Listen to S5E10: Eating and Breathing for Optimum Health with Graham and Annette Henry
Welcome to Season 5 of Living Well with MS, the Overcoming MS podcast where we explore all topics relating to living well with multiple sclerosis (MS). In this episode, we are pleased to welcome nutrition educators and breathing instructors Annette and Graham Henry!
Keep reading for the key episode takeaways and Annette and Graham’s bio.
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“Prebiotics are the fibres that we eat, that we can’t actually do anything with, but our gut bacteria can. That’s their food and that’s what they thrive on. Probiotics are the healthy gut bugs that we have. So, the prebiotics are for the probiotics (our gut bugs). Then the postbiotics are the byproducts of that nutrition, that the bugs eat, [and] that release all sorts of wonderful chemicals in our body – short-chain fatty acids – which we now know, have so many health benefits.
“I would say that taking smallest steps is better for most people, because they can handle that better. It may be a case of changing one meal, making sure your breakfast is plant-based every day or a different meal or whatever [meal you choose], and increasing it [and] looking at swaps.”
“The Buteyko Breathing Method is really for dealing with health conditions. If you’re breathing incorrectly, then somewhere in your health, things will not work quite as well as they could. It could be more obvious things such as asthma and anxiety. Sleep can be extremely impacted by [breathing incorrectly], as I’m finding out and it’s just starting to get exciting because I am actually finally sleeping a little bit better. [There] are all sorts of other areas too, that you might not imagine, [for example] your posture is impacted by your breathing.”
Welcome to Living well with MS. This podcast comes to you from Overcoming MS. The world’s leading multiple sclerosis healthy lifestyle charity, which helps people live a full and healthy life. Through the Overcoming MS program. We interview a range of experts and people with multiple sclerosis. Please remember, all opinions expressed are their own, receive monthly tips and ideas about living well with MS by signing up for our newsletter at overcomingms.org/newsletter. And now here’s your host, Geoff Allix.
Geoff Allix
Welcome to Living Well with MS podcast. I’m your host, Geoff Allix. And today I’m talking to Annette and Graham Henry, founders of Henry and Henry, a plant based diet and breathing reeducation hub, providing science-based education about the benefits of a whole food, plant based diet and breathing reeducation. So firstly, welcome. And great to be and I believe you’re joining us from Berlin.
Graham Henry
Indeed, we are.
Geoff Allix
So and obviously from I would say obviously, but presumably from the UK originally
Annette Henry
Yes, that’s right. Yes.
Geoff Allix
So start with Annette, could you tell us a bit about how you treated your endometriosis? I think I’m pronouncing that correctly and chronic fatigue through plant based nutrition?
Annette Henry
Yeah, well, they actually were a couple of decades apart. It was the endometriosis that started me off, I’d had full blown surgery and medication. And it was it was coming back. And I didn’t really want to go through that again. And I concluded there really must be another way. And I set about looking for the other way, and came across a book about healing endometriosis through nutrition. And I bought it read it in great detail. Thankfully, it was full of scientific studies backing things up because I needed that because although I’d come across a lot of different medical people, not one of them had mentioned food in relation to the illness I had. And I did what the lady who read the books suggested, which put me towards a much more whole food plant based way of eating but not fully plant based. She did persuade me and I’m very grateful to her for persuading me to give up dairy. That was really my big starting point. I already wasn’t eating much red meat. So that was easy to give up. But I continued with fish and eggs. And I think that was mainly it. And occasionally white meat. Yes, that was about it. But it was much more natural foods than I’d been used to. And very little processed food it was. It was processed still, but it was it was minimally processed compared with what I had had before. And I have to say it worked beautifully. I never went back to the doctor’s, I didn’t go back. I didn’t have the surgery. I didn’t need any of this. And so that that instilled in me the idea that food was miraculous, and why do doctors not know about it? So fast forward to 2017 it was it was exactly 2017 Christmas time I got the flu. And it didn’t really leave me properly. The whole of 2018 I had chronic fatigue. By this time we were together and the two of us were eating a fully plant based diet. And it was fairly high raw as well. But the problem was it was a gourmet raw diet. And I was making wonderful cheesecakes full of fat and all sorts of luscious, beautiful things. But my fat intake was unbelievably high. Now I realize, I didn’t at the time, it’s quite hard to measure fat because you don’t really see exactly how much it’s contributing to your body. But I had just here where my liver is I noticed there it was quite tender. And I was a little bit concerned about that. And in the back of my mind, I was hearing plant based doctors that I’d listened to occasionally or read talking about eating more fruits and vegetables and letting go of a lot of the fat. Certainly the oils, and I thought that