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- 3 cups of dark green vegetables,
- 3 cups intensely colored vegetables: 1 cup red vegetables/fruit, 1 cup blue-black vegetables/fruit, 1 cup yellow/orange vegetables/fruit
- 3 cups of sulfur-rich vegetables: Mushrooms, onions, shallots, garlic, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts and bok choy
- Seaweed for iodine and trace minerals.
- Omega 3 rich foods – Wild fish and seafood, fermented fish oil
- Organ meats (offal) once per week. (We eat beef liver covered in onions once per week).
- Regular bone broth – We were already making a slow simmer 48 hour beef broth.
- Fermented foods or a probiotic – such as sauerkraut and beet kvass, some of my favorites
When “Going Paleo” Didn’t Heal My Lyme Disease and Hypothyroid, I Tried the Wahls Protocol. Here’s What Happened.
By Brenda Cosentino
After struggling for many years with poor health, constant fatigue and unrelenting body pain, I finally found relief by following the Wahls Paleo Diet. It took me a while to find Dr. Wahls and her healing diet. I tried many, many things such as cleanses, a high-fat paleo diet and supplements. However, within less than a year of adjusting my diet to the Wahls Paleo Diet, which is a refined Paleo diet that is nutrient-dense and chock full of healing properties, I was able to fully turn my health around. Here’s how it happened.
When I transitioned to the Wahls Paleo Diet, my health was in a terrible state. As I was battling Lyme Disease, I was in desperate need of a way to restore my health and strength. I was overweight, hypothyroid, weak, exhausted, anemic, in pain and still suffering from chronic migraines. Hair tissue mineral analysis revealed many nutritional deficiencies, which is not unusual for anyone with chronic infections. I had been eating Paleo for the last several years with very minimal improvements. In my Paleolithic style diet, my focus was on protein and fat. I was also treating the Lyme Disease with Stephen Buhner’s Herbal Protocol and had completed an extensive parasite cleanse. But none of those diet changes were helping me feel better.
In managing my Lyme Disease, I started looking for a nutrient-rich diet that would provide me with all of the recommended daily amounts of vitamins and minerals – a diet that would heal my gut so that I could rebuild my immune system. I wanted every single bite of food to be packed with healing vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and essential fatty acids that would heal my disrupted chemistry and metabolism. In this quest for natural healing, I knew that real food could ultimately function as a powerful medicine. And it did!
I became instantly drawn to the work of Dr. Terry Wahls, whose nutritional research led her to develop a diet to treat her own secondary progressive Multiple Sclerosis. The disease had left her confined to a tilt recline wheelchair for four years. She had tried many of the conventional drugs for MS available at the time with little success. Dr. Wahls proceeded to utilize her research to cultivate a diet and lifestyle that brought her out of her wheelchair. In fact, after 9 months, she was strong enough to bike 18 miles! The Wahls approach of eating the most nutrient-dense real food sparked my curiosity. In order to learn more about this Paleo diet, I purchased her book “The Wahls Protocol” and gave her diet a try.
My New Diet from Dr. Wahls:
