learn useful vegan cooking techniques. Be sure to check out Jack’s weekly international newsletter – VeganWeekly – written with the aim to inspire people to cook healthy plant-based food. Jack’s social media links are all here: https://linktr.ee/jackmcn.   Coming up on our next episode:   On May 16, “travel” to Paris to meet Nigel Bartram on Living Well with MS Coffee Break #31. Nigel is from the UK and has been a member of the OMS community since 2014. His latest project – publishing a book of humorous essays on his experiences with MS. You’ll want to smile after hearing his tongue-in-cheek impressions of life with MS, so please tune in!   Don’t miss out:   Subscribe to this podcast and never miss an episode. You can catch any episode of Living Well with MS here or on your favorite podcast listening app. For your convenience, a full episode transcript is also available on all platforms within 72 hours of each episode’s premiere. If you like our program, don’t be shy and leave a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you tune into the show. And feel free to share your comments and suggestions for future guests and episode topics by emailing podcast@overcomingms.org.   S4E51b Transcript Ask Jack #7   Geoff Allix (00:00:02): Hi, I'm Geoff Allix, host of Living Well with MS family of podcasts from Overcoming MS.   Jack McNulty (00:00:07): Hey everyone, Jack McNulty here. Welcome to another exciting new season of Ask Jack, a special Living Well with MS Podcast series. I'm excited and honored to answer food and cooking related questions from you, the Overcoming MS Community.   Geoff Allix (00:00:22): To submit a question for future episodes of Ask Jack, please email us at podcast@overcomingms.org, that's podcast@overcomingms.org. Please check out this episode’s show notes at www.overcomingms.org/podcast and dig into additional information and links on what we'll cover.   Geoff Allix (00:00:41): And now let's rev up our culinary curiosity and Ask Jack. And have we got a meaty topic for you today? The episode's topic is Meat Replacements. Jack has carefully crafted some questions around this topic and we've solicited some directly from the OMS community. With summer around the corner, at least for those in the Northern Hemisphere, we expect people will be cleaning off their grills and readying them for action. But since research shows that meat is a no-fly zone for people with MS, how do you capture that texture and flavor without the negative health consequences? So thanks to Jack McNulty, we're about to get some answers. Happy to chat with you again, Jack. And how are you?   Jack McNulty (00:01:21): I'm doing great, Geoff. Thanks. It's certainly good to be back. I'm really looking forward to our conversation today and to answer as many questions as we possibly can get to about meat replacements.   Geoff Allix (00:01:32): And I think this does come up a lot, doesn't it? I think on other topics we've touched on it because these are questions that do arise very often.   Jack McNulty (00:01:42): Yeah. I was just reading some studies earlier today as the billions of dollars that are just being poured into the industry worldwide in terms of creating these vegan meat replacements. It's really astounding how much money is going into it.   Geoff Allix (00:02:01): And even if it's not a meat replacement as such, synthetic meat is coming up now?   Jack McNulty (00:02:07): Yeah, exactly.   Geoff Allix (00:02:08): It’s more than just our health on the line here. We're also talking about climate; we're talking about deforestation.   Jack McNulty (00:02:20): Yeah. Animal rights, those sorts of things.   Geoff Allix (00:02:22): So yes, absolutely. And so yeah, if people are going to eat meat, then if that can at least not affect the planet, then that's another benefit. We're not talking about that. We're being selfish and talking about ourselves.   Jack McNulty (00:02:35): That's right.   Geoff Allix (00:02:35): The health benefits. But yes, I don't want to say it is an evil thing, there's certainly benefits to not chopping down huge amounts of Amazon rainforest.   Geoff Allix (00:02:46): So we've got audience hungry for some advice on this episode's topic. So we'll dig right in.   Jack McNulty (00:02:52): Mm-hmm (affirmative).   Geoff Allix (00:02:53): So Jack, some people can give up meat, but they really want the taste or the texture of meat. So are these meat replacements okay in general with people following the OMS program and if someone does choose to use meat replacements, what should they be looking for in the ingredients? Are there specific ones they should avoid? Are there good go-to meat replacements they could use?   Jack McNulty (00:03:21): Yeah. I think meat replacements can have a positive role in an otherwise healthy OMS lifestyle and diet. Obviously and pretty much like most everything else, there's a certain degree of personal responsibility involved. And that begins with a thorough understanding of a few things, ingredients, serving size, that sort of thing when you're purchasing something off the shelf in a supermarket. And I think that there are some reasonable factors to consider, for instance if you're looking at the nutritional content in the labeling, I think one of the first places to look is the sodium content. Like any processed or convenient type food, sodium is a big problem. And as we know from the HOLISM studies that have been done, high salt intake is not necessarily a good thing for people with MS, it should be a lower sodium intake. And so I always look at the sodium amount if I'm considering buying something off the shelf.   Jack McNulty (00:04:34): I like to aim for on a per serving basis, anything that's certainly less than 400 milligrams per serving. Now that's taking into consideration, otherwise healthy lifestyle, and diet, which I do follow. And generally I have a very low sodium intake anyway, and so that's my top amount there. Per serving would be about 400 milligrams.   Jack McNulty (00:05:04): I take a look at the saturated fat, obviously that's a big consideration for anybody following the OMS program. And so for me again, if anything is less than say two grams per serving, I'm generally okay with that. And that's again with the caveat that, that's for someone that's following an otherwise healthy lifestyle and diet where your saturated fat intake is relatively low.   Jack McNulty (00:05:33): Fiber is another thing to consider. Most of these products are pretty low in fiber. A lot of that's been stripped out. Some of them are better than others. I like to try to find something that's going to be greater than four grams. I think it's also important to understand that a lot of times, because this is a protein replacement in the diet, and a lot of times you're replacing fiber rich foods in your diet with something like a meat replacer. You're not eating your tempeh or legumes or lentils or something of this nature and replacing it with something else that's going to be much lower in fiber. And so I take that into consideration. So if I do that I either combine it with something that's fiber rich, or I choose a product that's going to have a higher amount of fiber in the first place. That's just something to consider.   Jack McNulty (00:06:27): I also take a look at binders and emulsifiers. Now these are common ingredients in any meat replacer, or any sort of convenient product. The problem is there's not a lot of information that's been done, not a whole lot on the scientific side anyway that I can find that states whether these products that are being used are, "What's the long-term ramification for human health?" That question is still out there. So while that's dangling, I tend to say, maybe my intake should be a little bit less in those particular areas, so that's certainly a driving force in any decision I'm going to make. The lower the amounts of those binders and emulsifiers the better.   Jack McNulty (00:07:17): I think it's also important to understand that meat replacements can work as a pretty good transition for some. So, some people that are new to the lifestyle, they're going to be coming basically to the program or possibly with a meat centric, dairy centric, convenience food centric, kind of diet. And to change that from that, to going into something full-blown plant-based that's going to be fiber rich, that's going to create some problems. That's going to create some digestive problems, that's going to create some bloating in the system and that sort of thing. And it's really recommended that the transition to help your microbiome should be three to six months, that sort of timeframe, and smaller portions as you ramp up as far as the information I've been able to find. And so, during this phase, sometimes these meat replacements really work as a nice transitional product to help get you on the right path towards plant-based.   Jack McNulty (00:08:37): When you do have a lot of problems and you switch over to a plant-based diet and you have this bloating and discomfort, that is a put-off to a lot of people and they walk away from the diet and say, "I don't want to do this sort of thing because it makes me uncomfortable." Understandably so, but maybe it's just you need to allow for a little bit of time into transition into it.   Jack McNulty (00:09:02): I think the bottom line really Geoff, it's not a meat replacement diet we're talking about, you have to look at this more in micro terms. It's more of a single use replacement. It works sometimes, especially if you're looking at products that have acceptable levels of sodium, saturated fat, fiber, use minimal amounts of binders and emulsifiers, that's probably going to be okay when viewed in context of an otherwise healthy diet.   Geoff Allix (00:09:37): When we say meat replacements here, we're talking about things that use the trade names, like Beyond Meat.   Jack McNulty (00:09:45): Exactly.   Geoff Allix (00:09:47): We're not talking about soy, seitan, those sort of single-   Jack McNulty (00:09:52): No, not necessarily although, some of those products used for convenience matter.   Geoff Allix (00:09:59): Yes.   Jack McNulty (00:10:00): You have to just imagine walking into a grocery store and every time I go into a grocery store, I look at the expanding array of offerings in the vegan section, which once used to be in the corner of the supermarket, now is pretty prominent and it's growing.   Geoff Allix (00:10:18): Mm-hmm (affirmative).   Jack McNulty (00:10:18): And so if you look at those things and you see sausages, you see schnitzel, you see the Beyond Meat products, the cheeses, the vegan butters and on and on. It's basically all kinds of foods that are being replaced just more on the convenient side. That's what I'm talking about.   Geoff Allix (00:10:40): And I would say actually from looking through those fairly extensively, the majority are not healthy on the OMS diet. They're-   Jack McNulty (00:10:50): That's right. If you look at the sodium, saturated fat, and fiber, that's going to eliminate 75, 80% of the products available today anyway.   Geoff Allix (00:11:02): Yeah.   Jack McNulty (00:11:02): So that's a very good way to just sort of weed out all the things that aren't going to work for us. Just look at those three things, that's usually going to be enough.   Geoff Allix (00:11:15): And it is possible to find some things. I mean, I have to say there was one recently I found it was actually in the frozen vegan section. They had veggie burgers, really if you think the original vegan burger from back in the 60s, 70s, mostly those contain huge amounts of ingredients, probably a lot of oils, but actually there was one that I found, which was really good, it was basically vegetables and because it was frozen, they weren't worried about things to prolong its life. And actually it was sort of held together because it was frozen. So you could grill it from frozen and the numbers were all good. And actually I thought, okay, there's a number of ingredients, they're all vegetables so if I'm going to eat a fast-food burger, that would be a convenient food that I think actually there's not too much wrong with that one.   Jack McNulty (00:12:22): That's right. And as a chef, I'm just naturally curious about a lot of things anyway. I'm curious about making things myself, but I'm also curious about what's going on in this space, are some of these things really worth it? And as an example, just a couple of days ago, I was in there and I saw a new product that was basically a schnitzel that was made out of pea protein and that sort of thing. It fits within the guidelines of OMS, right? And the sodium content was relatively low. And all these factors I considered, and I thought, what the heck, I'm going to just try it and see how it is. And I came home and I prepared it and ate it. And I was just highly disappointed. I mean the breading fell off, the texture wasn't right, the flavor wasn't there. And so I thought, I can do this better myself using a kohlrabi schnitzel or a celeriac schnitzel or something like this, that's way better than something that's purchased off the shelf. So many times that's going to occur as well.   Geoff Allix (00:13:34): And I think we [crosstalk 00:13:36], we mentioned taste and texture, and I think that's important as well, because if you were to eat a burger from McDonald's, Burger King, Wendy's, Five Guys, wherever, certainly the basic burger from a McDonald's or Burger King, I don't think it'll be very pleasant on its own well, not unpleasant. It just wouldn't taste of an awful lot. The flavor is coming from the other stuff that's in with the burger, their sauce, the vegetables, the salad, that's where the flavor comes from.   Jack McNulty (00:14:09): [inaudible 00:14:09] also, yeah.   Geoff Allix (00:14:10): Yeah. So actually we can still do the elements that make a burger nice. We can add a nice sauce, we can add tomato, we can add lettuce, we can add all these things and some pickles and whatever, all fine. And then it's the texture. So, it's not just taste, it's actually a lot of things like a burger may not have much taste, there's not an awful lot of taste of chicken. There's not an awful lot of taste of a basic burger. A lot of these things don't have a lot of taste and they're just vehicles really, but it's got that chew. And that's really what we're aiming for is the chew-   Jack McNulty (00:14:46): That's right. We've become very used to the idea of meat in our food that has a certain mouth feel, has a certain texture, that has a sort of umami-type taste that comes from the cooking of the meat, which is the teenager proteins. So these are the things that if you just break it down and look at that, you can think of ways, "Can I replace that in a healthier way without having to turn to that meat or without having to turn to some factory produced product?"   Jack McNulty (00:15:30): And that really becomes the key or the crux. And I think that it's far more important to develop this excellent eating and cooking habit or this understanding of ingredients, than it is to worry much about, how am I going to replace meat in this recipe that's calling for ground beef or something like that? There are tons of ways to do that. It's just that we have to get beyond that barrier. We have to move beyond that mindset of it needs to taste a certain way, the texture has to be exactly like this and et cetera. We can get it close in a plant-based world, it's never going to be a 100% the same, but my question is, does it really need to be? It's all part of an expanding viewpoint or way of looking at how we eat.   Geoff Allix (00:16:34): Yeah. And one thing I wanted to bring up is to get that texture sometimes just not overcooking vegetables is one of them, because there's a meal that I've recently... Which I was mentioning to you earlier. Actually I think the Indonesian meal is nasi goreng, it's rice-based. So basically a rice-based meal, it's got a lot of flavor from chili and a nut butter, I think originally it would be peanut butter, but I use almond butter, which is actually quite easy to make yourself from almonds and nothing else but almonds. So it's relatively high saturated fat, because nuts are, but the small amount of that, and then not overcooking vegetables.   Geoff Allix (00:17:19): So asparagus goes in there, tender stem broccoli, but they literally go in at the end of the cooking process. So there's a lot of chewiness, there's crunchiness from that. And there's flavor from the chilies and the almond butter and soy sauce and so on. But it has everything you need really; it doesn't lack suggest don't think this would be nicer with some chicken. [crosstalk 00:17:44]. It's a meal of itself that doesn't think, actually you've just given me a meal without the meat.   Jack McNulty (00:17:52): Yeah. And if you can look at eating as a way to just please multiple senses, then you can be quite happy having something that has just many different flavors and tastes and something that's crunchy. So you get that feel of different texture and something that has a lot of aromas, and you are just playing with all of these different senses to create a wonderful experience. And it doesn't necessarily need to have meat to do that. And it certainly doesn't need to have a meat replacer to do that as well.   Geoff Allix (00:18:30): And so you mentioned, so we've talking about meat replacements on the commercial side of it, but they are also closer to natural ingredients. So do you have any good ideas for creating meat-like OMS-friendly food with things like tofu and seitan?   Jack McNulty (00:18:51): Yeah. I think the most important thing to consider when you're creating meat, like preparations using various ingredients, such as tofu, seitan, I'd throw tempeh into that mix or ground up mushrooms or these sorts of things. Jackfruit is another, a very good meat substitute. I think the keys here are to create umami and to create texture, and there's some tricks to doing this sort of stuff. So let me just give you some ideas.   Jack McNulty (00:19:25): To create umami, the ingredients I like to use to create this sort of taste is things like yeast extract, which a lot of people would call Marmite. It's very similar to that. The yeast extract that I would get here in Switzerland is a German product, that's just basically a yeast extract. I know Marmite has some other things that go into it, but basically it works the same.   Jack McNulty (00:19:55): I think soya sauce, tamari and liquid aminos are fantastic to use. And if you use those in combination with a vinegar, specifically a brown rice vinegar, or a Chinese black rice vinegar, which is fantastic, or even a balsamic vinegar, if you use the soya sauce tamari mixture and a vinegar in combination, it creates a lot of umami and it works wonderfully when you're working it into ingredients.   Jack McNulty (00:20:31): Powdered mushrooms are another thing that I like to use quite a lot. And so you can buy powdered mushrooms, but I think it's just really simple to just go buy some dried mushrooms. I like shiitake or porcini, are the two that I would use the most. You just bring them home. I have a coffee grinder, so I pop them in the coffee grinder and I just grind them. And then I use that powdered mushroom as a seasoning. So I cut back on sodium and I'm increasing the umami by doing that. It's a wonderful way to bring additional flavor in. And of course, white and yellow miso also worked wonderfully to bring that sort of umami, that meatiness into a dish.   Jack McNulty (00:21:14): And liquid smoke, which I think we've talked about on the podcast before. And again, liquid smoke will introduce a sort of a hickory or charred flavor to food. You do have to be a little bit careful, not all liquid smokes are healthy, but there are some that are quite good that basically just have water and the aroma that's been extracted. So it's perfectly healthy. There's nothing unhealthy about it. And you're just using a couple of drops to create a big punch of flavor.   Jack McNulty (00:21:52): In terms of texture, so tofu and seitan come to mind as things that you can play around with, with texture. So tofu I find is excellent. And especially you can do a couple of things with tofu. So I'm talking about firm tofu, not something that's going to be really soft, but a really firm tofu.   Jack McNulty (00:22:19): And so you unpack it, you drain it, you can pat it dry, cut it up in little chunks. And one thing that I found that works really great is, bring a little pot of water to a boil and then salt it and give it a good amount of salt. It should taste a little bit like the sea. And once it comes to a boil and you've salted the water, put your tofu in there and boil it for about three minutes and then just let that cool in the liquid for about 15 minutes off the heat, drain it, take those tofu pieces, put it out on a towel and just let it come to room temperature. Ideally, you'd want to do this a day in advance and put it in the refrigerator. And it turns into sort of a spongy consistency, that's very similar to paneer and it works great in curry dishes. So it's going to give you a really fantastic sort of experience in a curry dish.   Geoff Allix (00:23:19): So I just wanted to go into a bit more about what these things actually are. So tofu is entirely made of soya beans, yeah?   Jack McNulty (00:23:30): That's correct, yeah. So basically it comes from soya milk, so it's made from soya milk.   Geoff Allix (00:23:35): I was going to get on to it. So is there a concern, because I know that some soya beans are very genetically engineered, genetically modified, and there are risks with soy, aren’t there? So are you careful with, or do you worry about having too much tofu because of too much soy that might have, there's all sorts of things aren’t there, like potential hormones?   Jack McNulty (00:24:03): Yeah, there's a lot of discussion about this. And without having to go into too much detail, maybe we just talk about soya as a whole on another podcast. But a lot of people do have concerns about it, but then on the other hand, there's a lot of well-respected doctors, nutritionist, et cetera, that are out there that really put that those concerns to [inaudible 00:24:24]. I think the most important thing with soya and soya products is to make sure that you're purchasing something that's not from genetically altered soya beans.   Geoff Allix (00:24:34): Right.   Jack McNulty (00:24:35): Which is increasingly difficult to do, but not impossible. And you can find that relatively simple.   Geoff Allix (00:24:42): Like you said, I think there is a whole episode on soy because I've got load of questions. So tempeh, is that still soy, but has some beans-   Jack McNulty (00:24:55): Tempeh can be made with a number of different whole beans, but typical typically made from soya. So it originates from Indonesia and basically, it's just the whole bean that's been cooked and then it's inoculated with a mold. It sounds great at this point. And then it's just allowed to age, that's why when you have it it’s compressed and it has that sort of whiteness around it, that's actually just the mold and-   Geoff Allix (00:25:21): And seitan then is-   Jack McNulty (00:25:24): Yeah, so seitan is basically 100% gluten. So it's the gluten that's been removed from a wheat kernel and the starch has been washed away from it. And what you're left with is just pretty much a 100% protein and that can be utilized to create meat-like substances by combining the dry ingredient, the gluten itself, sometimes with another kind of flour, like a chickpea flour with an umami rich liquid, or sometimes even ground-up tofu. But basically, you're going to have a lot of soya in it, soya sauce or tamari, that sort of thing. Aminos work well and a lot of heavy flavoring. And then what's critical then is to think about it in terms of making a bread. So as you're kneading the seitan, the more you knead it, the firmer it becomes as an end product. So if you want to create something relatively soft, you just basically mix those ingredients together and don't knead it at all.   Geoff Allix (00:26:44): So seitan is something you [crosstalk 00:26:46] you would typically make it yourself rather?   Jack McNulty (00:26:49): No, not necessarily. You can buy a lot of seitan products. Personally, I find that it's really simple to work with. It's really not difficult to make it. And we can put some instructions up in the show notes on how to do that, but there's lots of variables. And so, once you get everything mixed together, then you have to pre-cook it. And so you can steam it, you can cook it in the oven, you can boil it. All of these things have an influence on how the end product or the texture is going to be. And of course, however much flavor you put into it and whatever liquid you're cooking it into, the more flavorful, the better. And that's going to have an influence on how it tastes in the end.   Jack McNulty (00:27:32): But you can literally prepare a roast, prepare something that looks like a sliced turkey breast or something like this. You can prepare meatballs; you can make burgers with it. There's just so many different ways to think about it. And it's an ancient technique and this goes back thousands of years to the ancient Chinese and Japanese that figured out how to do this.   Geoff Allix (00:27:59): But would that have gluten in it presumably?   Jack McNulty (00:28:03): It's quite a lot. [crosstalk 00:28:05].   Geoff Allix (00:28:11): Good for protein?   Jack McNulty (00:28:11): Excellent for protein. Not so good if you're watching your gluten intake.   Geoff Allix (00:28:16): Right. So that's [inaudible 00:28:16], but not gluten. Tofu we're avoiding genetically modified, but good for protein?   Jack McNulty (00:28:25): Yeah, excellent for protein. Exactly. And I was mentioning, you can boil it. There's another technique to change the texture and that's freezing it. So if you freeze a block of tofu and then defrost that, and let it come to room temperature, you'll find that the texture has completely changed. That has firmed up and in the internal bit, if you cut into it, it is very spongy. And so it's going to readily absorb flavor. But what's interesting is if you cook it, especially if you cook it in a liquid, it will hold its shape much better than if you didn't freeze it beforehand. And so that's just a technique to change a little bit the texture of using something like tofu.   Geoff Allix (00:29:10): And is it worth getting a tofu press? Do you think to remove what, I see a lot of these things where they say, try and remove as much water. You can certainly buy it now in lots of different forms. [crosstalk 00:29:21].   Jack McNulty (00:29:21): I don't know, I use double paper towel in the palms of my hand.   Geoff Allix (00:29:25): Okay. That works.   Jack McNulty (00:29:29): I don't get too... I know a lot of recipes say, "You got to get out as much water as possible." But I've found that if you get out the surface bits and especially then if you cut it and then press it again, once it's cut, you're going to get out enough and it's not going to have a huge impact. That's my experience as a cook discussing that.   Geoff Allix (00:29:52): And just to mention you touched on jackfruit as well. That one it's just a single vegetable product, but that's low protein, isn't it?   Jack McNulty (00:30:05): I believe so, I'd have to check the nutritional info.   Geoff Allix (00:30:07): I'm pretty sure that one doesn't tick the protein box, but it does tick the other boxes.   Jack McNulty (00:30:12): Yeah. And people have made a lot of different things with jackfruit, like taco filling, burrito filling that sort of stuff, mixing it with barbecue sauce and you can come up with some really interesting... I use it to make a Bolognese which is fantastic and it works great in that environment.   Jack McNulty (00:30:31): Another thing you can do is just take an oyster mushroom, just a normal, raw oyster mushroom. If you can envision this, take a fork and just run the fork along the oyster mushroom, and it will break up into strands. And then if you cook that in some tomato-based sauce or barbecue sauce or something like that, once it's cooked and then working it into the sauce, you can really create something that's going to be like a pulled pork or something of that nature. It's really fascinating what you can do with mushrooms.   Geoff Allix (00:31:07): In the vegan area of my local supermarket, they do a pulled mushroom. I didn't realize you could do it easily with a fork.   Jack McNulty (00:31:16): Yeah, give that a try. It's really fascinating. It just pulls apart in strands. You don't even need to use a fork, sometimes I just peel it with my hand. It's pretty easy to do.   