I’d always I’d always put poo pooed it and thought it was nonsense. I don’t really know why now. And anyway, I took on board what they said, also supported by my own desire when I had the flu, to only have fruits and vegetables. That’s all I wanted fruits and light vegetables. I couldn’t really stomach anything else for about five days. And it just made me aware of the idea that something that was innate in me. That was I needed to heal and it was prompting me to do that. And it seems to be exactly what I needed the tenderness eased and then the other symptoms gradually too. And it was gradual. I think with chronic fatigue, it can be very gradual that can be really long for a lot of people, I’m aware of that. But for me, it was the best part of a year and a little bit into 2019. And thankfully, I recovered fully really got my energy back, I stopped having the unbelievably ridiculous bouts of anxiety that I’d been having, which I think was the worst symptom. And my sleep didn’t ever recover, but then it hasn’t done for most of my adult life. And it was worse while I had the chronic fatigue, so it did get a little bit better again. So that’s kind of in a nutshell, what happened. And that’s the point really, was that persuaded us alongside the education we were doing to become fully whole food plant based.
Geoff Allix
Yeah, it’s a dairy comes up a lot, I think and considering it’s still listed as a food group. And I just think, and they still do now. So well, what are you getting instead of dairy? It’s like, well, I really am not sure that that we can need dairy because we are adults, and adult animals don’t have breast milk. No creature on Earth, except humans has breast milk from another species. And the other thing with the Overcoming MS approach is is very much saturated fat was probably the big, you know, big parts of it. Saturated fats not good for you. Dairy isn’t good for you. And I think yeah, it’s more you speak to different people from different backgrounds with different autoimmune conditions, you find actually, there’s a lot of commonality, I think, in all these things. So Graham, could you tell us a bit about how you remit an X, I believe, and about your health journey through whole food plant based nutrition?
Graham Henry
Yeah, so round 2009 I got back in touch with Annette, through Friends Reunited, we originally met as students back in 1983. So showing our age there.
Geoff Allix
Well, Friends Reunited are somewhat as well. Friends Reunited is what we had before Facebook to anyone. Actually one of the founders of Friends Reunited is a follower of the OMS program, and she had been on the podcast.
Graham Henry
Thank you very much. Yeah, so we got back in touch. After not having really I think we met once within the 27 or so years that since 1983. And most of my adult life, I’ve been overweight, and I had a job where I was traveling a lot. Overseas, I was staying in hotels, eating out in restaurants. And my weight just really just increased gradually and consistently, to a point where I was around, I guess, 18 stone in 2009, when I remember net, so that’s what about 250 pounds, or if you’re working in kilograms, I guess that’s around 115 kilograms. So I was I was really clinically obese. I was suffering from high blood pressure, high cholesterol, I was on medication for high blood pressure, and for some, for a period of time on statins for the cholesterol. So I wasn’t in a great place. And I was kind of wondering what to do about it, because I’ve tried so many diets over my lifetime. I’ve done the Atkins diet, you know, the, the high carb, sorry, low carb diets, etc. And I just tried to calorie count and reduce what I was eating, but nothing really ever worked. Nothing stuck. Every everything. You know, it wasn’t sustainable. It wasn’t enjoyable. So like so many diets. I just reverted to type put the weight back on again, when I got in touch with Annette. I’m pretty easygoing when it comes to food, and pretty adaptable and I just started eating really what Annette was eating, we were meeting regularly. I was traveling over the Pennines every other weekend to see Annette. I was based over in Yorkshire. And whenever we ate together, we ate the same thing. So I was kind of being drip fed, if you like the kind of diet that and that was eating. And also because it was beginning, I was beginning to think, you know, this is okay, I was, I don’t really want to disappoint you, I start eating like this at home as well, it was very, very straightforward. I didn’t find it difficult to at all find it difficult at all. And the wait just actually started to gradually drop off. I thought, wow, this is incredible. I’m not actually counting calories, I’m not worrying about what I’m eating, I’m not thinking about got too much fat in etc. It was just it just felt right. So that’s really how my journey started. And by 2011, when we got married, I dropped about two stone. And then from then on, we both kind of evolved really from that stage into a more whole food plant based diet, we’d already incorporated parts of it and as an as described, but we then became a little bit more full on and with the raw food. And, again, the weight continued to drop off. I’m now 11 stone, so that’s seven stone lost in weight. Never thought I was dieting, never felt I wasn’t eating pleasurable food. So it’s the best diet for me in the world. It’s also I’m no longer on blood pressure medication, no longer on statins, blood pressure normalized by doctor was happy to take me off. So for me, it really is a healing diet. And that’s I think that’s so exciting.
