Living with Parkinson’s isn’t a choice, but you can choose how you live with it. That’s the philosophy of American Ninja Warrior Jimmy Choi.

Jimmy Choi has been living with Parkinson’s disease for 17 years, but he spent the first half of those years in denial. Diagnosed at the age of 27, he was newly married and starting a successful career in the technology sector during the dot-com boom.

“I just didn’t want to believe the diagnosis,” Choi said.

“I thought Parkinson’s was a disease for older people. I couldn’t wrap my own head around it even though I was told by three separate neurologists. They gave me medicine, and I reacted to it in a positive manner. That’s how I was diagnosed.”

Choi continued taking the medication without making changes or going back to his doctors for updates with the hope that “it would all just go away.”

He hid the diagnosis from his wife, Cherryl, for three months. He refused to tell his immediate family for three years or his close friends for another two years after that.

“There’s definitely a shame factor you have to deal with,” he said.

“It seemed like living with a chronic illness might be perceived as a weakness, especially at the workplace or even in a social situation. I struggled with the fear of what others would think and whether or not they would treat me differently because of the diagnosis.”

The moment that changed everything

Choi’s wakeup call came when he fell down the stairs carrying his son Mason. Both were unharmed, but “that was my call to action,” he said.

“I put my son in danger simply by carrying him. The first thing I wanted to do after that moment was to help find a cure. I knew I didn’t have the funds or smarts to find a cure myself. So the next best thing to do was give my body up for science and started signing up for clinical trials.”

He noticed a reoccurring theme at these clinical trials – that exercise was the best medicine for Parkinson’s disease. He also read an article in Runner’s World magazine about a gentleman with PD who was running marathons and thought, if he can do it, so can I.

Choi is quick to admit, “I was in no shape for running.” He weighed 250 pounds and was walking with a cane.

“I started walking around the block and when I felt confident, I would leave my cane at home and see how far I could go until I lost balance. I put one foot in front of the other and kept going until I felt comfortable enough to jog. Every day I tried to beat myself as far as milestones.”

Once Choi became more physically active, he changed the way he ate and switched to a more nutritious diet. The weight started melting off, and by 2012, he was running his first marathon.

Since then, Choi has completed ultra-marathons, multiple triathlons and was the first person with PD to complete a 100-mile bike ride in under five hours. He found his calling as an activist for Parkinson’s research and has raised more than $250,000 for the Michael J. Fox Foundation.

From ‘runner fit’ to ‘ninja fit’

So how did Jimmy Choi go from running marathons to competing on American Ninja Warrior (ANW), a TV show designed to test some of the world’s toughest athletes in front of an audience of 5 million viewers per episode? We have his daughter, Karina, to thank for that.

“It was her favorite show. She begged me to take her to gyms in the area that had obstacle courses so she could play. When she was 6 years old, she said, ‘You should try out.’ And I gave her all the excuses in the book,” Choi recalled.

“But when we watched Alison Topperwein (the first athlete with Parkinson’s to compete on ANW) compete during season 8, my daughter turned to me and asked, ‘What was your excuse again?’ From that moment on, I had no more excuses.”

When Choi applied for the show, he didn’t think he’d get on. “Up to this point, I was a fit person running marathons. I was runner fit, but not ninja fit. And since they had already done a Parkinson’s story, I didn’t think they’d do it again,” he said.

In fact, he was so certain he wouldn’t get on the show, Choi didn’t even bother training for ANW’s grueling assault course until he got the surprise phone call notifying him that his episode would film within six weeks. That left him with only a handful of weeks to train.

Competing on the show in July 2017 “was the most terrifying and exciting thing I had to do at the same time,” he described. But he fared well, overcoming the first two obstacles before falling at the notoriously difficult “broken pipes” section. A fan favorite, Choi wound up competing on the show for three seasons.

“People know me as an endurance athlete, but what they don’t see is that I’m constantly building on my abilities to prepare my body to be able to do these things. For instance, I used to fall a lot, so I started using burpees as a training method to teach myself how to fall safely and then build the strength to get back up,” Choi said.

“I get asked all the time, ‘What would you change knowing what you do now?’ Well, I would change those first years of denial. Living with Parkinson’s requires a whole lifestyle change. It is not something you can do for a short period of time and think it’s sustainable. You have to be all in and fully committed to making the changes you need to make in order to live your best with Parkinson’s.”

The mind-body connection associated with yoga proved lifechanging for Renée Le Verrier. It helped her Parkinson’s so much she decided to become a yoga teacher herself. Now she specializes in yoga for mobility issues.