Geoff Allix (00:31:26): So we've talked quite a bit about burgers. What would be your absolute go-to recipe for a veggie burger? What would you do if we are getting into hopefully, a summer season in the Northern Hemisphere, and you want something to stick on a barbecue or you want to create a burger, what would be your-   Jack McNulty (00:31:45): Well, as I like to say, as a good American would always say, "There is no season for a burger, that's all year long." Well, let me give you two ideas. So the very simple idea, you can get like a portobello mushroom, which is in essence a giant chestnut kind of mushroom. You can cut off the stem, just work it in and marinate it in a little mixture of soya sauce and vinegar, like I said earlier, and then just wipe it off on a nice oil grate of a grill and just grill it and just use that as your burger. So there's no need to really form anything else. It itself has the shape of a burger. And then just put it between two slices of some nice whole wheat bun or something like that. I usually do that with a guacamole and a slice of tomato in there, and maybe some chili to spice things up a bit. And that's delicious. That's just a really simple way to do something that tastes quite meaty, surprisingly meaty.   Jack McNulty (00:32:56): But if I were to make my own and I'll put this recipe up in the show notes, I use a combination of ingredients. So it seems at first like, oh my goodness, this is a lot of ingredients, but they're all doing something.   Jack McNulty (00:33:09): And so I use cooked black beans, black rice, and chopped brown mushrooms, so that's the protein base. The chopped brown mushrooms are just like chestnut mushrooms, black rice, and the cooked black beans. I get all of that and puree it together. Then to give it a little bit of texture, I'm using ground walnuts and a half a beetroot that's just graded up. Then I start working in my umami flavors now.   Jack McNulty (00:33:36): And so I use in addition to herbs and spices, I'm going to use a little bit of miso, usually I go white or a yellow miso, which is a little bit milder. I use soya sauce and balsamic vinegar, and to bind it all together I would just use chickpea flour, which works great as a binder. And then sometimes I do add a little bit of liquid smoke into the mixture. I just formulate it into burgers. And then what's really important is I refrigerate it and I refrigerate it for at least a couple of hours. So this is something you can actually do a day in advance, and then you can put it directly on the grill. It functions exactly like a burger would function. And the texture is surprisingly close to a burger.   Geoff Allix (00:34:22): And chickpea flour, you mentioned that's that same as wheat flour, isn't it?   Jack McNulty (00:34:27): Yes, exactly. I think that's about as far as I go with burgers. I mean, once I came up with that particular idea and recipe, I just thought, well there's no reason to develop further, I'm quite happy with that one. And the combination of the portobello mushroom with a guacamole or something, which is my wife's favorite, so that's usually the one that we go with.   Geoff Allix (00:34:55): And you're saying, putting it in the fridge, I actually quite like freezing them as well, because first thing they hold together if they're frozen, but also just because then it becomes a fast food. It's as easy to make six as it is to make one.   Jack McNulty (00:35:10): That's right. And you can use that same mixture because everything's already cooked, so you can use it. And instead of creating a burger, you can create little meatballs and throw it into your favorite pasta dish or something of that nature. So you're right, freezing is a great way to go.   Geoff Allix (00:35:30): I think a lot of whole food cooking is more labor intensive, and so I think freezing is a good way rather than making every single meal from scratch, it is more labor intensive than buying ready prepared meals. But if we can make them and then freeze 50%, then suddenly we've got an easy-to-cook meal for next week that we don't have to cook everything from scratch and freezing for a couple of weeks, if not a month or more, it does retain a lot of the nutrition, doesn't it? You said actually things like tofu can actually be improved in some ways form freezing?   Jack McNulty (00:36:14): Yeah, that's exactly right.   Geoff Allix (00:36:15): And I think obviously things that sometimes are chili or something like that can actually taste better reheated. I don't know why.   Jack McNulty (00:36:21): Oh yeah, definitely.   Geoff Allix (00:36:22): I don't know what's happening there.   Jack McNulty (00:36:23): I totally agree. Totally agree on that.   Geoff Allix (00:36:25): So to move on to some of the specific questions from members of the global OMS community, there's two questions and I'm going to ask both of them because they're related. So Linda from Germany has taken to using soy crumbles, which have to be rehydrated, to sub for chicken or meat. And so she wants to know if they're okay or are they too processed?   Geoff Allix (00:36:49): But also Vicky from the US, has another soy question. She's curious about your take on soy curls. She's not sure if you can access them everywhere. I've certainly not come across them, but her understanding that they're extruded and dehydrated soybeans. So she was asking, could you explain the difference between soy curls and TVP or texture vegetable protein. So both these things sound quite similar, so soy crumbles, soy curls, are they similar things and are they-   Jack McNulty (00:37:19): Similar in the sense that they generally use soya and that's about where-   Geoff Allix (00:37:23): Okay. They are quite different. Okay.   Jack McNulty (00:37:25): So soya curls. Did you say you came across those already?   Geoff Allix (00:37:29): No, I haven't come across soy curls, but-   Jack McNulty (00:37:31): I think it's more of an American thing at this point. It's a company in America, that's developed it and it's basically using the whole soya bean. And so the soya bean is cooked, it's dried and then it gets cut up and extruded into these little pieces. And so it needs to be rehydrated to use it. You'd have to soak it in water usually about 10, 15 minutes or so. And then you can start adding all your flavors and then cook it as if you were cooking some meat or something in a frying pan or whatever. You can use it in various products, lasagna, tacos, that sort of stuff. So because it's soya, it's going to be very high in protein. It's going to taste very bland unless you put a lot of flavoring into it, and this is where the ingredients that we talked about earlier, the umami ingredients really come into play.   Jack McNulty (00:38:31): Now TVP, textured vegetable protein, I think is what that stands for, is generally made from soya. So it's a byproduct of the vegetable oil industry. And so the oil, once it's extracted from whatever bean it is, let's talk about soya. So it's extracted from soya and basically then you're just left with really soya flour at that point. And soya, so that's the fat that's been denatured or taken out of the soya flour, most of the fat.   Jack McNulty (00:39:12): So then that fat by the way, gets mostly removed using solvents and high temperatures. Just to be aware of that, that's how that gets extruded. But you're left with the soya flour, in that soya flour is very little impact from the solvents that were used. So there are lots of tests that have gone on about that. And there's no real risk there from the human health perspective. But basically, you're left with this processed bit of soya, which then gets formulated in heat into chunks. And then it gets extruded into pieces.   Jack McNulty (00:40:00): So the pieces themselves are going to be very light and spongy inside once they go through their extruder, which heats them and then they're immediately exposed to colder air, which creates this puffing up, but usually around three times the size and that's what creates that sort of sponginess inside. So they function almost identical to a soya curl in that you have to rehydrate them and then cook them. And if you don't add any flavoring to them, you're going to be really disappointed in the flavor because there won't be much flavor. It'll be very bland and you'll wonder why did I do this? But if you do add a lot of umami to it, they certainly aren't bad in certain isolated situations.   Jack McNulty (00:40:52): I would say overall, I have used them. I'm not hugely impressed with TVP, I think there's other things that you can use that are better. For instance, okara comes to mind. Okara is what's left over from soya milk pressing. So the soya beans that are pressed to create soya milk, what's left behind, that meaty substance left behind is called okara. It's very common, you can buy it in almost any Japanese store and you can just cook that the same way that you would cook these TVP products and you would have a lot more protein in that particular product than you would using something that's TVP.   Geoff Allix (00:41:41): Would you say this goes the same for soya crumbles as well?   Jack McNulty (00:41:45): Yeah. Soy crumbles are in essence TVP.   Geoff Allix (00:41:48): Right. Okay.   Jack McNulty (00:41:49): So basically, it's just different names for them depending on where you are in the world. So I forget what they're even called here in the German side, but it's very easy to find them in any sort of health food store. And I use that term health food rather liberally.   Geoff Allix (00:42:14): So you wouldn't say it's whole food, certainly these things aren't on that, they're not making us healthier, but they're not necessarily-   Jack McNulty (00:42:26): I try to stay away from that term whole food-   Geoff Allix (00:42:29): Okay.   Jack McNulty (00:42:29): Because really, the only thing that's whole food is an apple. There's nothing that's going to get done to it. And so I like to look at these products and say, okay, which one is going to be better? So soya curls have nothing added to them and nothing taken away from them. So in essence, that's going to be closer to the concept of whole food than TVP, which has gone through a process where the fat has been removed from the soya. And then it's processed into flour before it's extruded. So that's going to have something added to it in the sense of solvents and something taken out in the sense of fats. And so, there the alarm bells would go off and I'd want to look into that product a little bit more before saying whether I would use it or not.   Geoff Allix (00:43:24): Okay.   Jack McNulty (00:43:24): But people talk about whole food, non-processed whole foods all the time in terms of diets, but it's very rare. The minute you cut into an onion, you've already processed the onion to some degree. So it’s very rare to come across anything that hasn't had some degree of processing, but it's also very difficult to find something that's really a 100% whole food, unless of course you're eating something raw in its natural state.   Geoff Allix (00:44:01): But these things aren't necessarily bad for you, but just keep an eye on the ingredients, some of them may be over processed, but in general?   Jack McNulty (00:44:09): Yeah. I would say the soya curls are better than the other products, but it's the thing that everybody's got to decide for themselves. But from my perspective, I would say minimal amounts is probably better than a mainstay of your diet, I wouldn't use them every day.   Geoff Allix (00:44:30): Okay. And we've got another question from Lisa asking, "There are so many different types of vegan meat alternatives, and it's often easy to use these alternatives when cooking for a mixed crowd or for a family when you're tired and need a quick meal. So could you recommend specific options for a quick and easy OMS-friendly meat alternative meal?"   Jack McNulty (00:44:52): Are we talking about stuff that you buy that's convenient?   Geoff Allix (00:44:55): I think it's the convenience. I think she's saying if she's tired, needs a quick meal, feeding the family, what would be a good meat alternative to put in?   Jack McNulty (00:45:08): Yeah. And I really sympathize with someone that finds themselves in this position. That's not me, but I certainly understand that's not a simple situation to be in. You're working all day, you're tired. Maybe you have a little bit of an MS flare, you have kids to feed and you come home and you have to make something, what do you do? It is tempting to go to the supermarket and to buy something off the shelf and put it on the stove and heat it up or put it in the oven and heat it up and there you go, that is terribly convenient. And that's exactly what the food industry wants us to do.   Jack McNulty (00:45:49): So I think rather than taking that approach, I think it's much better to invest a little bit more time earlier in the week and make a plan, to sort of plan out a little bit, what am I going to do about food this next week? Get some help in the kitchen. If you have kids, get them to start chopping vegetables, get them involved, to help put things together on the weekend or towards the end of the week that you can freeze or that will keep in the refrigerator for a little bit of time. And so those are the things that I would tend to go with.   Jack McNulty (00:46:21): You can certainly make vegetable curries that are delicious and incorporate things like tofu or some of the other things that we had talked about today that go in and create this sort of meatiness in a curry. Something served with rice or something, that's going to please anybody, whether you're vegan or not, you're going to be happy with that kind of dish.   Jack McNulty (00:46:44): I think making something like a big bowl of beans, like a chili or something like this, you can make it in large portions. And like you said earlier, it doesn't cost anything to make 12 portions and it doesn't cost more than making four portions or something. So you might as well make enough that you can either freeze a portion for later or just eat during the week, maybe change it up a little bit and just add some different vegetables in it.   Jack McNulty (00:47:16): Lasagna is another thing, it's so easy to make a lasagna. And really all you need is a good tomato sauce, you need some good vegetables, prepare those ahead of time. You just go buy the pasta sheets, dried pasta sheets that don't have an egg in them are very easy to buy. You don't need to pre-cook the pasta, which is great. And you just build a large lasagna adding some of the things that we talked about earlier in terms of building those flavors, using vegetables that are going be median in nature, like eggplant or mushrooms or something of this nature, putting something together and boy that lasagna well, I guarantee you it'll be hard to keep it around much more than a couple of days, because it's going to taste really good.   Jack McNulty (00:48:03): You do need to know how to make a very good bechamel, that's key because a lasagna is very creamy, but that's very simple to learn. I think things like a shepherd's pie is very simple to do using mashed potatoes and a whole host of different vegetables. You can, if you want to incorporate some of these easier meat replacement things like soya curls or okara like we talked about earlier into those vegetables, but don't make it the main star, just have it in addition to a lot of the other vegetables that are there.   Jack McNulty (00:48:40): You can make a Bolognese, very simple to make a big portion. You can make it very easily so you always have it on hand. Really doesn't take a lot of effort to come home and unscrew a jar of pre-made tomato or Bolognese sauce and make a round of pasta for everybody. That's always going to be a pleaser.   Geoff Allix (00:49:03): And you mentioned first curry. So if we are looking quick and easy, one thing we mentioned frozen, but I like to have things frozen out, they are sort of for emergency. We just need to eat quickly, low effort meal, but actually curry's really quick that way, so literally we look at onion. So the base is really just starting off with onion. It's going to have curry spices, which are premixed in a tub, but I don't bother. Yes, you could go and say, "Okay, I'm going to grind my own spices and mix them up." Absolutely, you could do. I'm sure you do that. But I buy it pre-made and say, "This is a [inaudible 00:49:51] flavored one, it has the mix already." And it's going to have chickpeas, it's going to have spinach and it's going to have tomato, like soup tomato. I don't think much else goes in there really.   Jack McNulty (00:50:11): And maybe you can do some roasted eggplant or something. I mean, you can always add different things.   Geoff Allix (00:50:17): Yeah. You can add different things, but the stuff I've put in there, that's taken me five, 10 minutes maximum. It doesn't take as long as the rice takes to cook. To cook the sauce and the chickpeas, give it a bit of chew to it and some protein. And I mean, I'm talking tin chickpeas here. I mean, obviously, otherwise you have to soak them, but that's a quick meal.   Geoff Allix (00:50:39): And another one that I like is pasta you mentioned, and [inaudible 00:50:43] type sauce where literally we put in onion, garlic, again tomato, chili. So some fresh chili goes in there and then some vegetables. So we tend to do it with some fresh broccoli and then just with spaghetti. And again, it really doesn't take much longer to cook than the spaghetti takes.   Jack McNulty (00:51:10): That's right.   Geoff Allix (00:51:10): And that's a quick and easy meal. So a third point, I personally find the effort from an OMS standpoint is the chopping. So because of cooking more with fresh ingredients, there's more chopping involved. And a lot of chopping, I start to find my hands get really tired.   Geoff Allix (00:51:30): And so there's two things I like to do. One is to do that at lunchtime and put it in the fridge. So I've got my chopped stuff already to go. And the second thing is there's these things, I don't know what the proper term with it, we call it a [choppy-chop 00:51:45], but I know that's not his proper term. It's, it's a cylindrical sort of device with blades inside it, which has a pull cord, which causes the blades inside to spin very quickly. And it's very easy to use it to chop up things like onions. It's not something where you really want to get that precise, or I need these things to be an inch long, that's not going to do that. It's going to finely chop wherever you put in. It works very well with onions, works very well for mushrooms. So anything that takes a lot of chopping, you can reduce the effort with devices.   Jack McNulty (00:52:17): That's right. I mean, in any soup or stew or even a pasta sauce or something, you're always going to be starting with something, I'll use the Italian term, like a sofrito, which is basically carrots, onion, celery, and needs to be chopped up. There's no rule that says you have to use a knife. I mean, you can chuck it all into a food processor and just pulse it a few times and chop it up a little bit, that's perfectly okay and that's going to work great. And it'll take literally seconds to make that as opposed to working on your knife skills.   Geoff Allix (00:53:02): Although I would say from that-   Jack McNulty (00:53:03): I've got nothing against that-   Geoff Allix (00:53:05): No, my brother was a chef. And so I would say he bought us a set of proper chef's knives as a wedding present. And I would say a high-quality knife that's kept sharp is so much better and so much easier to use. Yes, you can cut yourself, but yeah.   Jack McNulty (00:53:24): It's much safer. I have high-quality Japanese knives that are just razor sharp. The test that we always like to do is holding up a piece of paper in front of you and just actually slicing it without any effort.   Geoff Allix (00:53:37): Yeah.   Jack McNulty (00:53:37): And goes right through the paper, which is great because it requires no effort to cut anything.   Geoff Allix (00:53:43): And another question you've mentioned Bolognese, so Nicola from Canterbury in the UK has a question about Bolognese. She wants your best advice for a good ragu. She uses red, green and brown lentils, but I suggest finely chopped mushrooms or crumble tofu. What are your thoughts on that?   Jack McNulty (00:54:02): My thoughts are it sounds good, what time is dinner? It doesn't need to be much more than that. I think that sounds fantastic. So a real true Bolognese is basically going to be the classic Bolognese, is going to be carrots, onions, garlic, celery, all sweated a little bit, by sweating that means basically just in a pan over relatively low heat and just stewing in their own juices until they get soft. So the traditional one then will have chunks of meat, not ground beef or ground meat, it'll have chunks of meat. And then it's cooked in a meat broth. And it's basically at the end, sometimes it's finished with a little bit of butter or cream, but also that's an optional thing. What people find fascinating, a true Bolognese actually doesn't have tomato in it.   Geoff Allix (00:54:55): I was going to say you didn't mention that.   Jack McNulty (00:54:56): Yeah. A true one doesn't have tomato in it. If you go to Bologna and you're in Italy now I recognize most of the world doesn't know that. And most of the world thinks that a Bolognese or a ragu has tomato in it, which is fine you can do that. It's just a different kind of sauce, but that's fine. You can use the same sort of technique. So instead of meat, in this particular case, you do these vegetables, but then you can work in some of the things that we talked about, the jackfruit, lentils, mushrooms, okara, soya curls, if you want to, those sorts of things, what I would suggest is cooking that protein element separate and introducing a good amount of these umami type flavors we discussed earlier into those elements. Once they're cooked, then putting them into the sauce and just finishing it.   Jack McNulty (00:55:51): I think that that gives you a better overall finish than if you tried to cook it all together and add soya sauce into the tomato-based sauce. It just doesn't come out the same. I think you can control the flavors much more if you cook that element separately and then work it into the sauce. And make a big portion because you can freeze it or can it later.   Geoff Allix (00:56:15): So finally, I know you've been a vegan for a long while. So meat has not been anywhere near your radar, when one makes a health-based or ethical choice to meat, do you think it's a good idea to even find substitutes that taste similar or just leave it behind and explore the world of other delicious options that are nowhere near the same flavor profiles? So do you actually think, ultimately, we shouldn't be looking to replace the meat, we should actually just be looking for a whole range of different delicious foods and not even think about a meat alternative?   Jack McNulty (00:56:54): Yeah, it's an excellent question to ponder, Geoff. There are many approaches I've heard that people take when first starting out on a plant-based diet or within the OMS community, personally I think it could be a mistake to rely too much on the meat replacement options at the outset. I think it's important to understand the role that meat played in your life previously, review maybe some of your favorite recipes from that timeframe and figure out ways to replicate the flavor profile without relying on meat replacers. So that's putting the onus right back onto everybody out there, all our listeners. It's really up to everybody to just say, “I don't really need these meat replacers in my life.” There are plenty of other ingredients that are out there that I can explore. And as long as I learn a few things, how to season something, how to put some additional flavor in, how to change textures, then I can really move a great deal further and I can get beyond some of the meat replacers.   Jack McNulty (00:58:14): I just think and I've seen this so much. I think people tend to take the path of least resistance. And for example, in the vegan baking world, I just get so frustrated when I just look at these recipes that are developed and almost everybody is using just the easiest solution to figure out how to replace butter in a pastry dough, right? And so they turn to coconut fat or they turn to vegan butter, which is essentially just margarine and they just go from there and there are just other ways to do it. And it just requires a little bit more effort to figure that out. And I think the same thing applies in replacing meats. I think it's extremely simple to heat something up that is basically a convenience food, that's not a problem. It may even taste amazing with exactly the same texture as meat. And unfortunately it just doesn't do anything to benefit your health. And for us, I think that should be a primary consideration.   Jack McNulty (00:59:22): But having said that, I also think there's some room for people to just work slowly into transition. I think there's some room out there to utilize some of these ingredients, especially if they're lower in sodium, lower in saturated fat, don't have a lot of binders or emulsifiers. And I think you can use them wisely at specific times, not necessarily even for convenience, but to please other people.   Jack McNulty (00:59:56): Maybe you're having a dinner party, not everybody there is going to be following the same diet as you, but you want to serve something that's going to be generally familiar to most people. And I think that's a good place to begin to think about that, to do it every day, I would recommend staying away from that. I think I mentioned this earlier, it's not a meat replacement diet we're on, it's using strategically some meat replacers that are generally healthy or to use these meat replacers strategically to create meals that are familiar and comforting to other people, but also to ourselves sometimes. And I think that, that's okay as long as it's done minimally and as long as it's done with using ingredients that are not necessarily going to be unhealthy.   Geoff Allix (01:00:56): Okay with that, thank you very much for another illuminating episode, Jack. And I look forward to having you back in the hot seat for more questions on the next episode of Ask Jack, which will premiere on July 6th.   Jack McNulty (01:01:08): Thanks, Geoff. Just a sort in closing, I just encourage people to maybe think about breaking the reliance on commercially prepared and heavily processed foods, as much as possible. In other words, just encourage people to learn how to cook for themselves a little bit more and certainly how to purchase more ingredients. The world is very large and broad when it comes to the options that are available. And I think it just requires just a little bit of effort there.   Jack McNulty (01:01:41): It's also, this whole meat replacement business is a very [fluid 01:01:47] environment right now, there's just billions of dollars being poured into creating new foods in essence. And I think it's worth keeping an eye on for sure, but a wary eye. And I think it's important to not necessarily just jump right back into the same sort of habits that maybe got us into a health situation in the first place, meaning too much reliance on things that are convenient and unhealthy for us.   Geoff Allix (01:02:25): Thanks for listening to this episode of Ask Jack. Please check out this episode's show notes at www.overcomingms.org/podcast, where you'll find all sorts of useful links and bonus information.   Geoff Allix (01:02:36): If you'd like to submit a question for a future episode of Ask Jack, please email us at podcast@overcomingms.org. You can also subscribe to Living Well with MS on your favorite podcast platform so you never miss an episode of any of our podcasts.   Geoff Allix (01:02:52): Ask Jack is kindly supported by grant from the Happy Charitable Trust. If you'd like to support the Overcoming MS charity and help keep our podcast advertising free, you can donate online at www.overcomingms.org/donate. To learn more about Overcoming MS and its array of free content and programs, including webinars, recipes, exercise guides, OMS Circles, our global network of community support groups and more, please visit our website at www.overcomingms.org. While you are there, don't forget to register for our monthly eNewsletter so you can stay informed about the podcast and other news and updates from Overcoming MS. Thanks again for tuning in and see you next time.   Geoff Allix (01:03:38): The Living Well with MS family of podcasts is for the private non-commercial use and exists to educate and inspire our community of listeners. We do not offer medical advice. For medical advice, please contact your doctor or other licensed healthcare professional. Our guests are carefully selected, but all opinions they express are solely their own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of the Overcoming MS charity, its affiliates, or staff.  