Geoff Allix
Whereas traditional dieting is you’re constantly hungry and and in that sort of state of not getting enough. But actually, you don’t have to be hungry. If you eat the right thing you can eat as much as you want to eat, and you seem to just your body. Well, remarkably, over the millions of years of evolution, our body seems to actually work out how to do the right thing.
Graham Henry
Absolutely. And the wonderful thing is as well. I mean, one of my problems was, I had a healthy appetite. That was one of the original reasons I put on weight, initially, but I was eating the wrong types of food. Whereas going on to a more whole food plant based diet. I mean, the bowls of salad and vegetables, etc. that we have now and fruit is it you feel like you’re really treating yourself with all that great food. But of course, it’s low calorie density, which is great, because you’re not putting on the weight.
Geoff Allix
So you’re both certified plant based nutrition educators. And you set up your company, Henry and Henry. So could you tell us a bit about Henry and Henry, and what the main health benefits are for everyone have a whole food plant based diet?
Graham Henry
Yeah, so we decided that it was really important if we wanted to impart knowledge to other people that we needed to know ourselves what, what was the science that was underpinning nutrition. So we took a really, really brilliant course with training by two plant based educators based in the United States, who really it was quite a rigorous course, something like 200 hours of video learning and interactive sessions. And it taught us everything really, we needed to know to how to thrive on a plant based diet. And they also included quite an element of the raw plant based nutrition within that as well, which was really useful for us, because there’s a lot of things that we just didn’t know. So we loved that course it gave us so much information, so much confidence to be able to then say to others if you want to, if you want to go on and move on towards this type of eating, this is how to do it. So we’re not nutritionists, we’re not able to take, you know, diagnose or tell someone how to deal with particular condition. We’re actually telling people how to get the most out of a plant based diet, how to how to transition if you’re already if you’re eating a standard Western diet, how to do it, how to go about it. So our website is we’ve got what we do is we run a number of classes and events and workshops, various areas of nutrition. And also we’ve now incorporated the breathing reeducation as well, which is another story. And so everything’s most of it now is online coaching. So it’s live events mainly with via Zoom, where we actually take a particular subject area, and we give education on that, and people can ask questions, and we have a membership option, so people can take up membership with us. And then they get a lot of the classes for free, or they can buy them on a off the shelf as as an as and when they like. And then the breathing programs we do are usually, that’s a little bit more of a kind of longer term thing, because you’ve got to spend quite a bit of time going through people reeducating, how to do the exercises, etc. But everything’s on there and everything’s explained. And yeah, so that’s, that’s what we do.
Geoff Allix
So Annette if you’ve if you go to an entirely plant based whole food diet, and we mentioned dairy is there are there nutrients that you would have to worry about the you might be concerned, you’re not getting all the nutrients you require?