There’s a common expression that “every cloud has a silver lining,” meaning even the worst events or situations will have some sort of positive impact on our lives. A Parkinson’s diagnosis, for instance, can feel devastating at first, but eventually the storm passes, the clouds part and those silver linings reveal themselves.

For Renée Le Verrier, the silver linings of her Parkinson’s diagnosis came in the form of two massive Great Danes named Tommy and Bryson—her loyal service dogs—along with a newfound appreciation for yoga and the physical, mental and emotional healing effects it has on Parkinson’s disease.

Le Verrier was diagnosed with Parkinson’s in 2004 at the age of 43. She was an editor at a New England publishing company at the time, struggling to wrap her mind around what her future would entail. Denial set in. “I figured if I didn’t see a neurologist, then I could pretend there’s nothing wrong. But that didn’t work,” said Le Verrier.

Once she accepted the diagnosis, Le Verrier dove headfirst into fighting the symptoms and slowing down her disease progression. She went to a place that took a whole-body approach to therapy, including physical therapy, occupational therapy (OT), speech pathology and counseling.

“I said, ‘The only thing you’re missing is yoga,’ and one of the OTs said, ‘And guess who would be a good person to teach that?’ She meant me. I had been practicing yoga for years and recently got back into it for the stretching, thinking it might complement the other therapies,” Le Verrier said.

“So, when the OT suggested I teach it, I decided to shift careers and begin the process of yoga teacher training. The entire time I was training I was filtering what the poses might look like to a person with a movement disorder, as I knew that my specialty would be working with people with mobility issues.”

Yoga and the power of awareness

The more Le Verrier explored the teachings of yoga, the more she understood the connection it fosters between the body and the mind. “If I were to describe yoga in one word, it would be ‘awareness’ because when the mind and body are connected, you are much more alert to where you are and what your body is doing,” she said.

On a physical level, yoga helps alleviate common Parkinson’s symptoms like stiffness, rigidity and dystonia. It can even work wonders for balance and fall prevention. For instance, Le Verrier does a whole series that teaches her students how to fall and get back up.

“The key to falling is knowing how to fall and knowing how to get back up. It’s a huge confidence builder because the reality is that you’re going to fall. I fall at least once a week. But once you know how to fall and get back up, that recovery becomes faster and easier,” she said.

The mind-body awareness that yoga encourages can also help you perform an “inventory check,” as Le Verrier put it, on your mental health and emotional well-being. “It helps you remember that in this moment, right now, everything is OK. Or, in this moment, I feel frustrated, but I won’t feel this way forever,” she said.

“I’m moving into my fourteenth year of Parkinson’s, and when the medications aren’t working so well I notice mood changes. I might feel anxious, blue or angry. Instead of riding the rollercoaster of emotions, yoga has made me more aware of how the medication cycle affects my mood. I realize, ‘I’m really not sad. It’s just time for another dose.’”

Great Danes make great canes

One day, a student walked into one of Le Verrier’s yoga classes with a giant Great Dane in tow. “Down,” her student commanded, and the service dog immediately folded down on the ground with the grace of a ballerina. Le Verrier was fascinated.

“I thought, ‘Why have a cane when you can have a giant dog?’ I didn’t need a cane at the time, but when I started thinking about it, I knew that training a dog takes time. Perhaps if I got a dog sooner than I actually need one, it would give me enough time to work with the dog. I quickly learned that there is nothing better than having a fuzzy, four-legged cane.”

Le Verrier got Tommy at an Ipswich, Massachusetts, nonprofit called Service Dog Project that trains Great Danes to assist people with movement disorders like Parkinson’s, multiple sclerosis and cerebral palsy.

Putting her safety in the paws of a dog that outweighed her by 50 pounds intimidated Le Verrier at first. But one look into Tommy’s soulful eyes and she was a goner. “I love my husband, but this dog is with me all the time,” she joked. She wrote about their adventures in her book, “Travels with Tommy: Stories of Life with a Service Dog.”

Le Verrier and her family relocated to Whidbey Island, Washington, in the fall of 2015 to escape the New England winters. Tommy has since retired. “He’s 8 years old and getting a little creaky. At this age, it’s not really fair for him to have to support my weight along with his own,” Le Verrier explained.

She now has a second service dog named Bryson, a behemoth of a Great Dane who weighed 155 pounds when he was still a puppy. “We’re at the beginning stages of our working together,” Le Verrier said. “They have very different personalities but seem to get along fine with each other and with our little rescue dog. Tommy knows he’s still the top dog even though he’s retired.”

Katrina Kahl, executive director, chats on the radio with Wake Up Call with Holloway and Lundun from Newsradio 1120 KPNW AM in Eugene about Plates for Parkinson’s Eugene happening on September 20, 2019.

