REVERSING The Impact Of MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS! | Chef AJ LIVE! with Rachel Detroit

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Rachel was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS) on December 3rd, 2018. She lost strength in the right side of her body and couldn’t walk for longer than 90 seconds. She couldn’t dress herself or perform household tasks. She had extreme fatigue, numbness, tingles and balance issues. This was the scariest time of her life. She felt her body was failing her.

Throughout her entire life, she ate the standard American diet while overindulging in alcohol and experimenting with other substances. She experienced childhood trauma that left her with a lot of sadness and depression. Exercise was not a priority and neither was stress management. She was overworked, overfed, overstressed and overstimulated. She had no idea that the way she was living would catalyze into a chronic illness.

After learning her diagnosis, she felt like she had to make a choice: breakdown or breakout. Even with all of the fear and uncertainty, she made a decision to not allow MS control her life—she decided to breakout. She used these hardships to fuel her passion to manage this disease, heal herself and help others heal through lifestyle changes.

Rachel is 3 years into her diagnosis and is managing multiple sclerosis naturally. She is healthier, happier and stronger than she has ever been in her life. She left her job as a middle school math teacher to become a lifestyle coach so she could help others heal and optimize the quality of their life too.

As a lifestyle coach, she helps people examine and change their lifestyle to feel better, reduce pain—physical and mental, prevent, manage and reduce chronic conditions. She also works with folks on all aspects in their life that are limiting them—relationships, career, addiction, beliefs or any barriers they need to work through.

The 6 main aspects of lifestyle examined include sleep hygiene, nutrition, physical movement, substance intake, stress management, and social connection. By optimizing these aspects of our lives, we feel better and everything starts falling into place. Something we don’t realize is how we do one thing is how we do most things.

Rachel knows that we are the co-creator of our lives. We have the power through our choices to change. Regardless of how far from the line you have fallen, you can still change to improve yourself and the quality of your life.

If you’re looking for motivation or recipes, check out:

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TIME CODE:
00:00 Guest introduction and story of how she was diagnosed with MS
07:00 MS discussion and viewer/Chef AJ Q & A
56:29 Final thoughts and show wrap

[deannam.]

@39:22 Aj asked if she's tried Hypernourishment and she hasn't. "Hypernourishment" is a termed coined by Dr. Brooke Goldner who wrote "Goodbye Lupus" and "Goodbye Autoimmune Disease". It refers to the dietary protocol that she uses on her clients using supermarket foods to reverse autoimmune diseases. Pure Hypernourishment is only raw foods: minimum of 1lb of raw leafy greens including cruciferous vegetables, a handful of chia and/or flax seeds, and a gallon of water. She primarily does it through green smoothies, and the fruit is just enough to make it taste good.

[missiris]

I am glad that Rachel is no longer suffering with MS

[amazinggrace]

she has brought so much hope to my 75 yo husband..love her

[merrycontrary]

She’s great! So frank, so upfront, such a real, honest interview. 👏🏻🥰👏🏻

[mandym]

So happy to have met Rachel today - what an amazing story! She sounds like a fantastic coach, especially as she's using her own personal experience to now help others 🙌💗

[hannahrl]

I've been so eager for this one to come up in my chore playlist, and it's great!
I was diagnosed with early-stage MS in 2017 at age 44 (a bit later than many), and have been on a "safe", old-school med most of the intervening time, and also in remission that whole time. I've decided to discontinue the medication which, while safe, requires three weekly shots that are like wasp stings. I was also off it for nearly a year without a relapse, because of an insurance hiccup. My MS clinic has a new Physician's Assistant that I met with late last year, and when I floated the idea that if my MRIs were still stable, I might consider dropping the med, she was SO supportive! I was shocked and very happy. As Rachel says, there's an almost categorical response from the medical community that it's super irresponsible and way off base not to medicate - Dr. Stancic's story about seeing her old MS doc years later is classic. My best childhood friend is an MD who also is an MS patient, treated by a "renowned" MS specialist, and I'm reticent to tell her anything about my decision to go off meds. I did look at the brochures for a lot of alternatives at my last appointment, and even the more "moderate" options involved ongoing liver function and other serious tests and quite serious potential side effects. It just suddenly seemed way dumb to even consider switching meds, and not so dumb to just drop what I've been on. And, while I am not inherently skeptical of allopathic medicine, especially after the kinds of insights we get from people like Dr. Lembke on the role of pharma in fundamentally changing diagnostic and treatment standards of care, I am deeply skeptical of the slant that lack of medication is always irresponsible, and the patient-shaming that can happen. I also agree with Rachel about all the special "protocol" interventions like Dr. Wahl's popular one, that are based on specious ideas about "evolution", involve avoidance of healthy foods and inclusion of things like visceral organs. I continue to struggle with conversations with "holistic-minded" people about these things, on the other side.