MS Hope: A conversation with Mathew Embry | S4E11

Bio:   Mathew Embry is an internationally recognized documentary filmmaker and advocate for people and families dealing with multiple sclerosis. After being diagnosed with MS in 1995, Mathew is currently symptom-free of MS and freely shares the science-based strategies he uses to control his MS on MS Hope.   Questions:   What are the core principles of the MS Hope approach? How does that align with Overcoming MS? What does a typical Matthew Embry day look like? How often should you exercise? I’ve heard you say, “No cheat days”. Does this apply to exercise? How do you measure progress? What type of exercise is best for people with MS? What about people with mobility problems? What about people with heat issues? More weight or more reps? One last question. For someone newly diagnosed with MS what would be your key piece of advice?   Links:   Learn more about Mathew’s nonprofit organization, MS Hope Check out MS Hope on Facebook Follow Mathew on Twitter Follow Mathew on Instagram Watch MS Hope videos on YouTube Watch Mathew’s documentary, Living Proof   Coming up next:   Tune in on May 4, 2022 for the next new episode of Ask Jack, featuring the prodigious culinary talents of professional chef, writer, and OMSer Jack McNulty answering food and cooking questions from our community that inform their healthy OMS lifestyle. In this instalment, Jack devours a topic many of us grill-loving folks are hungering to learn more about – meat replacements.   Don’t miss out:   Subscribe to this podcast and never miss an episode. You can catch any episode of Living Well with MS here or on your favorite podcast listening app. For your convenience, a full episode transcript is also available on all platforms within about 72 hours of each episode’s premiere. If you like our program, don’t be shy and leave a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you tune into the show. And feel free to share your comments and suggestions for future guests and episode topics by emailing podcast@overcomingms.org.   S4E51 Transcript MS Hope: A Conversation with Mathew Embry   Geoff Allix (00:01): Welcome to Living Well with MS, the podcast from Overcoming MS, the world's leading multiple sclerosis healthy lifestyle charity, celebrating its 10th year of serving the MS community. I'm your host, Geoff Allix. The goal of our organization and this podcast is to inform, support, and empower people with MS to lead full and happy lives. We're excited you could join us for this new episode. Make sure to check out this episode's show notes for more information and useful links. You can find these on our website at www.overcomingms.org/podcast or in whichever podcast platform you use to tune into our program. If you enjoy the show, please spread the word about us on your social media channels or leave a review wherever you tune into our podcast. Have questions or ideas to share? Email us at podcast@overcomingms.org, or you can reach out to me directly on Twitter, @GeoffAllix. We'd love to hear from you. Finally, don't forget to subscribe to Living Well with MS on your favorite podcast platform so you never miss an episode.   Geoff Allix (01:05): And now let's meet our guest for this episode. Welcome to today's episode of the Living Well with MS podcast. On today's episode, I'm joined by Mathew Embry. Mathew Embry was diagnosed with MS in 1995 and is now living relapse free, which he attributes to lifestyle modification, following recommendations from his father, a research scientist. He created the documentary Living Proof, available worldwide on Amazon Prime, to discuss his life story. He also has the MS Hope website, which includes resources about his recommendations for lifestyle modification. Although there are some differences between the MS Hope approach and OMS, there are many more similarities. So welcome to the Living Well with MS podcast, Mathew Embry.   Mathew Embry (01:51): Thank you for having me on the podcast. I really appreciate it.   Geoff Allix (01:55): And for any of our listeners who aren't aware of who you are, and it is in the show notes about your documentary, Living Proof on Amazon Prime, which I'd definitely recommend. But if they are unaware of you, could you just tell us a little bit about yourself? Where you're from, your life, and MS in your life as well.   Mathew Embry (02:17): Yeah, sure. I mean, again, my name's Mathew. I live in Calgary, in Canada. I'm 46 years old now... Or sorry, 45. I'm turning 46 this year.   Geoff Allix (02:29): It's my birthday next week and I'm 51 next week.   Mathew Embry (02:33): Yeah. And I was diagnosed with MS in 1995, when I was 19. And what I've done is, over the years and over the past decade, I guess, I really tried to share my journey with people all over the world, and how I've implemented science-based nutrition, exercise, and vitamin D and just different strategies to be able to control my MS. And it's been really interesting because my job is, I'm a filmmaker. That's what I do. I'm a director, producer. So I've been able to integrate both my journey with multiple sclerosis and my craft as a filmmaker to be able to share information with people that will hopefully make their lives better.   Geoff Allix (03:21): What's the main name of the approach? MS Hope approach, would you call it? I know you sort of have the name of the diet and you have the…   Mathew Embry (03:30): Yeah. Well, the diet's actually called the Best Bet Diet, and that was created by my father, my dad, Ashton Embry. He is actually Dr. Ashton Embry but he's a research scientist... He's not a medical doctor, he's a research PhD. He created that diet back in 1995. And the diet is... You can find it on MS Hope.com. And MS Hope.com is kind of an outreach website. It's one that we tried, I tried my absolute best to distill the information to make it as easy for people as possible to learn about it and to be able to implement it into their lives.   Geoff Allix (04:09): What would you say are the core principles then of your approach?   Mathew Embry (04:14): The core diet principles are dairy free, gluten free, low saturated fat, low sugar. We don't have beans in the diet either. Eggs are limited. And for sure, we ask people, make sure people get their... If they're allergic to eggs checked, things like that. And lots of vegetables, lean meat, fish, lots of fish, if you can get it. And then we have a whole list of supplements, high dose vitamin D and then regular vigorous exercise is part of the program.   Geoff Allix (04:54): Okay. So I think, yeah, there is a lot of overlap between your, the diet, and the whole MS Hope approach and Overcoming MS, certainly. And I would say to people who are new to these programs, I think those overlaps, and I hope you'd agree... Those overlaps, things like dairy, they're the big hitters, really. Well, exercise is one, you really... And that's a classic thing. My father who had MS, he was told not to exercise. So the approach has drastically changed. I'm trying to think of other things because there's so many overlaps really. And the diet's quite similar, low saturated fat, low process or no processed food. Definitely no dairy. Vitamin D's in both of them. Exercise, both of them. What's your thoughts on smoking? That's one didn't come [crosstalk 00:05:47].   Mathew Embry (05:46): No, no, no, not at all. Smoking's not... A no go.   Geoff Allix (05:48): I kind of assumed that because it's just bad for you, but you don't mention that. Yeah. Overcoming MS, they do say no smoking, straightaway. Definitely. Not just on the fact that it's a really bad idea for everyone, but actually specifically for people with MS. So what does a typical Mathew Embry day look like?   Mathew Embry (06:10): I get asked that question quite a bit and it's... I don't want to come across like it's boring, but it's certainly routine. And I think, yeah. I've got two children, I've got two dogs and I manage a career as well. And for me, I try to... It's very routine. I get up, I have a breakfast that's in line with the Best Bet Diet. And then 90% plus of the time, I exercise right away. And if you get ahold of me and if you want to work with me, you'll often get an email from me saying, "Well, I'll meet you after 10:30 or I'm available after 10:30 in the morning." Because that time for me is work too. It's getting to the gym, it's doing runs. It's getting some activity. And it's a huge part of my process. Just, it's major. And it's somewhat non-negotiable. If I can't get that workout in the morning, sometimes you'll find me on the... Downstairs, on our elliptical trainer at 10 o'clock at night. It's so, such part of the fundamentals of my program.   Geoff Allix (07:14): So it doesn't have to be morning? It's flexible around lifestyle?   Mathew Embry (07:19): It is. And I really try to share with people, if you follow me on social media, things like that, I try to share with people how to do that because it's not easy to be able to find that time. So I try to share tips and strategies that I've learned to be able to make that time daily. And that's about eliminating things in your life, but it's also, to be able to add it. Because that can be really hard for people. And then the remainder of my day is, like most other people, I work. I have to do my job. You know, I have to have my responsibilities with my family, family responsibilities.   Mathew Embry (07:52): I try to make time for prayer and meditation, these mindful pieces. And that can be walking too. But definitely time to be in my own head, and training that mind to control negative thoughts, which is... That is not an easy process.   Geoff Allix (08:10): Yeah. We are recording this a few weeks before it actually goes out, but we're right in the middle of the Ukraine war, really. Which I mean, especially over here, it's very easy to start doom scrolling through news and that's another thing. I mean, it's a core part of OMS. One of the pillars is meditation and mindfulness, which you just touched on there. But I know that's... It's not, again, it's not really mentioned, but would you say that's an important aspect? Whether that be traditional mindfulness or meditation, like audio, or it could be prayer, you mentioned. It could be... I mean, I think walking. Why we say mindfulness rather than meditation I think is, you can be mindfully walking. You can be mindfully riding your bike.   Mathew Embry (09:02): Yeah. I agree.   Geoff Allix (09:03): You don't have to be sitting there with your fingers in the right pose and doing some yoga mantra.   Mathew Embry (09:10): Yeah. I totally agree with you. And I think that those practices are really personal. I don't feel like I should, that I have the right or anything to tell someone how to do that. I just think that there's a lot of ways that you can access that. Well, it's tough because you have to make the time. Right? So once you make the time, then it's about implementing a practice. And I agree with you. Going for a long walk in nature or even just finding that space mentally to be able, just to stop. Try to tune out the negativity, and just... It's training the mind. And that's how I see it. I see it like it's a discipline thing. Diet's discipline. Exercise is discipline. And the mindfulness is being disciplined with what thoughts you're going to entertain and how you're going to learn to control those two streams, almost. Like the good and the bad thoughts coming at us. It seems to be a little uncontrollable.   Geoff Allix (10:01): Yeah. I think it was someone, it might have been Jon Kabat-Zinn or someone like that who said, "If you can't find half an hour for mindfulness every day, you need to find an hour for mindfulness every day." Which I think is a pretty good quote.   Geoff Allix (10:15): So, talking about exercise then. You're sort of saying you exercise every day. I mean, I've seen things where they've said actually... I've looked through loads of exercise programs really just to sort of advise people. I've tried to sort of dip into most of the big ones, whether that be the MS Gym, Gretchen Hawley. You know Gretchen and-   Mathew Embry (10:41): Yeah.   Geoff Allix (10:41): ... Gretchen does a lot of stuff with us, and a lot of those MS specific exercise things, and some of them are very much like, oh, no more than five times a week. Some of them seven, some of them even down to three, I think. But I think you say every day you do some exercise, is that right?   Mathew Embry (11:02): Yeah. Yeah. I do. And again, I'm not an expert or a doctor, so I'm not giving advice for people to do this.   Geoff Allix (11:12): This is the advice of a filmmaker.   Mathew Embry (11:13): I don't want to come across... Yeah. This is what I do. And I think that I share that journey where this is what I do every day. I try my best to exercise every single day. And I think people have posted on my thing, "Oh, you need a rest day," or "You got to give your body a break." And I just don't buy that. I just don't, because there's been too many times in my history and the last 20 years where I've been, let's just say fatigued, where I'm just super tired, and mentally I get some brain fog. If I would've taken a rest day, I would've sat down, but I have gone to the gym or gone for a run and I feel a hundred percent better afterwards. I've like restarted my day. And so I had to learn that in my process, but I mean, there's just too many times that that's happened.   Geoff Allix (11:54): But can you adapt what you do? So, I mean, like... So personally, today I have a weekly session with my, we have this neuroactive thing, which is we have a neurophysio and she does a weekly session with us. It was quite a muscle workout. You know, I was doing a lot of dead lifts and my legs are feeling it definitely. But then tomorrow I would be like, okay, tomorrow's going to be more of a cardio day. I'll probably go on the bike. I'm not going to work the same muscles. I'm going to be looking at... So.   Mathew Embry (12:32): Sure. Yeah. That makes sense.   Geoff Allix (12:34): Does that work? Is it like, okay, well, if I've done a lot of cardio today, I could do a lot of strength tomorrow or swimming or something different?   Mathew Embry (12:46): Well, yeah. I mean, again, I'm not an expert in this, but one thing I have learned over the years is I just kind of listen to my body. And my body will give me cues for what it almost wants to do. And I just kind of listen. I'm like, all right, you want to do this today? Let's go do this. So people post, "Can you set up a regimented workout plan?" I'm like, "Well, I can't really, because I don't really know what I'm going to do."   Mathew Embry (13:04): I know I'm going to the gym. I know I'm going out to nature, but once I get there, I kind of change it up. And that's also part of my process that I share. Sometimes that changing it up is an internal dialogue that's happening while I'm doing it. And I think that's another part of the process. Where, I get to the gym, I'm only going to be here for 20 minutes, but then 15 minutes in, I'm renegotiating with myself to go a little bit further.   Geoff Allix (13:30): Yeah.   Mathew Embry (13:32): And if I'm too structured, then I find, I can't have that same, listening to what the body wants. But I wouldn't overdo anything if that makes sense.   Geoff Allix (13:42): Yeah. So you're not going to injure yourself.   Mathew Embry (13:44): No.   Geoff Allix (13:45): Yeah. There was an interesting... A guy in the UK, Scotland, I think, called Graeme Obree, who was a cyclist. And he had the one-hour record for a while and he was quite an in interesting character because he made his own bikes. And they made really weird, structured bikes and they ended up banning all of those because you have to use a normal bike eventually. But one of the things he said was that he would go out, he'd get fully in his cycling gear and he'd go out, get on his bike and be on the road before he'd allow himself to say that he ate too much to go cycling. He'd go through all the prep. So you wouldn't have that excuse of... He'd be there, he'd be on his bike and then say, "No, my legs are really sore. I really shouldn't be doing it, and I'll get off." But he had to make himself, even if he knew he was [crosstalk 00:14:31].   Mathew Embry (14:30): I understand.   Geoff Allix (14:31): And I thought, "Yeah, okay, I get that." You've kind of... And then once you take that first step, you're like, "Yeah, actually it's nice. It's outside and it's yeah." Or make yourself run in the rain. You know? If it's raining, I'm still going to go out running. I'm just... Because once you do it, it's okay. It's all right.   Mathew Embry (14:47): Once you do it. And then the question is that conversation is daily and that's... I also try to share with the people, I've been in this for over 20 years. I still get it. I get it. You know, yesterday morning I woke up and it was minus whatever, here in Canada. I don't want to run outside. But as soon as I get going, then I'm like, let's go.   Geoff Allix (15:04): Yeah. And so one of the things I've seen, sort of hashtags and things, and the saying you have is, "No cheat days." So does that apply? Is that for everything? Or is that for exercise, for diet? What do you mean by... When I see your hashtag, "No cheat days," what does that mean?   Mathew Embry (15:25): Again, this is in response to so many people asking me if I've had a cheat day. That used to be one of the most often asked questions. So I'm like, "Well, no, I don't." And I think that's... The part of this program is the vigilance and the discipline. And I try to really share that with people that there's no kind of off switch here. Let's say when it comes to dairy, there's been recent science that's come out to demonstrate how problematic dairy could possibly be. Well, if you're going to have that once a week, I think that works out to about 15% of your life. You're going to be having dairy. Well, don't expect to be at a hundred percent if 15% of your life you're eating things that are detrimental to you.   Mathew Embry (16:07): So then, well, and if that's your level, if 85% is as high as you want to get, okay, then that's as high as you want to go. But you're only going down from there, in my opinion. So then the question is, okay, with no cheat days, well, every single day is an opportunity to reach and pursue optimal health. And it's up to you. As each choice comes in, each meal you have, each time you exercise, each opportunity you take to be positive and do these types of things, how high you want to take your life?   Geoff Allix (16:35): And how would you measure progress for people? Let's say specifically with exercise, how would you measure someone's progress? Because it's, we're not typical of the general population. I've got MS, you've got MS. So how do you measure your progress with exercise? Because I've come from a background where I ran, I did marathons. I did a lot of sports and stuff and my kids are crazily sporty. So it's all about times, it's all about distances, all about weights. But how do you measure progress now?   Mathew Embry (17:11): For me it's still, it's incremental. And I try to share that with people. I mean, I'm doing things too that are quite, whatever that would mean, at a level where they're competitive, but for me it's still... It's incremental shift. So if someone's struggling with disability, like with disabilities, okay, can you walk to the end of your driveway today? Well then, can you walk to the end of your driveway plus a little bit down the block and get back? And it's like, you've got to be able to find those. And I think your point to make, to find those measurables is really important because how do you know if you're getting better?   Mathew Embry (17:48): I don't know.   Geoff Allix (17:48): Yeah.   Mathew Embry (17:49): And so in someone's journey, maybe it's walking around the block, in one year, is a big thing. Well, that's fantastic. That's the goal. Measure every single day, how you are going to get there. And that's one thing I talked about too, is hard accounting. And that hard accounting is when are you going to, when do you decide to do that? Are you going to do that weekly? Are you going to do that monthly? Where you're just accounting for your time and you're holding yourself accountable for what you've done. So for me, it's a little bit of a blur right now because it's races that I'm going for, I'm trying to achieve. But I'm still trying to figure it out, can I do this? Can I do that? What is this going to take? And then trying to measure how I feel on a... Almost on a daily basis.   