After Jennifer Parkinson was diagnosed with young-onset Parkinson’s disease at the age of 32, she decided to fight back – literally.

Jennifer Parkinson had just given birth to her second child and was working as a registered nurse in Kentucky when she was diagnosed with early-onset Parkinson’s disease at the age of 32.

By the time she was diagnosed in 2005, it was pretty evident Parkinson had PD. Even her patients noticed the tremor in her right hand, and assuming she was nervous, would ask if it was her first day on the job. A neurologist told her she’d be confined to a wheelchair within 10 years and unable to care for her children.

“You can imagine how devastating that prognosis is,” Parkinson said. “But I am extremely stubborn and told him I was going to prove him wrong.”

Fast forward to 2009. By this point, Parkinson was a recently divorced single mom of two living in California on disability. Her symptoms were worsening, and she was struggling with two to three freezing episodes per day. Enough was enough. It was time to fight back … literally.

Parkinson had read about the benefits of non-contact boxing for Parkinson’s disease and decided to give it a shot. She walked into world-champion kickboxer Dale Jacoby’s studio in Agoura Hills, California, and began training.

“I found myself working out with other fighters – guys who were going to get in the ring that weekend – not other Parkinson’s patients,” Parkinson said.

“I was never the type of person to go to the gym. It wasn’t something I enjoyed doing. But I learned very quickly that this was helping me. When I didn’t work out, I felt awful. When I did work out, I had more energy and could take care of my kids. When I saw what it was doing for me, I knew I had to help others.”

By 2013, Parkinson was a certified Rock Steady Boxing coach and helped create the first Rock Steady Boxing affiliate in Costa Mesa, California. Then, when a local boxing gym opened in Newbury Park, California, Parkinson teamed up with Josh Ripley and Lisa Oliver to launch Title Boxing Club Newbury Park’s PD Fighters Program. The program quickly grew from 15 members in 2014 to nearly 100 in 2016.

“It was once thought that people with Parkinson’s could only do chair exercises because they couldn’t move very well. But the less you move, the less you are able to move. So, it’s actually better for people with PD to move more. The more you move, the better outcome you are going to have,” Parkinson said.

Pleased with the success of Title Boxing Club, Parkinson and Ripley decided to branch off to start a new nonprofit, Neuroboxing, so they could serve a broader clientele that would not only include those with Parkinson’s, but also people living with multiple sclerosis or recovering from a stroke or traumatic brain injury. Today, Neuroboxing has 10 locations throughout California.

Achieving the impossible

In 2015, Parkinson joined Vincent “Enzo” Simone’s “10 Mountains 10 Years” project – a group of mountain-climbers whose mission is to raise awareness for Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease worldwide – and climbed the 11,000-foot active volcano Mt. Etna in Italy. By that point, she had been living with Parkinson’s for about 10 years.

“I was in pretty good shape. I had been hiking, running and boxing a lot, but nothing really prepares you for something of that nature,” Parkinson said. “When we were getting ready to start the climb when I looked up at this massive volcano and thought, ‘Oh my gosh, what am I getting myself into?’ But I took a deep breath and off I went.”

Once she reached the top of the crater and took in the views, “It was magnificent – one of the greatest things I’ve ever gotten to witness,” she said. “It pushed me beyond what I thought I could do. You don’t really know what you are capable of until you put a challenge in front of yourself that seems impossible. Having those challenges has made me a better advocate and also defined how strong I really am.”

Her inspiring journey caught the attention of Anne Hathaway, who was getting ready to start filming the movie “Love & Other Drugs.” Parkinson was asked to assist Hathaway in prepare for the role of a young woman with young-onset Parkinson’s disease. Meanwhile, Simone was looking for a narrator for his “10 Mountains 10 Years” documentary. Parkinson asked Hathaway if she would consider doing it, and the actress agreed.

In July 2019, Parkinson joined Simone and his team of advocates on their hike to Magna Via Francigena, a recently discovered pilgrimage route to the Temple of Asclepius—the birthplace of healthcare and medicine. Unlike the seven-hour climb to Mt. Etna, this was a 115-mile, 10-day trek across Sicily in scorching heat. There were days when Parkinson began to doubt herself and wasn’t sure if she could keep going – until she remembered why she was doing it and for whom.

“I did this for all the people that I advocate for in our Neuroboxing program, all the people I knew who couldn’t be there, and also for my father passed who away in 2013 from Alzheimer’s. He was very heavy on my mind and on my heart when we were completing this hike across Sicily. He was always the one who told me I could do anything I wanted to do. I knew I had to do this for him because he is always with me,” Parkinson said.