Annette Henry
Yes, there are a few. But there’s one in particular, that pretty much everybody knows about and loves to tell you if you’re plant based or vegan, and that is particularly B12. But I’ve always maintained since I knew this myself that that vegans and plant based eaters are actually at a bit of an advantage because so many people remind them that they haven’t got B12 in their diet. And what a lot of us don’t tend to know is that the B12 is actually bacteria. And it used to be on the food that we ate and didn’t sanitize to the extent that we do now. And so and that’s why we don’t get it in our plants anymore. But it also means that sometimes the animals don’t either. So eating meat isn’t necessarily a guarantee of B12. And so it means that we definitely need to supplement if we’re not fully plant based. But quite often people who are meat eaters possibly should consider it too. And especially if you’re taking certain types of medication, there are some that inhibit the absorption of the B12 A lot of people take proton pump inhibitors nowadays and really that that that that’s something that should be advised to that they need to take a B 12 supplement. So that’s definitely one. But additionally, that you have to make sure that you are focusing on the nutrients that they call the nutrients of concern. And in effect, every single diet dietary pattern has nutrients of concern. And with a plant based diet, it can be calcium, I think it’s actually quite easy to get calcium, but it depends which route you take. There are so many varieties of a plant based diet. There’s also zinc that can be a little more challenging because it’s it’s it is more abundant in in a meat based diet and some of the B vitamins some of the time. But of course, on the other hand, you’re getting wonderful amounts of vitamins, folate, antioxidants that are not yet clustered as essential, but possibly will be in the future because we’re learning more about them. And there’s, there’s the big protein one, I’ll let Graham just mentioned the protein
Graham Henry
Yeah. So of course, that’s that’s the old adage, where do you get protein. And if you’re if you’re fully plant based, we what the some some great role models out there, people who are eating fully plant based diets, the Lewis Hamilton for example, and Djokovic. And I think David Haye, the the the heavyweight boxer also. So it just shows that you can actually build muscle and be really athletic on a plant based diet. And we’ve actually been misled a little bit by the whole protein story that the original research into protein was based on requirements for rats. And it took a long time until it was actually understood that our bodies are somewhat different. And our requirements are different from rats. And it’s also said that plant protein isn’t a complete protein. And actually, interestingly, a lot of the textbooks are wrong in that because if you look at any of the food analysis that go on the databases of how food is made up, all of most vegetables, all vegetables, I think contain all of the essential amino acids, it’s just some of them have a slightly lower amount of some than others. So one might be lower in lysine and another one might be lower in, let’s say tryptophan, etc. So it’s wise when you are having a plant based diet to make sure that you have a good variety of food that you meet your calorie requirements or energy requirements for the day, have a good variety of food, and you really can’t fail to get the protein requirements you need if you’re doing that. I’ve never heard of anyone with protein deficiency actually, all the time that I’ve been involved in doing this. So I think it’s usually an argument that’s used to beat the plant based people around the heads by those eat meat as far as
Geoff Allix
In fact, almost everything we eat would be a herbivore, if you’re eating meat. And yet, they’ve all managed to make that muscle through eating vegetables.
Graham Henry
You did ask me earlier in the previous question, I realized we didn’t touch on it when we were asking about Henry and Henry, and what I didn’t answer but about the main health benefits of a home based diet. And I think that it’s worth mentioning that because a lot of people maybe assume they know, but just to just to reiterate, really is, when you’re eating a whole food plant based diet, you’re getting all of the foods in their original form completely intact with all of their nutrition, as nature intended, you get so you’re getting also fiber, which is so important. I mean, we know now that fiber is an integral part of our diet. And the essentially is the fourth macronutrient along with fat, carbohydrates and protein really, what it does in terms of our guts, health as well is so important and underestimated. And in the Western diet, we eat too little of it. The standard American diet, for example, I think the average amount of fiber that’s eaten is scarily low, it’s something like 16 grams a day. Whereas it’s actually recommended, it should be really closer to 30 grams a day, we reckon we’d probably have about 60 to 70 grams a day in how we eat. And it’s also worth looking at the whole area of prebiotics, probiotics, and post biotics, so prebiotics is the fiber that we eat, that we can’t actually do anything with, but our gut bacteria can. And that’s their food. And that’s what they thrive on. And you don’t get any fiber in meat, or animal foods. So that’s important. Probiotics are the healthy gut bugs that we have. So the prebiotics and probiotics are good bugs. And then the post biotics are the it’s the byproducts of that nutrition, that the that the the bugs eat, that release all sorts of wonderful chemicals in our body, short chain fatty acids, which we now know, have so many health benefits, help with our immune system, and help with so many other features in our body. So all of that comes in whole food, plant based nutrition, and also all of the anti inflammatory substances, all of the phytochemicals, the antioxidants, none of those you get in animal foods. So of course, we have to eat plant foods to get the advantages and benefits of all of those. And the other thing is, it’s very low calorie density. So we’re not going to put on weight if we opt for plant based food because it’s filling it’s got fiber.