Geoff Allix (18:33): Yeah. And I think the smart watch is quite a handy thing to have, because that's the thing I use. I'm like, "Okay, I've got to do as many steps as I did yesterday." Try and just... Because I know, yeah. I'm not going to increase it. If I increased it by a thousand steps every day, then before I knew it that'd be, I'd be running constantly. But if I could just get... Yeah, that's my benchmark. Just like, okay. Just a little bit further. If we could just get a little bit further.   Mathew Embry (18:59): Yeah.   Geoff Allix (19:01): Because yeah, I mean, and we are middle aged men, so ultimately, we're not maybe at our athletic peak. I know I'm not going to hit the physical things that I did before I had MS, and certainly when I was 20, but yeah. But if I'm improving a little bit each time.   Mathew Embry (19:21): Yeah. But you're bringing up a really interesting idea that I've been giving a lot of thought to lately about sports systems. Because you said something interesting. And just what you said. You said, "I'm not at the peak of my life." Well, you're not at the peak of your life in regard to where you were in a certain system. So when you were 25, that may have been peak athleticism for you at... For 25 to say 28-year-olds.   Mathew Embry (19:44): Okay. But at 50 or 45, whatever I am, what's peak athleticism at where I should be?   Geoff Allix (19:50): Yes. That's a very good point. Yeah.   Mathew Embry (19:54): And I think it's about... What I think, where our society globally maybe has gone wrong, is we stop. Once you're through college sports and maybe you played semi-pro or something or whatever the case, then it's just like, "Well, that's as far as you go." And like, that's the peak. Well, for me, I redefine that. Where I'm like, no, no, no. I need to find out where my peak is now at 45, and how am I competing there? Because no one cares what I did yesterday, but people still care what I do today. So am I still at the peak? Or can I... Am I finding the peak of where I should be today?   Geoff Allix (20:27): That's a really good... Yeah. A good way of looking at it, I think for, yeah. Because a lot of people I think, who are not necessarily diagnosed, but certainly coming around to lifestyle modification. A lot of the people I come across are in that age range of certainly thirties, forties, fifties. And so yeah, maybe they shouldn't be judging... And it's very difficult to judge yourself against who you were before. Before I had MS. My balance is a bit shot now. It's like, I'm not going to be doing some of the things I was doing then. So. But yeah, I'm a nearly 51-year-old guy with MS, so I'm doing well for that.   Mathew Embry (21:10): Yeah, exactly.   Geoff Allix (21:11): Yeah.   Mathew Embry (21:12): Yeah. I get it.   Geoff Allix (21:14): And what would you say is the best type of exercise for people with MS?   Mathew Embry (21:19): Well, this is a good question. I mean, I actually met Dr. Jelinek in Australia years ago. It was one of the... Well, one of the peak experiences of my life, probably. He's such a hero to me and we were able to talk and he said something that really stuck with me. He said the two words, "Vigorous exercise." And I was like, that's it. That's exactly it. That's what I've been doing. It's vigorous. And it's getting the blood flow and it's... So the question becomes, okay, well then it doesn't really matter what you do as long as it's vigorous. As long as you're getting the blood flowing and you're getting that, the prosody out of the brain, whether that be the blood, or I don't know how the lymph system works, but all those types of things are just kind of flow. Like the blood flow. So that's where I share with people. And I do Q and A's, I'm like, "I don't care what you do. Just do something."   Geoff Allix (22:14): But you're actually... So when you say that blood flow, you're getting out of breath, you're getting like-   Mathew Embry (22:19): Yeah, I'm getting out of breath, I'm sweating, I'm turning red.   Geoff Allix (22:25): Yeah.   Mathew Embry (22:25): You know, I'm doing all those things. And that's what I remember Dr. Jelinek said that he did too. It made total sense to me. I'm like, that's so... That's what I've been doing as well.   Geoff Allix (22:32): He also lives near to an outdoor swimming pool, which I'm really jealous of, but.   Mathew Embry (22:36): Yeah, right.   Geoff Allix (22:37): Yeah. If I had a 50-meter outdoor swimming pool and lived in a country which was warm enough to use it every day, that'd be fantastic. So, yeah. So I think that's a key point there. So you, so it's really that sort of getting out of breath, not just like doing bicep curls and getting big guns, is not necessarily going to do everything for your health in that respect then.   Mathew Embry (23:06): I don't know. I can't necessarily speak to that because I didn't, that's not what I've done. It's been 26 years now of vigorous exercise. And whether that's running, swimming, sports, all sorts of different things. And I think that blood flow component has been major for me. And I think if you are lifting weights and you're doing that thing and you are getting the blood flow, then maybe that does it too. But I don't, I just don't know. I've also looked online and seen like apparatus that they're creating to create that type of blood flow for people who maybe can't stand up. They pump the legs and they pump the arms, they just... To get that blood flowing. And I'm really interested in that for people. And I just think that blood flow and that circulation is just so important for good health.   Geoff Allix (23:53): So that comes on to the point I was going to make. People with mobility problems. So what would you suggest if someone's, maybe they're in a wheelchair, maybe they're bed bound, can they still do exercise in that way?   Mathew Embry (24:09): That's a tough question. I mean, I think that's where experts like Dr. Gretchen Hawley come in, where they can offer people solutions to that. And then again, I also look at these other apparatuses or these medical devices. Can these be... I don't know if they're helpful, but I think we should look at them. And if they are creating additional blood flow for people who are immobile, then that seems really important. But the one thing I do share over and over too is just, do what you can, whatever stage you're in. Just from my perspective, you got to keep moving.   Geoff Allix (24:46): Yeah. There was, I can't remember. It was one of the MS exercise specialists was just showing that people could do essentially running in a chair. Doing the upper body bit of running, you can get really out of breath. And there's a guy I interviewed, Marc Webb, who... He plays wheelchair rugby.   Mathew Embry (25:05): Right. Wow.   Geoff Allix (25:05): And I think, yeah, that, I mean... Yeah, he's not got the balance and everything to use, for his legs, but that looks like a pretty full-on workout. And it mentioned something else that I've seen you bring up as well about team sports. So what do you think the benefit of team sports is?   Mathew Embry (25:25): Again, that's a complicated question. I think that there's... Like for team sports, I think they're, it's so important to learn how to get along with people. You know, that's one thing for sure. The other aspect is I think it also holds you accountable. And I think that's also important in this journey. You know, the accountability mirror for me is literally looking at myself, but I also... Just because I've gone public, I'm now accountable to all these people.   Geoff Allix (25:56): Yeah.   Mathew Embry (25:56): So, if I say, "No cheat days," well, I better live it. And if I haven't worked out, whatever the case, I have a sense of accountability. And then also too, I think for people... I mean the one thing with people I worry about sometimes with MS is they may feel, "Because I have MS I can't participate at a certain level." And that's where I think a team sport could be really important. Where, you go swim with people who don't have MS, or don't talk about this type of stuff. Well, that's good too. I think that's all really great to integrate it, to be able to integrate into other populations and not feel less than, or those types of things that I think something people can struggle with. Maybe I have at times wondered, you know.   Mathew Embry (26:40): Actually, that's not true. I've always been pretty, "I have MS, I'm coming for you."   Geoff Allix (26:46): And how about if people have heat issues? Do you have anything to deal with that side of things? Because I mean, I think it goes both ways actually as well. Because I mean, I have heat issues and I don't deal with heat well, like high temperatures well, since I've had MS. But I've been snowboarding a few times with MS, and I just, I go snowboarding now. I don't have a whole load of thermal stuff on. Really quite limited amount, compared to what I used to have, when I was younger. Because when it's cold, I'm great. But when it's hot, much less so.   Mathew Embry (27:20): Interesting. Yeah. Interesting.   Geoff Allix (27:23): [crosstalk 00:27:23] The other way around, where they go, "Oh I know, heat's great. I'm fine with heat, but no to cold. I'm terrible."   Mathew Embry (27:27): Yeah. I'm that. I'm that person. [crosstalk 00:27:30].   Geoff Allix (27:29): You live in the wrong place.   Mathew Embry (27:32): Even before doing this interview, I had to get a sweater because I'm like, I'm going to get cold here. I've had to find ways to stay warm. And I think that's... It's no different than with the cooling. And it's interesting you bring it up because someone just wrote me, they're going to send me a cooling vest. And for me, I don't really, I don't necessarily need it, but I'm like, "Okay, great." And I actually thought, "Maybe I'll go on social media and see who needs it?" And then I'll give it away and then see how they do. Like if they write me back and say, "This has been fantastic, maybe I'll send it to you."   Mathew Embry (28:00): Like, if this has really helped me, then go for it. It's about finding environments that you're able to do it. Like you said, in the snow, that sounds great. And it's about finding the gear. I mean, if you see me at the gym, I come in with a tank. I have another layer on. I wear these types of wool shirts to the gym because I know I've got to be able to heat up. And once I can heat up, then I'm good to go. But getting there is challenging for me, but you can put me in a sauna for a long time.   Geoff Allix (28:33): Oh I see that. Yeah. I mean, it is funny, isn't it? I don't know if there's much research we've done on this because it does seem to affect everyone with MS, one way or the other. But I've literally, I've been in the sauna once since I've been diagnosed with MS.   Mathew Embry (28:48): Really?   Geoff Allix (28:49): And that was at Glastonbury Festival. Glastonbury's not so far from me so I go quite a lot and there's a sauna there and you can... It's a place where you can get a shower, which is an important thing at Glastonbury Festival. But it was terrible. I literally, I thought I'm not going to get out of here. This is so... It was like, I just couldn't walk.   Mathew Embry (29:15): Wow.   Geoff Allix (29:15): Really. And then I basically laid down on the grass for about half an hour because I was just in terrible state. But yeah. I just, yeah. Be interesting if there's some research done. I'm sure there... Maybe there is. But just avoid it, basically, is what you're saying. You want to go for warm? I'll go for cold.   Mathew Embry (29:30): Yeah.   Geoff Allix (29:31): [crosstalk 00:29:31] look at each other. So I look through your outside window, I can see there in front of the... Nice and cold outside.   Mathew Embry (29:36): Yeah. It's cold.   Geoff Allix (29:39): The way you looked at that was with worry. I'd look at that as, yeah, I quite fancy [inaudible 00:29:45]. So one more exercise question. More weight or more reps, would you say is good for you with exercise?   Mathew Embry (29:55): Again, this is from a personal experience, I'm a rep kind of person. For me, it's all about reps. I got weights downstairs, nothing more than 25 pounds. That's been part of my process. Again, I'm not an expert in this, so maybe there's someone who knows more, but my process has been endurance running, low weight, high reps. And that's been over 25 years now.   Geoff Allix (30:26): I was thinking this today because I was doing some reasonable weight for me, now, but I'm kind of still going with what I did when I was younger, which was, let's start out with three sets of eight. Then you do three sets of 10. Then you do three sets of 12. Once you can do three sets of 12, you go up a weight, you go back to three sets of eight.   Mathew Embry (30:49): Yeah, I remember that. Yeah.   Geoff Allix (30:52): And I was doing that today and I thought, "I don't know if this is the best way of doing it." I don't know whether I should be [inaudible 00:30:58]. Why am I stopping at 12? I've seen some exercise stuff with you and you seem to be actually almost like you're not really doing reps. You're like, "Actually no, I'm going to do a lower weight and I'm just going to keep doing it for a lot longer."   Mathew Embry (31:14): Keep doing it. Yeah. For a lot longer. And I don't use things like weight benches and that type of stuff. I try to do a lot of balance as well. If I'm doing weights, I'm lifting my legs at the same time and trying to figure out, not like jumping jacks, but always moving.   Geoff Allix (31:30): Yeah.   Mathew Embry (31:31): That kind of thing. So I don't really use those traditional machines either that much.   Geoff Allix (31:36): And that's-   Mathew Embry (31:39): I see it like a... I have a really paleolithic kind of perspective of my body. So I just think, "What would a cave person do?" You know, they'd lift a rock and they'd... What would they need to do?   Geoff Allix (31:55): And that applies to so many things as well. Vitamin D. We would've lived somewhere sunny and we might have worn a rabbit pelt round our waist or something. Yeah.   Mathew Embry (32:07): Sure.   Geoff Allix (32:07): We'd have got loads of vitamin D. We wouldn't have had dairy because we didn't have a farm full of cows, let alone cheese. We just ate what we could find. And we did loads of exercise. We got loads of vitamin D. We ate natural food that we could forage and find. And basically, we're almost saying, I mean, I don't... This paleo is sort of like almost tagline now, isn't it? And that's not necessarily... Sometimes you think, "Really? They actually eat that?" Like Bulletproof coffees and things, but yeah, if you sort of think, yeah, it does make sense. A lot of that stuff, that's kind of how we're made, isn't it?   Geoff Allix (32:50): It's really interesting to speak to you. I think there's a lot of stuff. There's certainly... I mean, I don't like this idea of Overcoming MS or MS Hope being in competition because I've certainly heard that sort of thing in the past. I just think we need to look at the overlaps between all these things, and there's so many similarities. And in fact, the more I speak to you, some of the things which may be that are not necessarily highlighted by your website, like, "Yeah, don't smoke. Do something mindful."   Geoff Allix (33:15): And all those things like vitamin D, we mentioned, exercise, whole food diet is... I just think, yeah. For everyone really. So could I ask you one last question though? Something we often ask people. If someone's newly diagnosed with MS, what would be your key, best piece of advice to them?   Mathew Embry (33:41): Change their diet right now.   Geoff Allix (33:43): And go-   Mathew Embry (33:45): ... Right now.   Geoff Allix (33:45): Full on? Like you have to do it a hundred percent?   Mathew Embry (33:49): Yeah.   Geoff Allix (33:49): Yeah.   Mathew Embry (33:50): Yeah. Because I think that it's... I mean, I don't want to get too kind of out there, but illness is... For me, now I've had this over 25 years. Okay? So I have a very different maybe perspective now. I almost see sometimes, not all the time, but sometimes illness can be a call to adventure and it can be... It can change your whole journey. For you to go, "Okay, here I am today. And here's where I want to go, to opt towards optimal health." Well, going towards optimal health is going to... You're going to have to transform your life radically. Because your life to that point, got you there. "Okay. Got it. Now, what do I have to change to not have this outcome, which is illness or disease?" The key component to that, one of the keys, is nutrition. And that is very hard to shift. It's very hard to change.   Geoff Allix (34:45): And one of the things that George [inaudible 00:34:49] says, it's like turning around an oil tanker as well. So yeah, it's not a quick fix. You're going to have to... And like you're saying, start day one. Because if you don't start turning the oil tanker, it's not going to turn. It's going to take a long time to turn it around. You need to turn, keep it going in another direction is a difficult thing.   Mathew Embry (35:06): Yeah. And then I think that... but it can start right now. If you're listening to this podcast, you can go to your fridge and change. And that's where I try to tell people, "It's you. You have the power to have incredible transformation in your life right now. You just need to decide." And then I also tell people too, "Find the outcomes you're looking for. Find the people who you look at and you think, hey, that's what I want to be." And then go learn what they did. You know? And the thing is people who normally succeed in something, they want to tell you all about it because they've enjoyed it, and they enjoy where they are. And so they... Why would you not want to share it? And so you're in luck. Not only can you find the person you want to aspire to, that person's very likely going to want to help you get there.   Geoff Allix (35:57): Okay. With that, thank you very much, Mat Embry, and I'd encourage everyone to have a look. The links are all on the show notes. Mathew is... I call you Mat again. Sorry. I keep saying-   Mathew Embry (36:08): That's okay.   Geoff Allix (36:09): I want to call you Mat. So Mathew's all over social media. You'll find links to all his different social media outlets, but yeah. Check out the MS Hope website as well.   Mathew Embry (36:19): All right. Thank you very much.   Geoff Allix (36:27): Thank you for listening to this episode of Living Well with MS. Please check out this episode's show notes at www.overcomingms.org/podcast. You'll find all sorts of useful links and bonus information there. Do you have questions about this episode or ideas about future ones? Email us at podcast@overcomingms.org. We'd love to hear from you. You can also subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast platform, so you never miss an episode.   Geoff Allix (36:55): Living Well with MS is kindly supported by a grant from the Happy Charitable Trust. If you'd like to support the Overcoming MS charity and help keep our podcast advertising free, you can donate online at www.overcomingms.org/donate. To learn more about Overcoming MS and its array of free content and programs, including webinars, recipes, exercise guides, OMS circles, our global network of community support groups, and more, please visit our website at www.overcomingms.org. While you're there, don't forget to register for our monthly e-newsletter so you can stay informed about the podcast and other news and updates from Overcoming MS. Thanks again for tuning in and see you next time.   Geoff Allix (37:38): The Living Well with MS family of podcasts is for private, non-commercial use, and exists to educate and inspire our community of listeners. We do not offer medical advice. For medical advice, please contact your doctor or other licensed healthcare professional. Our guests are carefully selected, but all opinions they express are solely their own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of the Overcoming MS charity, its affiliates, or staff.