My MS diagnosis sent me on a deeper dive to try to see if I could control anything better in my diet and lifestyle to help (docs said it wouldn't matter), and that eventually sent me looking for vegan meal ideas - knowing nothing about WFPB lifestyle OR much about veganism, but wanting to look at cramming more produce in. The first results I saw - and got hooked on - were Avant Garde Vegan and Jill's WFPB Cooking Show, which I *still* find soothing in the same way that I loved Mr. Roger's as a kid, ha! Then, bless the algorithms, I was led to the major lifestyle med docs, plant-based news and other excellent resources, and though I hadn't yet seen the nutrition links to MS, by the summer of 2018 I decided I had to make this change, at least to 100% vegan and as healthful as I could manage, if not full on SOS-free/always unrefined. Then I saw the MS links, and that gave me the social ammunition to tell my mom, pretty much our main friend, that I wouldn't be cooking steaks and roasting chickens anymore, without her being pissed or arguing, ha! Fortunately, upon showing my husband just a couple of lectures and interviews on WFPB nutrition and some vegan topics, he just turned to me and said, we have to do this RIGHT NOW, and it turned out he was relieved to see all this evidence supporting also an ethical vegan choice. I haven't been perfect in all my lifestyle intervention paths for this disease, but I'm quite well, and I will always be humbled and grateful for the diagnosis that ultimately opened my eyes to the nearly unfathomable sickness in humanity's delusion about how we treat all our fellow earthlings, and the irreversible catastrophes we face even now as a planet because of it.

[kenishashibu]

May the good god bless you chef Aj. It was ver y inspiring

[nazokashii]

Oh wow, what a delight Rachel was! happy for her, what she has managed to do <3 so lovely. And, made me happy too, to hear that she was a maths teacher, it being one of my greatest passions, math :) but I'm happy that she's found what she does now. What an inspiration! Thank you so, so much <3

[mariebyrne]

Great interview highlighting an autoimmune disease. A very inspiring lady!

[Austin-jppi]

Amazing story, ms can be a blessing with the right perspective 🙏. I wish ms centers would get on board with this kind of lifestyle change.

[CONBOYization]

Wow! So incredible! I love seeing people’s story and journey. So inspiring♥️

[CastledarkDweller]

what an amazing girl and terrific story! thanks again AJ!

[kenishashibu]

I listen to all your podcasts. You are really wonderful.

[debbiefischer]

I totally enjoyed this young lady ❤ ❤❤ I am also a fish that swims upstream and have been Whole food based with much success 🙋‍♀️

[ashleypullen]

Thanks Chef AJ & Rachel Detroit 😊 Another awesome and inspirational video...amazing! Brilliant quotes too. Thanks from England 🇬🇧 🙏 🙂 👍

[tomcunningham]

Thank you AJ for great work You re changing the world getting the word out there very best wishes to you

[alisonbamford]

Do you take B12 Rachel? Pins & needles in my fingers is one of my first symptoms of low B12. There is also some evidence that B12 deficiency may be implicated in MS. Some initially diagnosed with MS have recovered with B12 treatment, even when blood levels appear to be ok or even high. In fact, high levels may be a red flag that the B12 is not being converted to its active forms for use at cellular level. Some cannot absorb it for various reasons (even meat-eaters), others can absorb it but cannot convert it.

[tomcunningham]

Thank you guys " inspiring " Rachael i if you havent heard dr brook goldner " good bye lupus fame she works with autoimmune diseases with infectious enthusiasm When we see benifits of wfpbd theres no going back no fads here this give us hope keep up great work we need this for the planet """" best wishes "

[terriem]

If you were teaching, couldn't you use a projected laptop screen instead of a board? If you couldn't type or write it could be a problem, I guess, without speech to text... But the job you have sounds way better 🌄🍉🍊🥬🥬🥬