Geoff Allix
And how would you help someone or you advise someone, if they’re starting out on this journey, that how to change the way of eating their behaviors,
Annette Henry
it’s very much dependent on the individual and this is this is a really difficult one. And I if need be, I would point out to the person that if they’ve got cravings and are struggling to make a transition due to being pulled in a different direction, that one that they don’t really want to stay in to understand a little bit about our our ancestry and that the we were, we were created with drivers if you like to make us choose the sweet fruits and to make us eat things with fat in full for winter time and so on the fruit we need for the for the sugar, we actually do need it in order to fuel our brains and the muscles and so on. But of course the food industry’s got ahold of that and they think, a-ha, we can do something with this. And they’ve made products that contain fat and sugar, and are extremely desirable and sort of go beyond what fruit and fat seem to offer. And we become addicted to them. So it’s a case of learning to be quite gentle with yourself but resolute as well, because most people, especially people listening to this podcast, will have a why they have a reason for why they want why they want to eat better, why they want to improve their health, and if they believe they can do it through food, which so often is possible, then they’ve got they’ve got the motivation. It’s no surprise that a lot of the people who are involved in whole food plant based eating somewhere in their past or their present have a condition that they’re looking to resolve or improve. So I think that would be my starting point, make sure that they’re, they’re not worried about the cravings. But then after that, it’s a case of what the person can do and their nature, there is some people who who are very good at going right for it at one go. And that can be really useful. You let go of all the “bad stuffs” and go for what’s more healthy, or more useful to you. And that, and that has advantages, because you’re not stuck. There’s no transition period, you’re there. It’s most difficult for most people, though, that is the most difficult way. So I would say that the smallest steps are better for most people, because they can handle that better. And it may be a case of changing one meal, making sure your breakfast is plant based every day or a different meal or whatever, and increasing it looking at swaps, if that’s relevant to you, because there are loads of things. I mean, one of the obvious ones is if people who like chili con carne will do it without the carne they do without the meat. And actually, because you’ve got all this spices in, you’re still going to get the pleasure that you had before, because the meat doesn’t really give you much in the way of taste. And you can even replicate texture. And I’m not a fan of the the plant based meats, but for transition purposes, they’ve got a lot to offer. I mean, they’re getting better and better in terms of being convincing as a step-in for for meat products. So it really does depend on the person and how how they feel about what’s important to them. I mean, not everybody would would leap straight away to our diet. We didn’t, why would we expect other people to? So I hope that answers your question. Yeah. So over the last, let’s say about five years, the amount of vegan food in supermarkets has massively increased. So there’s, there’s pretty much a whole aisle of chiller cabinets in my local supermarket. mostly massively processed. Quite a lot of you mentioned the sort of fake meats is quite a lot of that around. No, let me some of it’s not that processed, but a lot of it is very, very processed. And you said you eat about, you know, you eat quite a lot of raw food. So what are the benefits of eating raw fruit and vegetables as opposed to eating a plant based diet? But that might be entirely made up of the sort of vegan aisle in the supermarket? Yeah, I love this question. I think it this is the this is the healing part of the diet. If anything, if you are eating a whole food plant based diet, to eat a really high proportion of raw fruits and vegetables in particular, gives your body the chance to heal. Because I think we have a mindset that because we grow up, we grow up with the idea of medicine, we grew up with the mindset that something comes and does something to you. Whereas food is supportive. Food is ideally if it’s going to work for you, it’s supportive of your body’s ability to heal. And by that I mean if you’re eating fresh fruits and vegetables, they don’t put a big demand on your digestive system. Even even the vegetables I know some people tend to think “Oh, raw vegetables they go don’t go down very well.” And obviously there are exceptions don’t have raw potatoes not ideal. But most vegetables can be eaten raw and especially the light ones. If your experiencing an illness then the lighter vegetables, the lettuce and cucumber and what have you the sorts of things that typically go in the salad, they are ideal, they will break down really well. And even if mechanically used to you feel them at first because you’re not used to those kinds of foods, the biochemistry side of your digestion is going to be much happier because your body knows exactly what to do with these these foods. We’ve lived with these foods since the start of our evolution, and the human body knows exactly what to do with them. And all the nutrients are available there to offer support. And at the same time that the body is not being taxed by having to break down and utilize and disperse really heavy duty proteins and fats for example, which is what often you get from from animal products. So that and that there’s no there’s no other consideration either because they’re in they’re going to be no cooked food toxins. They’re just not there because you haven’t cooked it. So they retain a lot of nutrition and really they’re the easiest foods to assimilate.