Coffee Break with community member Tessa Jane Miles | S4E10

Welcome to Living Well with MS Coffee Break #30, where we are pleased to welcome Tessa Jane Miles as our guest!   Our Coffee Break series is your chance to get to know members of our diverse OMS community. In each episode, you’ll join Geoff Allix for an intimate chat with a different member of our global community. Our guests will share their personal stories and talk about their challenges and victories, large and small. We hope you find common cause and a source of inspiration from the stories of these very special people.   As always, your comments and suggestions are always welcome by emailing podcast@overcomingms.org. Tessa Jane will paint your day in colors galore discussing how she uses art to raise awareness about MS. We hope you enjoy this episode’s conversation with her, coming to you straight from Devon in the UK.   Tessa Jane’s Bio (in her own words):   My name is Tessa Jane, and I am an artist. My best days are the ones when I forget I have MS. My body tingles with the joy nature bestows – the birdsong, the warm light, or fresh wind on my face. I have an inner glow of happiness and capturing that and applying it to paper, cloth, or any surface continues that delight, taking me to a world of imagination and beauty. It’s a release. I don’t focus on fear or anxiety.    My body is clear of pain, words trip off my tongue elegantly. I can balance and am full of energy. I have clear, present thoughts which spur me on, and I am happy. The only trembling or shaking is because of excitement and laughter. My body is light, and spirit lifted.    Following the Overcoming Multiple Sclerosis (OMS) program has brought me more of these days. Learning to be mindful, present, and to meditate has reduced stress and lightened a heavy heart. I do not sit cross-legged, humming. I walk amongst trees, or around my garden. I float in water, or I draw and create. Gardening, writing, sewing, and knitting are all mindful activities which help to reduce stress and lower life’s adrenaline. I watch and listen to birds, taste my food, and listen to the rhythms of the day.    I look for small joys on the bad days. A steaming coffee cup. The light on a golden leaf. Or frost patterns on a car roof. A warm fire or a bowl of tasty soup.   Being part of OMS and belonging to an OMS Circle is a comfort blanket. They have become my family and will help shoulder the weight, give good advice, and make me laugh about the detritus that living with multiple sclerosis brings. My walks, creativity, and time in nature is my mindfulness. I’d like to encourage you to find your ways of being present. I’ve pledged to raise £10,000 for 10 years. I can’t do it alone but can with help and support from friends and family. Not all of us can run, but many can write, whittle, knit, sew, crochet, or paint. Join my 10 for 10 campaign and get in touch to find out how (see links below).   Questions:   Tessa Jane, welcome to Living Well with MS Coffee Break. We’re so pleased to have you on our program. The purpose of this series is to better get to know some of the diverse members of our community from around the world, and today you’re in the hot seat. You and I are neighbors in Devon, and part of the same OMS Circle, so a very special welcome indeed! Can you tell us a little about your day-to-day life? When were you diagnosed with MS? Can you provide some context on that? When were you diagnosed and how did you initially deal with it? At which point did you come across the OMS program? How was that experience for you? Why did you decide to start following it? How do you feel the OMS program connects with people of varying abilities? For example, how might someone who faces more physical challenges relate to the program? Can you share any insights from obstacles you may have faced in adopting the OMS program, how you overcame them, and how this experience might help others? Let’s shift gears a little bit and talk about your art. Can you tell us a little bit about your background as an artist, and your relationship to art? You’re a big proponent of using art to raise awareness about MS, and moreover people with MS using creativity as one of the tools to boost mindfulness and manage their condition and their health. Can you share a bit about how you see that working? Putting that theory to work, you’re involved in a very special event happening in May, I believe – the Delamore Arts exhibition. Overcoming MS is a charity partner for this event as well. Can you share what this is all about, and how it represents your philosophy about art as healing in practice? Going a bit deeper into the creative rabbit hole, I understand you’re quite interested in brain scan-based AR. That sounds futuristic! What is that all about and how does it relate to your linked interests in art and MS? Tessa Jane, thank you so much for being on Living Well with MS Coffee Break and allowing our community to get to know one of its own a little better. One last question before you go, and it’s a bit of a tradition in that we ask it of all our Coffee Break guests. If you tap into your experience with MS generally and OMS specifically for a nugget of wisdom that would help people ease into and better adopt the OMS program, what would that advice be?   Tessa Jane’s Links:   Check out Tessa Jane on Instagram here and here, all about raising MS awareness through art. You can follow Tessa Jane on Twitter here. Have a look at Tessa Jane’s art on Facebook here and here. Learn more about Delamore Arts.   Coming up on our next episode:   On the next episode of Living Well with MS, premiering April 27, 2022, please join us for a very special conversation with Mathew Embry, an internationally recognized documentary filmmaker and advocate for people and families dealing with MS. After being diagnosed with MS in 1995, Mathew is currently symptom-free of MS and freely shares the science-based strategies he uses to control his MS through MS Hope. You won’t want to miss this inspirational interview!   Don’t miss out:   Subscribe to this podcast and never miss an episode. You can catch any episode of Living Well with MS here or on your favorite podcast listening app. For your convenience, a full episode transcript is also available on all platforms within 72 hours of each episode’s premiere. If you like our program, don’t be shy and leave a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you tune into the show. And feel free to share your comments and suggestions for future guests and episode topics by emailing podcast@overcomingms.org.   S4E50b Transcript Coffee Break #30 with Tessa Jane Miles   Geoff Allix (00:01): Welcome to Living Well with MS Coffee Break, a part of the Living Well with MS podcast family from Overcoming MS, the world's leading multiple sclerosis healthy lifestyle charity, celebrating its 10th year of serving the MS community. I'm your host, Geoff Allix. Today, you'll meet someone living with MS from our diverse and global Overcoming MS community.   Our Coffee Break series invites you into the lives of each guest. They share their personal MS journeys and speak openly about their challenges and victories, large and small. We hope you find some common cause and a source of inspiration from the stories of these very special people.   You can check out our show notes for more information and useful links. You can find these on our website, at www.overcomingms.org/podcast. If you enjoy the show, please spread the word about us on your social media channels or leave a review wherever you tune into our podcast.   Finally, don't forget to subscribe to Living Well with MS on your favorite podcast platform so you never miss an episode. So, get your favorite beverage ready and let's meet today's guest on Living Well with MS Coffee Break.   Welcome to Living well with MS Coffee Break #30, where we are pleased to welcome Tessa Jane Miles as our guest. As always, your comments and suggestions are welcome, by emailing podcast@overcomingms.org. Tessa Jane will paint your day in colors galore, discussing how she uses art to raise awareness about MS. We hope you enjoy this episode's conversation with her, coming to you straight from Devon in the UK.   Tessa, welcome to Living Well with MS Coffee Break. We're so pleased to have you on our program. The purpose of this series, to explain, is to get to know some of the diverse members of the community from around the world and today, you are in the hot seat.   You're effectively neighbors with me, because I'm in North Devon in the UK and you're in South Devon. We're part of the same broader Southwest UK OMS circle. So, a very special welcome from the Southwest of the UK. Could you tell us a bit about your day-to-day life?   Tessa Jane Miles (02:11): Hi, Geoff, thank you. Yeah, hotspot. Well, I'm sat here with my coffee and my day-to-day life has changed slightly with the new addition of a dog. I tend to get up and take him out, which I'm finding quite exhausting, because I'll often have a slow start. I find that if I get up when I wake and my body is ready, I have a better day than if I try to force things.   So, I've been falling asleep in the afternoons and evenings, much to my husband Adrian's amusement. I don't get to see the end of any program because I'm asleep before it happens. I try not to have fixed days, but that's kind of the key thing. It usually revolves around art or my garden or being outside.   Geoff Allix (03:03): About MS, when were you diagnosed with MS and how was that?   Tessa Jane Miles (03:10): Oh, it was really terrifying actually. I'd separated from my previous husband and I was on my own with the girls. We'd had an amazing time getting ourselves resettled and then suddenly, I started to have problems with my sight and it was deteriorating.   It reminds me of The Matrix with Keanu Reeves, where it all started to pixelate and do strange things. By November 2008, I wasn't safe to drive. I couldn't see properly and I ended up having to stop teaching, because I wasn't safe in the classroom.   I'd been to Royal Eye Infirmary and they’d said, "Well, there's three possibilities. There's a brain tumor, you could have an infection which we can't treat or it might be multiple sclerosis." I'm thinking, "I don't really want any of them, thanks. Is there not a fourth option?"   So, I went through a very difficult six months, which I know now, from experience, I was lucky. Because many people are what we call no man's land, in that they've had one relapse or they've had one sclerosis and you are called CIS or it's just one incident, but then it happened again in April 2009.   Then, I got the full diagnosis and I'd learned that it was optical neuritis. There was nothing wrong with my eyes. Started to learn and understand what was happening with MS. Life changed dramatically. I stopped teaching and I found myself alone and scared and bored, with no focus.   I was playing Farmville and my sleeping hours were all over the place. I was harvesting my crops at two o'clock in the morning because I couldn't sleep. It was all pretty rubbish, to be honest. I didn't really know who to turn to or who to talk about it with. So, yeah.   Geoff Allix (05:37): I think there is, because we live in the same county, I mean, I've felt that there really aren’t people around, are there? We live in quite a rural county. I mean, the OMS Circle has meant that I've met people. Until the OMS Circle, I hadn't met anyone with MS. They're few and far between, just geographically. Yeah, you don't really feel connected, do you?   Tessa Jane Miles (06:10): No, and people have very different ideas of what MS is. I mean, I'd come out of one relationship and I met Adrian. How do you explain to somebody that you've got MS? I can remember someone saying, "Well, yeah. If you were married, you'd just get on with it. But who might want to commit to somebody who, do they need all that? What's their experience of it?" Yeah, it was tough.   I liked to dance. I was doing salsa dancing and I found that that helped keep me fit. I had quite a good diet before, but I didn't know anything about it really. I'm an artist and a designer and I make fabrics. One of my real joys is to take something that's been discarded and make it precious again. Which is a bit of a metaphor, really, for myself, in that I felt discarded.   Whereas OMS has helped me to feel precious again, but we'll come to that a bit more later. But the important link is that I needed to make was buttons. I went to meet an upholsterer who had a machine to do them. His name is Bruce, Bruce Jacks, and he's in our OMS Circle.   He's not fully OMS, but he values being able to feel connected, which is something else that we are aware of as ambassadors. That there is a degree of difference between purists and people trying to build up or trying to find a balance that they're comfortable with.   Then suddenly, he just blurted out about having MS and I was gobsmacked. He said, "Oh, I haven't told you that before, have I?" I said, "Well, no. I'm gobsmacked because I have it too." It created a bond instantly, and this is something else that we find on our Circles.   That, because you have this commonality and you have this understanding, this innate understanding of what it is like to have MS, that you don't have to explain that, because we all get it. That's really, really important. But it was him that took me to The Merlin Center at St. Austell, which is one of the specialist centers we have in Devon and the Southwest. I met Jeremy Hobart, or he was Dr. Hobart then, and I learned about the OMS program. I met Colin Bannon and he said, "Well, we've got a group in Plymouth. You can come." But also, very importantly, this lovely lady stood up holding the book, saying how she couldn't walk and now she was walking with sticks. How it had changed her life. Her name was Angela and she's also in our Circle. So, it's kind of drawn all these threads together and tied knots and helped…   Geoff Allix (09:19): What was the key thing that tipped you into thinking, "I'm going to follow this program"? Because I mean, there's some doctors fully supporting of it. But generally, there's a, "Well, yeah, healthy diet's good for you." But, full-on support of OMS is unusual, to say the least.   Tessa Jane Miles (09:46): Yeah, it is, isn't it? I just thought it was a no brainer, in that it's good for you. There's nothing in it that suggests that it would be bad for you in any way, shape, or form. It's a lifestyle choice, it's not a quick fad thing that's going to fix you. You do it and you're on it and that's for life.   Yeah, I just thought, "I'm not going to lose out here. It could help me." The scientific evidence was obviously incredibly important because it felt like that there was real substance behind it. As I say to anybody that asks me about it, I say, "Well, it's not hard to give up something which might mean that you have a better life. Longevity, physicality, mental, all of it."   I was really struggling with fatigue and energy and strength. I thought, "Well, if this helps those things alone, that's going to be good." So, I had a big last supper. I had my roast chicken and my potatoes and everything that, at the time, I thought I wouldn't be able to have. But, as you get better with the diet, you learn ways around it.   Yeah, and then I started, cold turkey. Within the first week, I was in tears, missing so many things. Had the wrong attitude in my head about what I could have. I didn't chuck everything out. One of the things that the book suggests is you chuck everything out that's not OMS friendly. I couldn't afford to do that, it wasn't practical. So, we've sort of used things up a bit, but overall, I embraced it.   Geoff Allix (11:45): We are actually quite lucky, in that we do have a neurologist in Devon. Professor Hobart actually does give out the Overcoming MS books.   Tessa Jane Miles (11:54): Yeah.   Geoff Allix (11:54): So, there are some neurologists out there who are very, very positive for that. I mean, he's not my neurologist, but I'm very aware that he's very pro Overcoming MS. This may be somewhat ageist, which I shouldn't say as someone in their fifties, but the older neurologists might be more set in their ways sometimes. [inaudible 00:12:16] that a newer generation is coming through that's accepting of lifestyle factors. They seem to get more and more press these days.   Tessa Jane Miles (12:25): Yeah, and I think also that they're beginning to realize that the medical profession as a whole is far more positive about holistic medicine and combined medicine. At no point do they ever say, "Don't have your meds." It's a combination of things and that's very powerful too.   Although obviously, we've got examples of people who've been able to give up their meds. Because they've been on it long enough and they feel that they've got control of it and they are living a very different life. I know, probably six years now I've been doing OMS, that I am stronger. I am fitter. My fatigue is improved. I mean, we all have bad days, don't get me wrong. There are days when I don't want to step out the door and can't face the world, because I feel that you tend to put up this facade. People will say, "Oh, how are you?" I once stupidly told them exactly how I was. I watched their face completely go blank and drain of color.   I thought, "Ah, right. This is one of those British things." Like you say about the weather, "Oh, weather's good, isn't it?" "Oh, I'm fine." We've got a bit of a joke in our family that fine means Freaked out, Insecure, Nervous and Emotional. It comes from The Italian Job, with the Minis. She'll say, "I'm fine." I'm thinking, "Yeah, I am fine." And that…   Geoff Allix (13:52): Yeah. For people who are not from the UK, probably the most common greeting is, "How are you?" It's almost not intended as a question.   Tessa Jane Miles (14:02): No, they don't actually want to know how you are.   Geoff Allix (14:06): Yeah, it's just a greeting. It's just almost like saying hello. Yeah, you're constantly being asked that. I always think that "Are you actually asking how I am or are you just saying that?" Because sometimes they are asking how you are, because you say, "Oh, yeah." Or just not even really answer it and they go, "No, but, how are you?" [inaudible 00:14:23]   Tessa Jane Miles (14:24): Sometimes I'll say to people, "Is that a real how am I, or do you just want to check that I'm okay?" Then, some of my closer friends will say, "How are you? No, really, how are you?" Then it can become a more involved conversation, but it's not very often that happens. It's usually, "Yeah, I'm fine."   Geoff Allix (14:43): One thing I wanted to ask is how you feel the OMS program connects with people with differing abilities. For example, how might someone who has more of a physical challenge relate to the OMS program? They maybe have difficulty walking, for example.   Tessa Jane Miles (15:01): Well, this is my big project, my big thing at the moment. I realized, through listening to Alison Potts, and mindfulness, it's the thing that, after the diet, I found the most difficult to do. So, I've really been focusing on mindful activities and I'm aware that, or I feel that people with more physical disabilities could feel more on the outside.   As we see lots of things about being strong, MS fighter. Anything on social media, it's about, "Oh, I've done this and I'm beating that." I've watched various TED Talks and I'm focused much more on mindfulness and understanding the power of that.   I'm just doing an amazing painting course with an artist at the moment and it's so mindful and it's so meditative. Today, we were doing taste and color, so it's something that's very, very important to me, that we are all inclusive. Whatever your ability and however physically or mentally taxed you are, I feel OMS can help.   I've talked to people who can't run, who struggle with walking and they feel better. So, I'm trying to raise money for OMS. I've set myself a 10 for 10 project and I'm in inviting anybody to join me with this this year. We've got a 10 for 10 JustGiving page.   If you knit, if you sew, if you whittle, as we have Sean in our group who whittles spoons, beautiful they are. That you can find your way of doing 10, your fantastic beach rides on your trike, let's do 10 laps, or maybe you can swim better than you can run if your weight is taken off you, then do 10 minutes. We can all set ourselves goals that can be positive and enhancing, but they're real. They're smart, as I would say, SMART targets. Small, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic Targets. I really feel that you can find part of the OMS program that is most comfortable with you.   You'll know, Geoff, I've had a lot of problems with my feet and actually, walking is incredibly difficult. So, I've now got an electric bike and I can cycle better. There are ways around it. I would encourage anybody who's struggling to contact anybody. Contact us, contact OMS. Find their own Circle because it could be you do 10 stitches.   I certainly find, in the winter when I'm lower, that if I'm sitting and sewing and doing little things like that, that it keeps me active. It keeps my fine motor skills going. So, I think there is an answer to everyone's challenges. My pet project is to try and help those people find their way through.   Geoff Allix (18:26): Could you tell us about areas where you might have had problems adopting OMS? Did it all go smoothly or were there bits that were hard to adopt?   Tessa Jane Miles (18:36): Well, definitely the diet challenged me for the first couple of months, in that I was a meat eater. My passion for cheese, I still struggle. Sometimes I have to pass that block of cheese over, say, "You grate it, because I will just devour it if you leave it under my nose." Yes, there are areas that are difficult. I've lost the thread because of my good old MS. Ask me the question again.   Geoff Allix (19:03): It was just about [crosstalk 00:19:06] also, I want to apologize to listeners because outside our house, the gas mains are being replaced. So, there's lots of drilling noises that you might be able to hear in the background.   Tessa Jane Miles (19:15): No problem.   Geoff Allix (19:17): Apologies for that. It was just about, yeah, things that you've had trouble adopting in OMS. I mean you mentioned [crosstalk 00:19:23] How did you overcome those diet issues?   Tessa Jane Miles (19:27): Got the book, started looking more carefully at the book. Having met other people and sharing recipes, sharing ideas. It takes me twice as long to shop now, because I'm reading all the labels and because I've got glasses, it takes longer. Practice, basically. Good old, simple practice. That, the more you do it, the easier it gets and the better it is.   By reinforcing things, I can shop now, most of the time, and I know which things I can and can't have. Where I need to go. I've got particular shops that I go to for different things. I absolutely love vegan mayonnaise, which I can only get in Sainsbury's, for example. I've just found some new baked olive oil crisps in Tesco's, which were a bit of a win-win for a naughty treat.   Persevere, talk to others, that's what's got me through. Being part of a family, being part of the OMS Circle and sharing those things has made a huge difference. But also, the mindfulness has been a real problem, and meditating. I have to confess that when I first started to do it, I was asleep within 10 minutes every time.   When I came up to Edinburgh and heard Craig's voice and I had to smile to myself because I thought, "Oh, bless. He's the one that's been sending me them." [inaudible 00:20:54] But, listening to Alison Potts about finding different ways to be mindful, and that we are not designed to sit like Buddhist monks and that has just been brilliant.   That's what I'm actually starting tomorrow. So, today is the last day of February, this podcast won't go out until later, but Mindful March. I'm trying to show different ways of meditating. When you go out, find 10 things. If you can't walk, then, like our dear Angela does, goes out in her little motor scooter. Listen for 10 birds. Listen and you'll be in the moment, you'll be present.   This painting course that I've just been doing, again, it's about how you apply the paint and being mindful of the direction. Today, we ate fruit. Well, I ate fruit, somebody else had chocolate and I was like, "No, don't go there Tess." Yeah, just being much more alive, now, in the moment. But it's taken me a long time to start to get this. It's about repetition, about practice.   Geoff Allix (22:14): You mentioned art there. Could you tell us a bit about your background as an artist and relationship to art?   Tessa Jane Miles (22:22): It's the thing that really keeps me going, to be honest. I trained as a fine art textiler, I trained as a weaver and a craftsperson. I ended up teaching because of my family and children, but I've always done my own work and continued to do my own work.   Then, through teaching and through studies, I realized that it wasn't enough to just make work that looks nice. It had to have an underlying meaning, a story. It had to have a conceptual element to it. There was a lovely quote today where it said, "You just end up pushing pretty paint colors around the page." That's not enough for me.   My work at the moment is about being mindful, it's about what it's like to have MS and to try and get those feelings, those emotions across. But, still in a way that is positive, uplifting, to tell the story. It will be part of this work that I'm doing in May with Delamore Arts. Where they are supporting OMS as their charity. I've got a £10,000 target…   Geoff Allix (23:40): We'll go onto that in a minute, but can I just ask, before we go on to that, about people with MS using creativity. Not, well, art, but broader creative arts as one of the tools to boost mindfulness and manage their MS condition. Could you share a bit about that?   Tessa Jane Miles (24:05): Yeah, absolutely. Basically, you are sitting predominantly. I mean, some people stand when they paint and what have you. But, because you are focusing on what you are doing right now, the marks that you are making on paper or the stitches that you are doing, your breath slows, your mind calms.   You can find that you are in a very meditative state. Even if you're just mixing colors, you are focusing on what's happening right there, right now. So, you are therefore meditating. You are therefore being mindful and you are practicing mindfulness.   I can start with music on, which again, is another way of listening. Listening to music is another mindful thing. It takes you to a different place. It takes you to somewhere outside of your overthinking, your worrying. It will lower those stress levels and it will reduce those things.   Yeah, you can get your knickers in a twist about not being able to do something, but that, again, it comes with practice and getting better. Picasso said, "I practice the things I can't do until I can." That's the key element about mindfulness. Find a way.   As Alison says, "If you are angry, how can you expect to sit calmly?" You need to do something energetic. So, going out for a walk or putting some really loud music on. During COVID, when I was really struggling, I was listening to Music by Humans, Gary Barlow. It was just full of percussion and saxophones and joyful.   It would knock those blues out and help bring back the joy of living. That's what I would recommend. Anything that's creative, writing, music, involved in any of the senses. If you cook and you love to bake, then take time in thinking about those ingredients that you're putting in. The taste and the flavors and the feel of the mixing. Anything that we do in that form.   Geoff Allix (26:24): Back to the Delamore Arts exhibition. You've been instrumental in setting up Overcoming MS being the charity partner for this event in May.   Tessa Jane Miles (26:24): Yeah.   Geoff Allix (26:37): Could you tell us a bit about it and how that connects with your art as healing?   Tessa Jane Miles (26:46): They're celebrating 20 years, we're celebrating 10. So, I pitched to say, "Would you consider us?" And they said yes. The reason I did it was because World MS day is the 30th of May, Delamore Arts runs throughout May. It seemed serendipitous that they be together.   It's about sculptures and a trail in the gardens, which is about being outside. Gardening is another mindful thing. It's about a community, they bring a lot of different people together and that's one of the World MS Day focuses, is community. How being in outside spaces helps calm and heal us. It's about being creative.   I mean, Delamore Arts, there's literally something for everyone. They have so many diverse styles, artists, things coming in. I would challenge anyone who said that they didn't like anything there, because there's crazy things to really profound things. To really beautiful landscapes, to portraits. There's literally something for everyone.   I just thought, "How perfect is this match? It's ticking all of our mindful boxes, it's ticking all of the community boxes. It's a great place to gather and it's a great place to talk and sit gently." So, we are creating or I'm creating a space where people can come and talk. They can learn about MS, they can ask questions.   They can be with people with MS. We can sit and sew. I've got artists going to come in to do demonstrations, or little workshops for people to come and join in with so they can learn. They can see and they can be immersed in something mindful and beautiful. Hopefully, the weather won't be too rubbish so that we can enjoy the outside space as well and raise money for OMS.   Geoff Allix (28:48): Is there anything for people who can't physically get to South Devon?   Tessa Jane Miles (28:55): Yes, there is. We're going to do a postcard auction. It's a silent auction, many of the artists that are taking part, and even George Jelinek is doing me something. I have a lovely card from Grazina. These cards will be online and they'll be at the show and they can be bought.   What we are asking is that you propose a fee, amount, a donation. As the month goes through, if you're outbid by somebody else, you might have to raise it. You can buy these postcards; I can post them out to anywhere in the world. So, everybody can be part of this thing.   I'm looking for people to knit squares for me, to do bunting and things like that. Again, they can be knitted wherever you like and they can come in. Everyone can take part. The other thing is, if you can't take part, then if you're on social media in any form, Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram, share it. Get it out there, because the more people that see, the more people that bid for these postcards. Also, I don't know if you can buy online, but you can certainly phone up afterwards if you see something that you really love in the show. Or you see it on the Instagram because I'll be covering all of it throughout May. Yeah, and we will ship it to you. If you want it, we'll get it to you somehow.   Geoff Allix (30:24): It could end up being a famous artist.   Tessa Jane Miles (30:26): It could, yes. There are some international and really big names that I'm hoping will contribute. I can't say exactly who and what yet, but I have lots of promises. There's some sculpture being donated for me to sell. Yeah, I'm really excited. Join in, spread the word, and help hit that target.   Geoff Allix (30:50): A bit more about the creative side, and this is something that I hadn't heard before, but that you are quite interested in brain scan-based AR.   Tessa Jane Miles (31:01): Yeah.   Geoff Allix (31:04): I work in IT, so I'm aware of AR, but this, yeah, for an art space, it sounds very futuristic. Tell us a bit about that.   Tessa Jane Miles (31:16): Well, I'm very lucky to have worked with Plymouth University's [inaudible 00:31:21] team a project to do with balance. I said to them, "Oh, if you want an artist to illustrate any of it and all your findings, just say." It was a total off-my-head type comment. Didn't really think anything of it. But, several months later, they took it up.   I've been working with them and I've been using my MRI scans to create screen print slides. I'm putting them together and creating artwork that's a combination of my scientific brain scans and imagery. It looks like, I mean, for instance, trees, to me, look like the nervous system.   Obviously, trees are all connected and they have their nervous system. So, that goes brilliantly with the fact that all of us OMS people are connected and our nervous system is attacked by ourselves. There's this conceptual story and that's why I'm saying it's not enough for me to just paint pretty pictures.   I'm totally absorbed in this body of work that's to do with that. I've created an MS Chair. It's all my brains and scans and imagery and it's on an upholstered chair. That will be there. That's why we're encouraging people to come and visit and to join in and see what it's all about.   So, they will be present and they're going to be part of the show too. They're developing an app, which is another trial that I'm doing. Yeah, so we're trying to get all of these different things together and use the art to illustrate and tell the story. That's what my work is all about.   Geoff Allix (33:07): With that, Tess, thank you so much for being on the Living Well with MS Coffee Break and allowing the community to get to know one of its own a bit better. But we do have one last question, which is a tradition that we tend to ask people. If you tapped into your experience with MS, and specifically OMS, for a nugget of wisdom that might help new people adopt the OMS program, what would that advice be?   Tessa Jane Miles (33:32): Ooh, to realize that it's not necessarily a cloud, it could be a silver lining. It's because of my art I've found that living with MS has enriched that. It's added to it. Being part of a community and joining with the Circles has given me a safety net and a support system. To not be afraid to reach out. Any question is not a daft question. If it's bothering you and it's worrying you, ask it. Someone, somewhere, will try and help you find the answer.   Geoff Allix (34:21): That's what we say in IT. I remember someone saying that the only daft question is the one you didn't ask before you crashed the entire system.   Tessa Jane Miles (34:30): Absolutely.   Geoff Allix (34:32): Which kind of applies to this as well.   Tessa Jane Miles (34:35): Yeah.   Geoff Allix (34:36): With that, thank you very much for joining us.   Tessa Jane Miles (34:39): Oh, you're very welcome. Thank you for having me. Yeah, join my 10 for 10. Get involved.   Geoff Allix (34:44): Yeah. All the links are in the show notes, have a look and you'll find links to everything there. Tessa's Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and Delamore Arts are all listed in the show notes.   Tessa Jane Miles (34:55): Thank you.   Geoff Allix (34:56): Thank you for listening to this episode of Living Well with MS Coffee Break. Please check out this episode's show notes at www.overcomingms.org/podcast. You'll find all sorts of useful links and bonus information there. Do you have questions about this episode or do you or someone you know want to be featured in a future Coffee Break episode? Then email us at podcast@overcomingms.org. We'd love to hear from you.   You can also subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast platform, so you never miss an episode. Living Well with MS Coffee Break is kindly supported by a grant from the Happy Charitable Trust. If you'd like to support the Overcoming MS charity and help keep our podcast advertising free, you can donate online at www.overcomingms.org/donate.   To learn more about Overcoming MS and its array of free content and programs, including webinars, recipes, exercise guides, OMS circles, our global network of community support groups, and more, please visit our website at www.overcomingms.org. While you're there, don't forget to register for our monthly e-newsletter, so you can stay informed about the podcast and other news and updates from Overcoming MS. Thanks again for tuning in and see you next time.   The Living Well with MS family of podcasts is for private, non-commercial use and exists to educate and inspire our community of listeners. We do not offer medical advice. For medical advice, please contact your doctor or other licensed healthcare professional. Our guests are carefully selected, but all opinions they express are solely their own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of the Overcoming MS charity, its affiliates, or staff.  

