What I Eat In A Day: Functional Medicine Doctor Terry Wahls Tells All

As a functional medicine doctor who used diet and lifestyle changes to restore my health after I was wheelchair-bound with MS, I'm often asked what I eat in a typical day. The answer? It depends on the time of year.

I generally follow my Wahls Protocol—a nutrient-rich paleo diet that includes greens, sulfur-rich and deeply colored vegetables, berries, grass-fed meat, wild fish, organ meat, and seaweed. However, as the seasons change, I make some tweaks that work well for my body: During the winter, I'll eat the Wahls Paleo Plus version of my diet (the ketogenic version of Wahls Protocol), and in the summer, I'll follow a low-glycemic-index version of my diet plan.

No matter the season, I eat one or two meals a day in order to reap the mitochondrial benefits of a 12- to 16-hour fast.

My day always starts with a vegetable-based smoothie with greens, coconut milk, water, and ice. I drink it before work, or at lunchtime, depending on when I want to break my fast. I'll typically have another vegetable smoothie with dinner.

One of these smoothies will be primarily greens-based, while the other one will be centered around heirloom carrots or beets. I'm also very intentional about having a wide variety of greens for my smoothies: I love wild edibles such as dandelions, plantain, or lamb's quarters, and greens from my garden such as kale, bok choy, lettuce, spinach, radish greens, and beet greens.

I love nitrate-free bacon and cooked greens from my garden—my son and daughter say that bacon will fix any vegetable! We fry up some bacon, turn off the heat, and add the chopped greens, then cover the pan and wait two minutes. I'll add vegetables (often onions, garlic, mushrooms, and peppers) for the last two to five minutes. I like to blend olive oil and fresh basil from the garden to make a pesto sauce to add to the vegetables, or I serve that over grilled burgers—it's quite lovely.

I avoid sweeteners of all types, including honey, maple syrup, or agave, as well as gluten-free or paleo pastries, cakes, and other desserts.