Geoff Allix
And is it okay to somewhat process it yourself in that I mean, I start off the day with a lot of load of fruit and veg going into a smoothie maker, blending it all up with some water and that’s kind of my breakfast and I think well that’s five portions of fruit and veg at the beginning of the day. Is that okay? I have said someone say oh, actually blitzing it up might be might break it down at a cellular level.
Graham Henry
This is an interesting point. And it’s something that I think we we still don’t definitively know actually, one of the concerns, of course, is that you you blitzing a lot of fruit together and releasing all those sugars, and then eating straightaway in a smoothie, which is fairly concentrated. But if you’re particularly if you have blood sugar management issues, if you’re diabetic, then it may actually cause too much of a spike, it may not be the best thing to do. But also, you’ve got to bear in mind that with that fruit, it’s not like squeezed like orange juice, if you’re, if you’re putting it in a smoothie, it’s still got all its fiber intact, that fiber doesn’t disappear when we blend it, that fiber is still there, and fiber helps to slow down the release of the sugars. So I think provided you’re not glugging it down in one go, which is very difficult to do with a smoothie, it’s quite heavy, if you’re if you’re eating it relatively, you know, mine mindfully and and we know we have to, yeah, we use a spoon to have our it’s actually because of that,
Geoff Allix
Yeah, you need to chew it don’t use exactly that.
Graham Henry
That’s what we would advocate. I think that everybody will have their own point at which perhaps they think this is not good for me. Some people have intolerance to fructose. And they may feel a discomfort as a result of that as well. So we’re all bio individual, what suits one person doesn’t suit another. But we’re certainly not going to say no smoothies are bad, we think they play a really important part, particularly if you have digestive or if you have issues about having solid food, it can be a really good way to get some great nutrition into easily and quickly
Geoff Allix
So that’s better than a juicer, which is yeah, probably stripping all the fiber out.
Graham Henry
We would be would say so. Yeah
Geoff Allix
And you’re an affiliate organization of the Plant Based Health Professionals, UK, which provides huge amount of information education, advocate advocacy on whole food, plant based nutrition, and also matches the treatment of chronic disease. So what does it latest research say about plant based eating and chronic diseases?
Graham Henry
So there’s been there’s been a huge explosion of research really over the last kind of 10 to 15 years. And I know that the Plant Based Health Professionals are a really important advocacy body to make this more widely available. And as health professionals, they have certain credibility as well, which is important. So they everything they do is well researched. They they follow the science, and the science is saying that a whole food plant based diet or plant based eating, and preferably whole food plant based, because that’s the healthiest plant based diet you can eat. So we’ll stick with that is, is one of the most healthy diets you can eat, per se, not only for the planet, but for us, as individuals. The reason being that it’s been shown to reduce the risk of chronic conditions. So diabetes, for example, high blood pressure, and cardiovascular diseases, and also certain cancers, as well as in some cases, not only reduce the risk, but actually actively manage and even resolve some of those conditions. So, of course, we can’t make wild claims about every single disease, we’ve got to be very careful what we say. And sometimes it’s difficult to prove correlation, or causation rather than correlation. But the weight of evidence is showing that they are they are extremely healthy. And when you compare them, for example, with a diet that’s based on predominantly animal foods, you see the risk factors are the risk ratios increase with the animal foods in terms of those same conditions. So there is loads of science out there. One of the most interesting actually, in terms of the audience today, if I may say so is some new research, which has actually been submitted by the plant based health professionals about two multiple sclerosis sufferers, or sorry, people to people living with multiple sclerosis. And it was published just recently, this this month, actually in the American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine, where they looked at two particular individuals who were they were eating a particular diet that was incorporated as a more kind of standard diet, really. And then both of those individuals then replaced that with a whole food plant based diet. And in the course that they came off there, was it you call it the disease modifying therapies? And after a certain time period of time, I think it was a number of years, I can’t remember exactly. They re-evaluated both patients and they had been patients that have a one single relapse, I think within the whole three to four years of being on a whole food plant based diet. So I think that’s so exciting. And if anyone does want to look for that it is in the American Journal of lifestyle medicine, published by Sage Publications just this month. And I think one of the one of the individuals, we know that as well, quite by chance, so that’s really that’s a really good example of where the whole food plant based diet has shown to be healthy and helped to help perhaps with disease, disease processes.