Introducing lifestyle change to your HCP with Dr Mitzi Joi Williams | S4E9

Dr. Mitzi Joi Williams is a Board-Certified Neurologist and Fellowship trained Multiple Sclerosis Specialist who serves as the Founder & CEO of the Joi Life Wellness Group Multiple Sclerosis Center in Newnan, GA. Dr. Williams has spearheaded and participated in multiple steering committees and work groups to further research in underserved populations with MS with a focus on the African American population. Dr. Williams is the author of “MS Made Simple: The Essential Guide to Understanding Your Multiple Sclerosis Diagnosis.” She continues to live out her mission to provide personalized Multiple Sclerosis Care delivered with expertise, compassion, and joy. 
  
Watch this episode on YouTube here. Keep reading for the key episode takeaways.     
    
Topics and Timestamps:  
02:22 Your background is stellar. You have established quite a prestigious career as a neurologist and MS specialist. Can you share a little about your background as a medical professional?  
03:32 What inspired you to focus on MS in your training and practice?  
05:47 Let’s chat about Joi Life Wellness Group. That’s the MS center you founded and lead in Georgia. What are your core principles in this practice?   
06:57 Given that you see a steady stream of people with MS, you must encounter certain common obstacles people have in dealing with their diagnosis all the way to sound MS management and treatment. What are these in your view, and what’s your take on Overcoming them?  
09:41 As you may know, Overcoming MS promotes evidence-based lifestyle modification for better health and MS management. What’s your take on how lifestyle factors fit into treating MS? 
14:53 In your experience as a neurologist specializing in MS, what are some key strategies people with MS can use to discuss lifestyle factors and effective lifestyle modification with their healthcare professionals?  
17:06 What if someone encounters resistance from a doctor or other healthcare professional – how should a patient approach that, or handle that? 
21:57 Do you have any essential tips for people who are newly diagnosed and just entering the complex world of treating their MS in the medical arena?  
24:41 On another note, you’re also quite involved in researching MS’s impact on the African American community. There is much to learn about the prevalence and penetration of MS in different communities. Do you have any insights to share about your work to date?   
29:29 Finally, what is your vision for how you’d like your practice and work in the MS field to evolve and grow?    
  
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More info and links:     
Learn more about Dr. Williams’ practice, Joi Life Wellness Group  
Check out Dr. Williams’ Facebook alter ego, The Nerdy Neurologist  
Follow Dr. Williams on Twitter  
Learn more about Dr. Williams’ professional background on LinkedIn  
Watch some of Dr. Williams’ informative videos on her YouTube channel  
New to Overcoming MS? Visit our introductory page  
Connect with others following Overcoming MS on the Live Well Hub 
Visit the Overcoming MS website    
Follow us on social media:  
Facebook  
Instagram  
YouTube  
Pinterest    
Don’t miss out:  
Subscribe to this podcast and never miss an episode. Listen to our archive of Living Well with MS episodes here. If you like Living Well with MS, please leave a 5-star review. Feel free to share your comments and suggestions for future guests and episode topics by emailing podcast@overcomingms.org. Make sure you sign up to our newsletter to hear our latest tips and news about living a full and happy life with MS. 
Support us: 
If you enjoy this podcast and want to support the ongoing work of Overcoming MS, we would really appreciate it if you could leave a donation here. Every donation, however small, helps us to share the podcast with more people on how to live well with MS.
 

Coffee Break with community member Linda Boueke | S4E8

Welcome to Living Well with MS Coffee Break, where we are pleased to welcome Linda Boueke as our guest! Linda in an artist and singer who lives in Hamburg, Germany and follows the Overcoming MS program.  
   
Watch this episode on YouTube here. Keep reading for the key episode takeaways.     
    
Topics and Timestamps:   
02:24 Can you tell us a little about yourself, where you live and anything about yourself, you’d like to share? 
03:25 How about your experience with MS? Could you tell us a bit about when you were diagnosed? 
05:25 At which point did you come across the Overcoming MS Program?  
10:07 What are some of the challenges you faced at first in adopting the Overcoming MS Program, and how did you overcome them?  
12:17 When did you first start to see any kind of positive results in following the Overcoming MS Program, and what were these?  
15:13 You’re the ambassador of the Overcoming MS Circle in Hamburg. Can you talk to us about the Overcoming MS Circles experience, and what that’s meant to you?  
18:32 You conduct seminars about Overcoming MS principles in Germany, trying to raise awareness about the positive aspects of lifestyle change for people with MS.  
20:51 One of your guiding principles is the concept of flow. Can you tell us a little about that and what it means to you? 
25:40 That’s a good segue into things in your life in which you find “flow”, such as singing and dancing. Can you share a little more insight into your creative passions?  
28:04 If you tap into your experience with MS for a nugget of wisdom that would help people ease into and better adopt the Overcoming MS program, what would that advice be?  
  
Want to learn more about living a full and happy life with multiple sclerosis? Sign up to our newsletter to hear our latest tips.          
More info and links:     
Linda loves this healthy vegan brownie recipe 
Linda also loves these two vegan pasta recipes from Deliciously Ella and The Happy Pear 
Check out Linda’s artwork on her website 
Hear Linda’s vocal talents on her Facebook, YouTube, Instagram 
Linda does Zumba at home for exercise by watching these uplifting YouTube videos by Euge Carro 
New to Overcoming MS? Visit our introductory page  
Connect with others following Overcoming MS on the Live Well Hub 
Visit the Overcoming MS website    
 Follow us on social media:  
Facebook  
Instagram  
YouTube  
Pinterest  
  
Don’t miss out:   
Subscribe to this podcast and never miss an episode. Listen to our archive of Living Well with MS episodes here. If you like Living Well with MS, please leave a 5-star review. Feel free to share your comments and suggestions for future guests and episode topics by emailing podcast@overcomingms.org. Make sure you sign up to our newsletter to hear our latest tips and news about living a full and happy life with MS 
Support us: 
If you enjoy this podcast and want to support the ongoing work of Overcoming MS, we would really appreciate it if you could leave a donation here. Every donation, however small, helps us to share the podcast with more people on how to live well with MS.

