I’m staying positive, exercising regularly, eating right and my area of needed self discipline is sleep! I am amazed how poorly I do when I don’t get enough sleep! I’ve always felt that sleep is a waste of time! Now I realize it is necessary! I only need 7 hours of sleep a night and I have a hard time making myself go to bed! The days I do, I can stand and walk without pushing down on my walker you know, letting my legs do the walking and just use the walker for balance! See you next month!

I spent my life blazing down the road, never slowing down even around the curves~As early as I can remember, (probably as a result of watching Bambi as a kid), I was wanting to save the animals. I didn’t want to cage them, wear them, or eat them. (OK, I did have a guinea pig ”Duke” – as a kid) But I couldn’t stand animal abuse on any level. I was involved in the National Anti Vivisection Society which focused on advancing science without harming animals. I didn’t want to add to the abuse that was inflicted on animals at the beef farms. I have an activist tendency – I didn’t want to add to the abuse that I thought was being inflicted on the beef population in the American farms that provided the beef in our freezers. I had always been interested in health and nutrition. As a high school student I wanted to be a vegetarian. My mom finally relented, recognizing me as old enough to take responsibility for my eating. I spent my senior year as a Lacto-Ovo Vegetarian. I didn’t work with the Anti Vivisection Society for long, I moved across the country, and didn’t pick it up as I settled in Michigan, with my dad. I was a young, high school graduate, enjoying the dating scene.

I was dating a young man, Tom, who shared the same attitudes about eating that I did. He gave with me the book, Sugar Blues by William Dufty, which described the negative effects of sugar. I stopped eating cookies, cakes and candies. Tom and I were eating mostly fresh vegetables, whole grain breads and delicious pastas. That lasted as long as our relationship did.

I broke Tom’s heart and Married Robby. Robby was a selective eater, eating and averge American diet, too much deep-fried foods and not enough vegetables – . Being the very young bride, wanting only to be a stay-at-home mom, I buckled. I learned to cook what my husband enjoyed. You need to know that he never insisted that I cook and eat what he enjoyed, I just wanted to please him! I enjoyed the foods that Robby loved, so I ate them! (realizing that I just enjoyed eating anything) Big Macs, Potato Chips, Soda, and candy bars. When the kids started coming, I became a “milk and cookies mom”. Almost everyday afterschool, I had fresh baked cookies or rice crispie treats or apples and peanut butter ready for them. I have always been thin, it’s in my genes, so I never had to count calories. Of course I would limit my children’s cookie quantity, watching out for their health, but as for me…

As a grazer by nature, with the cookies were already made and convenient to eat, I ate too many! Over the years, I truly became a junk food junkie! But I never got sick! The kids would bring home sniffles from school, I didn’t catch it ~ I mean I never got sick! I can remember one time in my whole adult life that I actually got the flu and threw up! I believed since my college years that all illness is created mentally/emotionally and that we have power to get over anything! You can imagine my surprise! In September, 1995….
My movie tells the story from here…

I am grateful for more years of feeling good! I am realizing the blessings of this experience! I’m anxious to tell you! You’ll read it here at LindaGraceonline!

Thursday, October 1, 2009 I’ve made the decision! The MS is in remission, the only thing holding me back from walking is ME! I’ve always said that if the disease was stopped, I’d be able to re-learn to walk. Now, I’ll prove it! I will continue to eat a predominantly alkaline diet, take my supplements, sleep enough, and fill my life with positive thoughts, feelings and actions! Check back in a month to see how I’m doing!