Geoff Allix
Do you get some of these results are? If they if that was a tablet? Yes, then the drug companies would be all over it. You sort of say, well, they did have a relapse, like, yeah, if you kind of dumped on one relapse, then then that would be marketed like, yeah, endlessly by any drug company, if they managed to do that as a tablet or an injection. So you’re also affiliates with the Santas Fatigue Foundation, and you mentioned chronic fatigue previously. So specific to fatigue, because that is something that’s common with people with MS. What are the best tips for managing fatigue?
Annette Henry
I think pacing has to be the first one. I’m well aware that a lot of people who have fatigue conditions, certainly not all of them, but a lot of very driven and ambitious and quite go getting in some ways. And what they can’t do is apply that to to, to a fatigue condition, it simply doesn’t work. You learn a lot when you have a fatigue related condition, you learn a lot about yourself, and knowing how to put pace yourself so that you’re not looking you’re not pushing too hard. But equally, you are trying to make progress. I think there is a sweet spot and everybody has to find their own and, and that it’s trial and error along the way. So that would be the first thing. I’m obviously going to be a big, big fan of a whole food plant based diet and the healthy type, whole foods, the fruits and vegetables, quite a lot of them raw. Because I know it made a difference to me. And I’ve heard it on numerous occasions now that I’ve come into contact with with other people. But also equally, I’ve recently found out something else you mentioned, I think you mentioned COVID a little while ago, and I’ve had the post COVID breathlessness for the past six months and realized that in terms of diet, I was doing pretty much everything I could possibly why I didn’t have much in the way of other symptoms. I don’t know, I’ll never know that. But the breathlessness needed some other work. And it coincided with me reading a book and realizing that I was breathing dysfunctionally which was a big surprise to me because I don’t even breathe through my mouth. So I suppose I’ve got it all covered, and I was fine, I wasn’t. So in the meantime, we’ve become breathwork instructors, breathing re education instructors. And and I finally, I’m reluctant to say this because it’s it backtracks occasionally. But I’ve had the longest spell of being able to walk at a normal pace and walk upstairs that I’ve had since I had the bout of COVID last March. So fingers crossed. I’m really pleased with my progress. I’ve talked for quite a lot into it. But it’s been quite exciting as well, because like the food there, are there additional side effects that you’ve never imagined. And these are desirable side effects that you just don’t get with medication. So it’s been it’s been an instruction all of its own, just finding out what what’s going on in my own body and discovering actually that I wasn’t doing it right, which is striking when you’re the age we are and you realize you’ve not been breathing right for possibly a very long time. So there’s my three tips, really.
Geoff Allix
So moving on to breathwork. So you’re both qualified breathwork instructors? What is breathwork? And how, how and why should we be doing it?