Exercise tips for all abilities with Dom Thorpe | S4E7

Dom Thorpe has been working with MS patients to help improve their lives through health and fitness coaching since 2008. He was raised by his mother, who had MS for as long as he can remember and has made helping people with MS his career choice after seeing the effects MS had on his mother. He’s the creator of The MS Warrior Program, which has been completed by over 1,000 people with MS since its launch in 2018. 
  
Watch this episode on YouTube here. Keep reading for the key episode takeaways.     
    
Topics and Timestamps:
02:00 Can you tell us a little bit about how you became a fitness trainer?  
03:42 What are you doing now in the fitness space? Tell us about your online fitness enterprise.  
06:58 One of your target audiences are people with MS. Do you have any personal connection to MS?  
13:12 Overcoming MS promotes evidence-based lifestyle modification for improving health with MS. And one of the pillars of that is exercise. How does increasing exercise and movement correlate to improvements in MS symptoms? Do you see improvements in clients? 
17:17 Tell us a bit about your MS Warrior Program. Does it suit all levels of ability?  
22:23 How do your programs deal with different ability levels? Because you're getting from wheelchair users to people who can run. 
25:10 If you could distill your fitness expertise into 3 key tips for people with MS of any ability who want to develop some sort of regular exercise or movement regimen, what might these be?  
  
Want to learn more about living a full and happy life with multiple sclerosis? Sign up to our newsletter to hear our latest tips.          
More info and links:     
Learn more about Dom’s fitness training programs, including the MS Warrior Program here  
Access free MS Fitness Essentials here  
Check out Dom’s work on Facebook and Instagram  
New to Overcoming MS? Visit our introductory page  
Connect with others following Overcoming MS on the Live Well Hub 
Visit the Overcoming MS website    
Follow us on social media:  
Facebook  
Instagram  
YouTube  
Pinterest  
  
Don’t miss out:   
Subscribe to this podcast and never miss an episode. Listen to our archive of Living Well with MS episodes here. If you like Living Well with MS, please leave a 5-star review. Feel free to share your comments and suggestions for future guests and episode topics by emailing podcast@overcomingms.org. Make sure you sign up to our newsletter to hear our latest tips and news about living a full and happy life with MS 
Support us: 
If you enjoy this podcast and want to support the ongoing work of Overcoming MS, we would really appreciate it if you could leave a donation here. Every donation, however small, helps us to share the podcast with more people on how to live well with MS.

Ask Jack: Egg and chocolate replacements | S4E6

Welcome to Ask Jack, featuring the prodigious culinary talents of professional holistic chef Jack McNulty answering food-related questions generated by you, our community. Submit your questions for Jack by emailing them to podcast@overcomingms.org.   
 
In this episode Jack discusses healthy alternatives to eggs (especially the yolks, which are not recommended on the Overcoming MS program), and chocolate.  
   
Topics and Timestamps:   
02:55 Do you have any tips on making a tofu scramble?  
10:32 How do you replace eggs in cake recipes?  
15:11 One of our listeners wanted to know how much egg white is needed to replace a whole egg.  
20:42 Is there is a healthy substitute for egg replacers like Just Egg, which is the closest thing she’s found to scrambled eggs. However, she’s concerned about some problematic ingredients in it, like a whole bunch of canola oil, and the high temperatures required to cook it. 
23:43 Is it possible to make an Overcoming MS-friendly custard? I would really love to know how to make a quiche and custard dessert for my family.  
31:12 Can you explain how to use aquafaba?  
35:48 I have a lot of chocolate cravings and I’m looking for Overcoming MS-friendly ways to satisfy them. Do you have any recommendations?  
38:54 Can I replace chocolate in a recipe with cacao/cocoa? How?  
40:33 On cacao nibs, are they fine to use? 
44:02 Finally, Jack, our whole community is excited about the imminent launch of the latest Overcoming MS book, The Overcoming Multiple Sclerosis Handbook, which has numerous contributing editors, yourself among them. What can you tell us about the project and your role in it?  
   
Want to learn more about living a full and happy life with multiple sclerosis? Sign up to our newsletter to hear our latest tips.             
More info and links:      
Visit Jack’s website myfreshattitude.com for Overcoming MS-compliant vegan recipes. 
Check out Jack’s weekly newsletter, VeganWeekly on healthy plant-based food 
Connect with Jack:  Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook 
New to Overcoming MS? Visit our introductory page  
Connect with others following Overcoming MS on the Live Well Hub  
Visit the Overcoming MS website     
Follow us on social media:  
Facebook  
Instagram  
YouTube  
Pinterest  
  
Don’t miss out:   
Subscribe to this podcast and never miss an episode. Listen to our archive of Living Well with MS episodes here. If you like Living Well with MS, please leave a 5-star review. Feel free to share your comments and suggestions for future guests and episode topics by emailing podcast@overcomingms.org. Make sure you sign up to our newsletter to hear our latest tips and news about living a full and happy life with MS. 
Support us: 
If you enjoy this podcast and want to support the ongoing work of Overcoming MS, we would really appreciate it if you could leave a donation here. Every donation, however small, helps us to share the podcast with more people on how to live well with MS.

Coffee Break with community member Chris Cerillo | S4E5

Chris Cerillo was diagnosed with MS in 2017, and that’s when she really decided to live her life how she wanted to. It really drove home – with the spectrum of types and prognoses – that anything can truly happen in life… we never know. So soon after this huge upheaval in her life, she began to look at both what she had to do now (like eat healthier and exercise) and what she wanted to do.   
On this episode of Living Well with MS, we are pleased to welcome Chris Cerillo. So many things have happened in the past four and a half years after diagnosis that she became a different person. She is still the same in some ways, of course – a crazy cat person and a Special Olympics volunteer for instance – but she has changed fundamentally. The way she views life, with joy in the day to day and making sure those she loves know it, is now her core. Chris honestly can say that she is glad to be diagnosed with MS.  
  
Watch this episode on YouTube here. Keep reading for the key episode takeaways.     
 
Topics and Timestamps:
02:35 Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your life in Connecticut? 
04:56 When you were diagnosed, and how you dealt with that? 
10:46 What tips do you have for people newly diagnosed on how to deal with it? 
12:04 Did you come across Overcoming MS straight away or was it a while after your diagnosis? 
15:59 Have you found differences since you've been following Overcoming MS? Has it made a difference? 
17:10 Vegan January or Veganuary, is where they try and encourage people to be vegan in January. Have you tried it?  
20:47 Did you have any problems adopting the Overcoming MS program? You said you were vegan already, but what were the main obstacles to adopting the lifestyle? 
24:15 Talking about stress, you've got experience in dealing with big life decisions and how that affects your MS. In your case, you decided to come out about your sexuality publicly. How did you manage to deal with that? 
28:02 There are all sorts of big things that happen in life. Dealing with those things, would you say that it is that friendship group, or are there specific things you think are particularly useful to deal with big traumatic decisions and changes? 
29:32 There are obvious positives for you because you're living life as you want, but in terms of your family and friendship group and things like that, have there been positives to that side of things as well? 
32:39 One thing I want to ask is how you live life to the fullest as someone with MS? 
34:40 What would you say to someone who's thinking, "Well, I'm not sure whether I do that, or make this change?” What would you say to encourage people to make that leap? 
35:34 As a final question, can I ask what else is on your bucket list for a full life? What's a big bucket list thing? 
 
Want to learn more about living a full and happy life with multiple sclerosis? Sign up to our newsletter to hear our latest tips.          
  
More info and links:     
Reach Chris’s blog on living despite the unknown here  
Check out Chris on Twitter  
Chris recommends finding and joining your local Overcoming MS Circle and the Live Well Hub for support  
Chris wants anyone in the USA who is LGBTQ+ and struggling to know that they can text or call The Trevor Project (which is a nonprofit and totally free) by texting START to 678-678 or calling 1-866-488-7386  
New to Overcoming MS? Visit our introductory page  
Connect with others following Overcoming MS on the Live Well Hub 
Visit the Overcoming MS website    
Follow us on social media:  
Facebook  
Instagram  
YouTube  
Pinterest  
  
Don’t miss out:   
Subscribe to this podcast and never miss an episode. Listen to our archive of Living Well with MS episodes here. If you like Living Well with MS, please leave a 5-star review. Feel free to share your comments and suggestions for future guests and episode topics by emailing podcast@overcomingms.org. Make sure you sign up to our newsletter to hear our latest tips and news about living a full and happy life with MS. 
Support us: 
If you enjoy this podcast and want to support the ongoing work of Overcoming MS, we would really appreciate it if you could leave a donation here. Every donation, however small, helps us to share the podcast with more people on how to live well with MS.

Coffee Break with community member Claes Nermark | S4E4

Welcome to Living Well with MS Coffee Break, where we are pleased to welcome Claes Nermark as our guest! Claes lives in Sweden and follows the Overcoming MS program.  
Watch this episode on YouTube here. Keep reading for the key episode takeaways.     
    
Topics and Timestamps:
01:57 Can you tell us a little about yourself, day-to-day life, and anything about yourself, you’d like to share?   
02:29 How about your experience with MS? Can you provide some context on that? When were you diagnosed and how did you initially cope with it? 
10:31 At which point did you come across the Overcoming MS program?  
16:54 You mentioned you had a very stressful life. How do you manage stress now that you've been diagnosed? 
21:56 What are some of the other challenges you’ve faced at first in adopting the Overcoming MS program? 
24:12 When did you first start to see any kind of positive indicators in following Overcoming MS guidelines?  
29:06 You're the ambassador for the Overcoming MS Circle in Sweden so could you tell us a bit about the Overcoming MS Circle there? 
31:27 You contributed to the newly published Overcoming Multiple Sclerosis Handbook. Could you tell us a bit about your contribution to that? 
34:18 If you tap into your experience with MS for a nugget of wisdom that would help people ease into and better adopt the Overcoming MS program, what would that advice be?  
  
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More info and links:    
Check out Claes’s profile on LinkedIn, where he posts a weekly video in Swedish 
Claes likes Brain Tools for Teens on Instagram 
Claes also likes Mind Valley, a global platform for personal development 
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Connect with others following Overcoming MS on the Live Well Hub 
Visit the Overcoming MS website 
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Hello 2022, Hello OMS Handbook with George Jelinek and Sandra Neate | S4E3