Graham Henry
Okay, well, it’s a great question is something that I hadn’t really looked at or thoughts about until about three or four months ago. And it was a result of Annette, delving deep into the whole area that that made me want to do it. And it was something that also the having read a book that some of some of your listeners may or watchers may know. It’s a great book by James Nestor and called Breath, which is really brought the whole area of breathing into the mainstream because a lot of people think breath work, they think they instantly think of yoga and things like that Wim Hof technique, and this is really about how we breathe every day. Both during the day and at night, and most many of us are actually getting it wrong. And I realized that I was as well I didn’t know that he was supposed to breathe through your nose for example, all the time, unless you’re doing really, really heavy exercise or completely congested or have some structural or anatomic anatomical problem with your nose that prevents you from doing that. So what we’re doing with our breath work is we’re helping people to recognize firstly, what is disordered or dysfunctional breathing, and what is correct breathing. And then we conduct we coach people with exercises on how to get it right and support them through a period of weeks how to get it right. And it’s amazing how it can actually change your, your health and performance. So what I do is I’m a qualified as a, an Oxygen Advantage, Functional Breathing Instructor, and that’s to help people with performance really help get better performance, both cognitive and physical performance, whereas a net is qualified as
Annette Henry
it’s Buteyko. But the trainer was the same for both of us. It says the Buteyko breathing method, and he goes a little bit beyond it, because he’s realized as well that Konstantin Buteyko, the doctor who invented this has missed out on some of the more recent science. And so he’s become the, the authority really, quite globally, and is based in Ireland. And it’s been absolutely superb learning with him. And he mentioned a lifelong learner. And the Buteyko method is really for dealing with health conditions, because so many are potentially impacted. If you’re breathing incorrectly, then somewhere in your health, things will not work quite as well as they could. So it could be more at the more obvious things such as asthma and anxiety. But there’s also the fascinating area of female breathing, which is different from male breathing and impacts as differently. Sleep can be extremely impacted by it, as I’m finding out and is just starting to get exciting because I am actually finally sleeping a little bit better. That’s really great. But all sorts of other areas, too, that you might not imagine. Your posture is impacted by your breathing, that so many areas really, and probably some that we wouldn’t be aware of eczema I had eczema type patches which, which healed when I started doing this, how did that happen? A better oxygenation to my tissues I imagined. And that’s the key if that’s the case, because if you’re not oxygenating, properly, then of course, things won’t work as well, including the brain, but you need to get oxygen effectively to your brain. And we’re so often trained with this idea that if especially if you’re stressed, take a take a deep breath. And whilst that may not be bad advice, it’s misinterpreted almost universally, to meet a big breath. And it ends up being big and in the upper chest never gets down to the lower part of the lungs, which really needed in order for the gas exchange to take place. And for the oxygen to get released out into the tissues, organs, muscles, and brain and so on. So that’s my, that’s my area. And I’m very excited about it.
Geoff Allix
With that, firstly, thank you very much for joining us. But I’m also like to encourage listeners and viewers to have a look at the show notes where there’s links to resources about Henry and Henry, I believe your website is it HenryandHenryEU.com
Henry and Henry EU as in European Union, because we now based in Germany. We couldn’t get the Euro because we had to go for EU because it was an and we have a Facebook page and Instagram presence as well, both using the Henry and Henry names.
Geoff Allix
Yep. But if you check out the show notes, the links are in there. But if you’re just listening, this is where the new loads of resources on there. So I encourage everyone to have a look there. And yeah, again, thank you very much for joining us. Graham and Annette Henry,
Graham Henry
Thank you very much for some great questions. Thank you.
Overcoming MS
Thank you for listening to this episode of Living Well with MS. Please check out this episode’s show notes at overcomingms.org/podcast You’ll find useful links and bonus information there. Have questions or ideas to share. Email us at [email protected] or you can reach out to Geoff on Twitter @GeoffAllix. We’d love to hear from you. Thanks again for tuning in and see you next time for tips on living a full and happy life with MS. Living well with MS podcast 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 health care professional.
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Graham and Annette Henry are the founders of Henry and Henry, Plant-Based Nutrition Educators and Breathing Re-education Instructors.
Both British, they relocated to Germany in October 2020 and now live in Berlin. They have each resolved their own particular health challenges via a dietary approach. For Annette, this was initially endometriosis, and later on chronic fatigue. For Graham, it was obesity, high blood pressure and elevated cholesterol.
Becoming increasingly aware of the impact of diet on our health, Annette and Graham were motivated to learn more about a nutritional approach to managing and resolving chronic conditions, realizing that this would also have knock-on benefits for planetary health. As a result, they both trained as whole food plant-based educators and now apply their knowledge and passion to not only help others transition successfully to a more plant-based diet as a route to improved health but also as a means of contributing to a more conscious and compassionate world.
Annette and Graham recognise that the journey of self-realisation and the key to resolving health issues doesn’t always follow an obvious and linear route and that it requires continual revaluation and adaptation. Thus, when one of them self-diagnosed a breathing issue, realising that diet is only one piece of the puzzle, it prompted them to investigate the science of breathing and how the way we breathe can affect our physical and cognitive health. As a result of their findings, they have now become certified breathing instructors, helping clients to resolve and better manage a range of health conditions and to improve performance.
Annette and Graham run regular events, classes and workshops on whole food, plant-based nutrition and breathing. Further details can be found on their website at https://www.henryandhenryeu.com