More than 21 years since Professor George Jelinek published ‘Taking Control of MS’ (2 editions), followed by the first edition of ‘Overcoming Multiple Sclerosis’ in 2010 and the second edition in 2016, Professor George Jelinek is back with the ‘Overcoming Multiple Sclerosis Handbook, A Roadmap to Good Health’. We are pleased to welcome back Professor George Jelinek, creator of the OMS program and one of the three editors of this new, highly anticipated book. We also very pleased to welcome back to the podcast Associate Professor Sandra Neate, Head of the Neuroepidemiology Unit at the University of Melbourne, and another of the three editors of the new book.   Prof. George Jelinek’s Bio:   Professor George Jelinek is the founder of the Neuroepidemiology Unit (NEU) within the Melbourne School of Population and Global Health at The University of Melbourne and Honorary Professor at NEU. The NEU's charter is to investigate the modifiable lifestyle risk factors that predict the progression of MS with a view to refining a preventive medicine approach to management of the disease.   Professor Jelinek specialized in emergency medicine, winning the prize in the first specialist examinations in 1986. He is a past President of the Australasian Society for Emergency Medicine (ASEM) and past Vice President of the Australasian College for Emergency Medicine (ACEM).   He was the first Professor of Emergency Medicine in Australasia and was the founding editor of the journal Emergency Medicine Australasia, a MEDLINE-indexed journal that he has edited continuously for nearly 30 years. For his contribution to emergency medicine, he was awarded the ACEM Medal in 2003, the highest individual honor in the specialty of Emergency Medicine in Australia and New Zealand. The College for Emergency Medicine also awarded him the 2006 John Gilroy Potts Award and the 2012 and 2014 Edward Brentnall Awards, for the best publications in emergency medicine and public health respectively in those years.   Recognizing his contribution to both emergency medicine and multiple sclerosis, Professor Jelinek was a Western Australian finalist for 2008 Australian of the Year, and a Victorian Finalist for the 2016 Australian of the Year.   Most recently, recognizing his leading role in MS epidemiological research and strong background in medical journal editing, he was appointed Chief Editor in neuroepidemiology for the leading MEDLINE-indexed neurology journal Frontiers in Neurology, ranked in the top 16% of the top tier 192 neurology journals indexed with Thomson Reuters.     Professor Jelinek is the author of ‘Overcoming Multiple Sclerosis’ and one of the editors (along with Associate Professor Sandra Neate and Associate Professor Michelle Donoghue) of the newly published the ‘Overcoming Multiple Sclerosis Handbook, A Roadmap to Good Health’.   Associate Professor Sandra Neate’s Bio:   Associate Professor Sandra Neate is a Senior Principal Clinical Research Fellow and the Head of the Neuroepidemiology Unit. She has also been a facilitator on Overcoming Multiple Sclerosis events.    Sandra completed her medical degree at the University of Melbourne in 1985. Sandra went on to train as a Specialist Emergency Physician with the Australasian College for Emergency Medicine working as an emergency physician for 20 years at St Vincent’s Hospital Melbourne. She has also worked at the Coroners Court of Victoria since 2010 and on the Victorian Mental Health Tribunal since 2015.   Sandra’s interests moved towards research, and she has published in areas regarding coronial matters and family experiences of organ donation. She commenced at the Neuroepidemiology Unit, along with George, in 2015 and now leads the team and their major research projects, the HOLISM study, the STOP MS study, investigating the outcomes of people who have attended residential lifestyle modification workshops, and the Multiple Sclerosis Online Course trial among others.   In 2021 Sandra and George won the Melbourne School of Population and Global Health Engagement Award in recognition of their work and research with the MS community.   Sandra is one of the editors, along with Professor George Jelinek and Associate Professor Michelle Donoghue of the newly published ‘Overcoming Multiple Sclerosis Handbook, A Roadmap to Good Health’.   Questions:   Professor Jelinek, or may I call you George, so wonderful to have you and Associate Professor Neate on the podcast again. First and foremost, since we haven’t had you as a guest on the show in a while, can you fill us in on what you’ve been up to these past few years? George, can you tell us a little about the new ‘Overcoming Multiple Sclerosis Handbook’ and how the project came together and to fruition? Neate, or may I call you Sandra, how did you become one of the three principal editors, along with George and Associate Professor Michelle O’Donoghue? George, what are the main differences between this new handbook and the original editions of ‘Overcoming Multiple Sclerosis’? Sandra, anything to add to that? Also, Sandra, I understand this new book is a collaboration with many different contributors from around the world. Was that hard to manage and what did it add to the project? George, have there been any promising developments over the past few years that you’ve either tracked or somehow been involved in that provide further support or evidence to the efficacy of the OMS approach to lifestyle modification for managing MS? Sandra, from the NEU perspective, where you serve as head, how does this new book add to the arsenal of ways in which you’re trying to advance lifestyle modification therapy for people with MS? George, how do you recommend people use the new book? Is it more for a particular audience, such as newly diagnosed? Question for either of you: how does one get the book? Is it out now? Sandra, any final thoughts or words of encouragement for the OMS community? George, one final question for you: Overcoming MS the charity is celebrating its 10th year in 2022. What is your anniversary wish for OMS? Thank you, Professor George Jelinek and Dr. Sandra Neate, for joining us on this special episode to announce the publication of the ‘Overcoming Multiple Sclerosis Handbook, A Roadmap to Good Health’. We encourage everyone listening to read the book. Information on how to get it is available in our show notes. And thank you both for all you do to keep advancing the mission of OMS and the benefits of lifestyle modification for all people with MS. I hope you both have a happy 2022!   Links:   Get directed to where the new Overcoming Multiple Sclerosis Handbook is being sold in your area   Coming up on our next episode:   On the next episode of Living Well with MS, join us for the next installment of our Coffee Break series, where we meet Claes Nermark, a health coach, personal trainer, and the first OMS Circle ambassador in Sweden. Premieres February 14, 2022 on your favorite podcast platform.   Don’t miss out:   Subscribe to this podcast and never miss an episode. You can catch any episode of Living Well with MS here or on your favorite podcast listening app. For your convenience, a full episode transcript is also available on all platforms within 48 hours of each episode’s premiere. If you like our program, don’t be shy and leave a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you tune into the show. And feel free to share your comments and suggestions for future guests and episode topics by emailing podcast@overcomingms.org.   S4E47 Transcript Hello 2022, Hello OMS Handbook   Geoff Allix (1s): Welcome to Living Well with MS, the podcast from Overcoming MS, the world's leading multiple sclerosis healthy lifestyle charity, celebrating its 10th year of serving the MS community. I'm your host, Geoff Allix. The goal of our organization and this podcast is to inform, support, and empower people with MS to lead full and happy lives. We're excited you could join us for this new episode. Make sure to check out this episode's show notes for more information and useful links. You can find these on our website at www.overcomingms.org/podcast or in whichever podcast platform you used to tune in to our program. If you enjoy the show, please spread the word about us on your social media channels or leave a review wherever you tune into our podcast.   Geoff Allix (47s): Have questions or ideas to share? Email us at podcast@overcomingms.org, or you can reach out to me directly on Twitter @GeoffAllix. We'd love to hear from you. Finally, don't forget to subscribe to Living Well with MS on your favorite podcast platform so you never miss an episode. Now, let's meet our guest for this episode. More than 12 years since the first edition of Overcoming Multiple Sclerosis was published and six years the release of the second edition, Professor George Jelinek is back with the Overcoming Multiple Sclerosis Handbook: A Roadmap to Good Health. We are pleased to welcome back Professor George Jelinek, creator of the OMS program, and one of the three editors of this new highly anticipated book.   Geoff Allix (1m 32s): We are also very pleased to welcome back to the podcast Associate Professor Sandra Neate, Head of the Neuroepidemiology Unit at the University of Melbourne, and another of the three editors of the new book. Welcome back, Professor George Jelinek and Associate Professor Sandra Neate. Could I call you George and Sandra?   George Jelinek (1m 54s): Yes, of course, Geoff.   Sandra Neate (1m 55s): Of course, yes.   Geoff Allix (1m 56s): Welcome back to the podcast.   Sandra Neate (1m 57s): Thank you.   George Jelinek (1m 58s): Thank you.   Geoff Allix (1m 59s): George is the founder of the neuroepidemiology or NEU unit at the School of Population and Global Health at the University of Melbourne. I will avoid saying that again. So, if I'm about to say it, I'm just going to say NEU. Okay?   George Jelinek (2m 20s): It's quite alright.   Geoff Allix (2m 23s): It's quite big news with the launch of a new book, and it's wonderful to have you back on the podcast. First and foremost, since we haven't had you as a guest for a while, can you fill us in on what you've been up to for the past couple of years?   George Jelinek (2m 38s): Well, I think people may be aware that I retired in October 2019, which seems like a lifetime ago after all the events that have transpired since the start of 2020. I certainly planned a different retirement than I'm finding myself in with COVID, but I guess, one of the important projects and a really big project in that has been this book, which has really taken a couple of years to get together and get to the stage now where it's about to be released. I had had other plans. I'd had plans for travel.   Geoff Allix (3m 19s): I was going to say were you planning on traveling? That probably didn't go too well.   George Jelinek (3m 24s): No, that went out the window a little bit. We've done a few small trips whenever windows of opportunities have opened up, but Australia's had its particular response and it's been very hard to go anywhere really. The other thing, I guess, that I've enjoyed doing, and I was planning to do in retirement anyway, was do more of my writing and recording of music, which, as a young man, I used to do quite a bit of recording on a reel-to-reel type deck. Now, with digital stuff, a blank canvas opens up with all these techniques that you can use that I never had access to in the past.   George Jelinek (4m 8s): I just laid down track after track, putting down little various instruments, then singing, putting the harmonies on, putting the drum track on, and so on. I've put probably seven or eight songs down during lockdown to the stage where they're ready to be released. I'm pretty happy with that little endeavor. It's been good fun.   Geoff Allix (4m 28s): The future might be rockstar George Jelinek, previously known as your epidemiologist.   George Jelinek (4m 34s): Well, I think a very small audience. Possibly family and close friends might be down.   Geoff Allix (4m 41s): Could you tell us a bit about the new Overcoming Multiple Sclerosis Handbook, and how the project came together and came to fruition?   George Jelinek (4m 53s): Well, listeners might not be aware that it is actually when Sandra and I were in the UK in the middle of 2019. You might recall we came over for the big Edinburgh event at that time. In fact, I think you interviewed me and Sandra at the end of that day. We went out to London after that and met with the board of trustees. One of the things that was high on their list of priorities was to look at updating the OMS book, whose second edition came out in 2016, and they thought it would be good to get a new offering out there for the OMS Community.   George Jelinek (5m 38s): I was very resistant to the idea, really very resistant. I'd seen that last book as the last thing, the last big project I would do in writing, but Sandra and I talked about it. The more we talked about, the more we thought, "Actually, this is a really good opportunity, a very different opportunity than me writing a book. Why don't we get a whole range of contributors from across the OMS community worldwide to write it, not only their experiences but the skill and wisdom they've distilled over quite often long periods following the OMS program, adhering to the program, and get that into a big volume?”   George Jelinek (6m 27s): Then it has a consistent theme and feel to it. Sandy and I were initially the editors of the book, and then we felt that we probably should broaden that a little. We asked Michelle O’Donoghue, who is a Harvard cardiologist who's been on the program for about 10 years and whom we met in Boston during the US tour back in 2016, to be a co-editor with us. That project really has taken a couple of years. We had to recruit that big group of people. There are 19 content chapters in the book, and every chapter in the book, bar a couple, is followed by a personal story from someone else from the OMS community.   George Jelinek (7m 16s): It was a short story of their experience, usually trying to relate it to the particular content of that chapter. Then each chapter is also introduced by an inspirational quote from someone else in the OMS community. We've got around about 50 different OMS voices, all pitching together about the program, how to adapt, and how to adhere to it. What are the tips and traps around the program? What their experience might do in helping to illuminate the pathway for people with MS.   Geoff Allix (7m 54s): Would people treat it as a companion guide? It's not a new edition, is it? It's a companion to the Overcoming MS main book.   George Jelinek (8m 4s): Yes, they're two very different books. The last book was me, really my own voice, and trying very hard to put all the complex medical literature into lay language, to make a strong case for why the OMS program should be adopted. At times, looking back on it, I think I was more or less successful in that. Some of the science is a bit obscure and a bit hard to explain, but it seemed to hit a chord with a big portion of the OMS Community. A lot of people have adopted it but one of the constant bits of feedback we got was that it wasn't really all that clear on how best to adopt it.   George Jelinek (8m 53s): This book really is that part of the jigsaw. As you said, it's a companion. It's not a research-based book so even though it's based on the program, which is, in itself, research-based, it's not a book that's full of references. It's much more full of the personal experience and wisdom that each of these people in our community has got. Many of these people are really well known to our community. People who've been OMS facilitators, people who appear on your podcast series, people who have done cooking demonstrations for OMS, people who range in profession from chefs to psychiatrists, to general practitioners, family medicine doctors, to psychologists, to astronomers.   George Jelinek (9m 49s): We've got a whole range of people in there who speak from their experience. That's the flavor of it. That's the thing that we're really happy about that it's no longer this single voice, which is always problematic because it just really reflects my views and has become very ingrained. It's nice to see a whole lot of other people tell us their views and what they've found easy, what they've found hard, how best to get over some of those obstacles, and so on.   Geoff Allix (10m 25s): Sandra, how'd you become involved as one of the principal editors of the new handbook?   Sandra Neate (10m 31s): I was there at this meeting in 2019 that George referred to in London and I think when it became clear that George didn't want to rewrite the Overcoming Multiple Sclerosis book as we discussed we came up with this idea of something different. One of the main reasons we wanted to make it different was to, what we call future proof the book. Meaning that because the other book is full of hundreds of references, it really needs to be kept up to date. You need repeat additions so that the book doesn't become out of date. We planned this book to be future-proofed, meaning that it wasn't full of references to the medical literature.   Sandra Neate (11m 13s): It was peoples’, as George said, distilled wisdom. The idea was really germinated between the two of us and working at the university, I had a six-month sabbatical coming up in 2020 so this was my proposal as part of my sabbatical, to use three periods of two months that I had to, first of all, work together to recruit the authors and then edit the chapters that were coming in. We did it over the year really of 2020 and 2021 so seems like a long time ago now. That was my role, and it was a joint venture.   Sandra Neate (11m 56s): George, obviously, had a lot of them within the community and he kept a track of all the authors and followed them up, et cetera. Then he, Michelle, and I edited all the chapters jointly, Michelle from over in the US with a newborn baby. She did as much as she possibly could and always added a voice of calm reason and a different perspective to the things that we thought. She had a new perspective to add to what we commonly think, which was a wonderful addition. That's the way it evolved and played out. It's been a really rewarding experience because we're very proud of what we've produced, but the people who were involved in it, of course, were very involved and very keen to see the end product.   Sandra Neate (12m 47s): They definitely feel they have an enormous stake in it, and they do. That's a lovely feeling that it's a joint venture and a product that's been made by many people, like-minded people.   Geoff Allix (12m 59s): Was it hard to manage people around the world? How did that work? They've added to the project, and you mentioned different voices like Michelle.   Sandra Neate (13m 12s): Yes. Well, the three editors, we stayed apart from all the chapters, but really, we just sent out invitations saying, "Would you be interested in authoring the following chapter?" People were incredibly keen and helpful. There wasn't much that we needed to do to entice people to become involved. Yes, there were one or two people who were always a little bit late to meet their deadlines, but in general, everyone had their work back when was asked. It was an amazing thing. Really, they're all wonderful. It varied between the amount of editing that was required between chapters. Some required some work just to get them down to word limits and those sorts of things, but in general, it was a fairly easy task to get everyone to meet the chapters.   George Jelinek (13m 59s): These are people who are incredibly well motivated to get this message out. As we were saying, many of them have been facilitators, many of them have done a lot of work for OMS, raise funds for OMS, and so on. Their hearts were most definitely in the right place and they're very keen to be involved enough. I've got to say, some of the chapters came back, they just blew our socks off. We were really quite amazed at the quality of the work, but also the depth of insight that these people had developed. Some of them have been on the program now for 10 to 15 years.   George Jelinek (14m 41s): In that time, they may or may not have interacted terribly much with us, but they've clearly worked out their own ways of doing this. The chapter by Jack McNulty, for example, who I know has been on your podcast, but his chapter on food – I was just astounded at the quality of that one.   Sandra Neate (15m 6s): I think the thing is too, some of the authors, being on the program for a long time, some of them have their own specialty, as in their medical specialty or their own professional specialty that, of course, has shaped their view of the program. They have perspectives that we didn't have, things that we'd never thought of because we've been doing the same work for a long time and it's progressed and evolved, but to hear a psychiatrist with MS talk about mental health is a really interesting novel thing because, although we know Keren Taylor very well and she's worked with us, to hear her written perspective on the whole thing was incredibly enlightening.   Sandra Neate (15m 47s): George has mentioned a number of other chapters. Phil Startin, who wrote the progressive MS chapter, who's lived with progressive MS for years, had some amazing insights into progressive MS, and amazing facts, figures, attitudes, and ways to adapt the program to it. It's this new perspective and insights, professional and personal insights that were really useful.   Geoff Allix (16m 17s): George, is there anything that you've come across in the past few years that maybe you've just been aware of or been involved in that has further supported the evidence for the efficacy of the OMS approach to lifestyle modification for people with MS?   George Jelinek (16m 40s): Well, actually, Geoff, it astounds me the degree to which the ongoing research effort around the world into the lifestyle risk factors in MS has validated the program. I've actually been astonished when you see work come out from NARCOMS, for example, the North American Research Committee on MS, publishing in Neurology, the leading neurology journal pretty much in the world about their large data set of North Americans with MS and confirming the findings of our HOLISM study, that the higher quality diet, the less disability, the fewer relapses, the better quality of life, and so on.   George Jelinek (17m 31s): Then that's equally supported by the UK MS Register, by the Dutch MS Society publication, and of course, our own HOLISM work. We keep publishing on that and we're up around 40 to 50 papers now in the mainstream major medical journals. They haven't contradicted really any of those things that came from a detailed systematic review of what was available originally at the end of the last century in the medical literature. That's where the program had its genesis.   George Jelinek (18m 11s): The thing that 20 plus years on, the research continues to come out to support that and strengthen those pillars. I just find it amazing really to think back then there was enough there to be able to put a program like that together over 20 years ago, and then not to have it crumble, not perhaps a couple of big studies come out to say, "Look, there's nothing in the diet. The vitamin D connections are nonsense," or whatever. I've almost thought, "Well, one of those is going to come along and half expected it," and they haven't appeared in the literature.   George Jelinek (18m 54s): I have to say, it's very reassuring for people who are on the program to know that. The science keeps getting better and better and there are better and better teams working on these larger and larger data sets from around the world. You can be reasonably confident if you're on the program, that the science is evolving to further support the OMS program.   Geoff Allix (19m 24s): I think actually from my side, the neurologists are starting to come on board. Aaron Boster in the United States is a big proponent. He's been on the podcast a couple of times, and he's now involved in OMS, but just like my neurologists, five or six years ago, they were really unaware of lifestyle factors. Now, most of them have, at least, an awareness. Really, it's not rocket science in many ways - eat healthily, do some exercise, look after your mental health. This isn't a crazy thing that we're talking about.   Geoff Allix (20m 6s): We still, technically in the UK, have dairy as a food group. You have to say to people on the whole like "Actually, no animal on earth has breast milk as an adult." They start thinking, "Yes, maybe it isn't that normal.   George Jelinek (20m 24s): Yes, especially in other species.   Geoff Allix (20m 29s): Yes, that's very weird indeed. Then you think, "Actually, yes, it isn't an odd thing you're doing. It's actually just a very healthy lifestyle." Actually, I've come across people with other autoimmune conditions like rheumatoid arthritis, Parkinson's, cancer, who've all had similar recommendations, not identical, but very, very similar. You're thinking if there are organizations in those areas, they're all saying, "Eat a largely plant-based whole food diet, do more exercise, and look after your mental health,"   Geoff Allix (21m 10s): then there's definitely something in this too.   George Jelinek (21m 14s): Yes, and I guess the other side of that is that you have to continually remind yourself that it's not a program that comes with any risk. It's a risk-free program. Even if the literature had been published to show that it wasn't particularly effective in MS, at the very least, you can be confident that you wouldn't get any of the other conditions like cardiovascular disease to the same extent. In an indirect sense, even if something did suggest it wasn't that helpful in MS, you know you're helping indirectly the course of MS by adopting that really healthy lifestyle.   Geoff Allix (21m 56s): Yes. That's exactly what my neurologist said. In the first meeting, I presented the book and said, "What do you think?" He referred to it as the Jelinek method, I think he called it. He said, "Well, there's no proof that will do anything for MS," which I think they have to say really. They're in the national health service. They can't go off message. I think probably they might get into legal issues. There isn't proof. It's not a proof thing, is it? In fact, there are no proofs in medicine. I think you need mathematics to prove.   George Jelinek (22m 37s): That's another podcast, isn't it? Let's discuss the concept of proof in medicine and I'll tell you, that's a very slippery topic.   Geoff Allix (22m 46s): He said, "But it's going to lessen your risk of heart disease, cancer." He went through a whole long list of things so he said, "Ultimately, if you're happy to do it, then I would absolutely recommend you do it because it will just improve your health."   Sandra Neate (23m 2s): I would be very happy if one day, they could make the leap and stop saying, there is no proof and say, "Look, there is a lot of evidence to support this lifestyle in many illnesses and go for it.”   George Jelinek (23m 16s): Yes, and we're working on those as a charity. I think that's one of the next big challenges for the charity now that it's got a new board chair. I think a key aim is to work out a strategy for approaching the profession in a way that will keep them on side so that they feel comfortable recommending this kind of lifestyle. Actually, one of the things about this book is that it's the perfect thing for a doctor to hand one of their patients with MS because it just lays out the prescription so beautifully in such an easy way to follow that would save them an enormous amount of work trying to go through the explanation about the diet and so on.   George Jelinek (24m 8s): It's all there. It's just such a handy little companion to adopting something like this in life.   Sandra Neate (24m 14s): Would you recommend it more for newly diagnosed or is there a particular audience in mind?   George Jelinek (24m 22s): I think it's anyone at any stage of the illness. We've been very deliberate in not just discussing the seven pillars of the program, but in broadening that very significantly. For instance, Rebecca Hoover from Minnesota talks about the issues around work discrimination for people with disability, what kind of options are open to them. Greg Herndon from Northern Ireland talks about disclosure, how, and when, and who to tell the diagnosis to. Rachael Hunter from is Swansea talking about resilience, which applies, of course, to any stage of the illness.   George Jelinek (25m 9s): As Sandra said, Phil Startin got some amazing insights about the journey that people who have progressive forms of the disease and find themselves undertaking. We're very keen that this is a very inclusive, much broader-based book that deals with many of those issues that people might only be becoming aware of much later in the disease's course.   Sandra Neate (25m 33s): Also, issues that are actually extremely common, such as pregnancy. The majority of people with MS are young women and rarely do they get the opportunity to talk about pregnancy, childbirth, and the neonatal period managing newborn babies and how to deal with families and relatives, and things like that. Things that are actually very common, but not commonly discussed. We hope that by broadening out from the seven pillars, there's some really useful information there, no matter what stage of the journey they're on and whether that's newly diagnosed, 25 years into the illness, or longer.   George Jelinek (26m 16s): Sandra, from an NEU perspective, how does this new book add to the ways in which we're trying to advance lifestyle modification therapy for people with MS?   Sandra Neate (26m 33s): Well, it's a highly valued publication and, in any research, the publication is what counts. George and me, because of our involvement in the book, we were awarded the Melbourne School of Population Global Health Engagement Award for the contribution that this made towards engagement with our MS community and, in their mind, with our research subjects from an academic perspective, it's highly valued that researchers engage with the participants in their research. They involve them at all stages of research, before research, during research, after research, report back to them.   Sandra Neate (27m 18s): They love the way The NEU engages with the MS Community. They highly value that so that in itself is a really important contribution that the book has made to the unit. We are a very small unit. There's really, at the moment, only five of us and a couple of students, so a major publication like this is extremely important to the unit. Really, although the rest of the team weren't directly involved, all the subject matter is what we're involved with on a day-to-day basis in our research and the HOLISM study and all those sorts of things.   Sandra Neate (28m 0s): It's a very important publication for the university. The university highly regards it, and the NEU has benefited from that.   George Jelinek (28m 10s): To either of you, when is the book out and how do we get hold of it?   George Jelinek (28m 16s): First of February 2022, so we're there now and in the year that it's being released. We've only got to wait another few more weeks. It's been really, simultaneously, in the UK, US, and Australasia. Really, as I say, in all good bookstores and all book websites. You can get it on Amazon, on Booktopia, all the usual places, and it'll be freely available soon. It's only available for pre-order at the moment.   Sandra Neate (28m 53s): I think, actually, from when this podcast airs, I'd say it's out now. We're recording this a couple of weeks early.   Geoff Allix (29m 08s): Sandra, are there any final thoughts or words of encouragement for the OMS community?   Geoff Allix (29m 14s): Yes, always. We're working hard on lots of interesting projects. Did you mean from our research, from our unit's perspective?   Geoff Allix (29m 19s): Yes. Just for the OMS community, is there anything upcoming? Is there anything that you think they should be doing? Just a final thought to the community.   Sandra Neate (29m 34s): Well, we're engaging more and more with other collaborators around the world to enhance our research, and all the things that they're all doing, and to understand further the benefits of the OMS program. We're working on an online course that will be there in the future for their use once we've tested that and made sure that it's working well and that it’s effective in achieving what we hope it will achieve. That hopefully will be released around another year or so. It's a very slow process, all these things, but everything that we're doing is there to understand further and hopefully support all the efforts the OMS community is making to manage their own health.   Sandra Neate (30m 22s): The more work we do, the more we understand that people who take control of their health, who feel the empowerment to make changes in their lives have improved mental and physical outcomes so there's no downside to this. We're just hoping to find more and more evidence that this is the case for the people in the program.   Geoff Allix (30m 52s): George, one final question. Overcoming MS is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year in 2022. What is your anniversary wish for OMS?   George Jelinek (31m 03s): Well, I think for me, what I always hoped was that we would ultimately reach the mainstream professional community so that if a person is diagnosed with MS, then, in the same conversation as the diagnosis, it offered a suite of things that they can do for themselves that are evidence-based and that they can adopt with confidence that their neurology team, their general practitioner, their MS nurse, that professional community is right behind them in the things they're doing for their own health. Twenty years ago, that seemed like a bit of a long, distant goal. It's still, possibly, some way off, but that's what I hope the OMS charity achieves over its next 10 years.   Geoff Allix (32m 0s): Thank you very much, George and Sandra, for joining us on this episode to announce the publication of the Overcoming Multiple Sclerosis Handbook: A Roadmap to Good Health. We encourage everyone listening to read the book. Information on how to get it is available in the show notes. As George mentioned, it's available through all good booksellers. Thank you both for everything that you do to advance the mission of OMS and the benefits of lifestyle modification for all people with MS. I hope you both have a very happy 2022.   Sandra Neate (32m 42s): Thanks, Geoff. Thank you. Thanks for having us. It's been a pleasure.   George Jelinek (32m 42s): Thank a lot, Geoff. Great to talk to you again.   Geoff Allix (32m 43s): Thank you. Thank you for listening to this episode of Living Well with MS.   Geoff Allix (33m 41s): Please check out this episode’s show notes at www.overcomingms.org/podcast. You'll find all sorts of useful links and bonus information there. Do you have questions about this episode or ideas about future ones? Email us at podcast@overcomingms.org. We'd love to hear from you. You can also subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast platform, so you never miss an episode. Living Well with MS is kindly supported by a grant from the Happy Charitable Trust. If you'd like to support the Overcoming MS charity and help keep our podcast advertising-free, you can donate online at www.overcomingms.org/donate. To learn more about Overcoming MS and its array of free content and programs, including webinars, recipes, exercise guides, OMS Circles, our global network of community support groups, and more, please visit our website at www.overcomingms.org. While you are there, don't forget to register for our monthly e-newsletter so you can be informed about the podcast and other news and updates from Overcoming MS. Thanks again for tuning in and see you next time.