“This was a very personal and very emotional journey for me. You’re forced to look inside yourself to discover your place in this world, what your role is going to be, and how something so transformative can change the way you advocate for yourself and others.”

People with Parkinson’s disease are gravitating toward the Mediterranean diet because it’s
packed with nutrients without skimping on the flavor.

If you or someone you love is living with Parkinson’s disease, chances are you’ve heard the
words “Mediterranean” and “diet” come up in conversations about nutrition.

What exactly is a Mediterranean diet? It’s a diet that is traditionally eaten by those inhabiting the
21 countries that border the Mediterranean Sea. Italy, Greece, France, Spain, Turkey, Syria,
Egypt and Morocco are just a few examples.

The main components of the Mediterranean diet include:

• Daily consumption of vegetables, fruits, whole grains and healthy fats such as nuts, seeds
  and plant-based oils, i.e., olive oil, walnut oil, avocado oil, coconut oil, etc.
• Weekly intake of beans, lean poultry, eggs and fish high in omega-3 fatty acids, such as
  salmon
• Moderate portions of dairy products and wine
• Limited intake of red meat, processed foods, sugar and sodium

Interest in the Mediterranean diet began in the 1960s with the observation that coronary heart
disease caused fewer deaths in Mediterranean countries than in the U.S. and northern Europe.
Subsequent studies found that the Mediterranean diet is associated with reduced risk factors for
cardiovascular disease.

Parkinson’s and the Mediterranean diet

Is there concrete scientific evidence proving that eating a Mediterranean diet has a direct impact
on Parkinson’s symptoms? Not really. Studies conducted on diet to mitigate Parkinson’s
symptoms or lower the risk of developing PD have shown inconsistent results.

That said, nourishing your body and brain with vital nutrients found in a plant-based food is just
plain common sense! In fact, the Mediterranean diet is one of the healthy eating plans
recommended by the Dietary Guidelines for Americans and the World Health Organization to
promote health and prevent chronic disease.

One of the reasons why people with Parkinson’s gravitate toward the Mediterranean diet is
because it’s heavy on plant-based nutrients, yet moderate when it comes to protein
consumption. People living with PD often have concerns that protein intake may decrease the
effectiveness of carbidopa/levodopa (Sinemet), a medication for treating Parkinson’s.

Indeed, a high-protein meal may slow levodopa absorption in the brain. As the disease
progresses, people with Parkinson’s have found that eating most of their protein later in the day
gives them better control over their motor symptoms.

Doctors recommend taking carbidopa/levodopa 30 to 60 minutes before eating a meal. This
allows the medication to be quickly absorbed before the food can interfere.

The diet plan specifically targeting brain health

Some proponents of nutrition and its effect on brain health suggest trying a hybrid of the
Mediterranean diet and the DASH (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) diet. Together,
they are referred to as the MIND diet (The Mediterranean-DASH Intervention for
Neurodegenerative Delay).

The MIND diet has been associated with a lower risk of Alzheimer’s disease and possibly
lowering the risk or slowing the progression of Parkinson’s symptoms in elderly patients. It’s based on 10
food groups to eat and five to avoid.

The 10 to eat include green leafy veggies, berries, fish, poultry, beans, nuts, olive oil, whole
grains and no more than one glass of wine per day. The five to avoid are butter/margarine,
cheese, red meat, fried foods and sweets.

As you can see, there is quite a bit of overlap between the MIND diet and the Mediterranean diet.

Making Mediterranean or MINDful meals at home

Interested in trying the Mediterranean or MIND diet? These seven tips will help you get started:

1. Load up on fruits and vegetables. Aim for seven to 10 servings of fruit and vegetables
each day. Considering combining them into a nutritious smoothie that is easy to make
and even easier to digest.

2. Eat more seafood. Fresh or water-packed tuna, salmon, trout, mackerel and herring are healthy choices. Grilled fish tastes good and requires little cleanup. Avoid deep-fried fish.

3. Reduce red meat. Substitute steak for fish, poultry or beans. If you can’t resist your craving for beef, make sure it’s lean and keep portions small.

4. Enjoy some dairy in moderation. Eat low-fat Greek or plain yogurt and small amounts of cheeses. You may find that drinking or cooking with nut-based milks, such as almond milk or coconut milk, are just as delicious and effective in recipes—but with half the fat and double the nutrients.

5. Go for the whole grains. Switch to whole-grain bread, cereal and pasta. There are more pastas coming out that are made with more nutritious ingredients such as lentils or chickpeas. Experiment with other whole grains, such as quinoa, bulgur and farro.

6. Spice up your life. Herbs and spices boost flavor and lessen the need for salt. For instance, try substituting salt with garlic salt. Get to know the delectable orange spice better known as turmeric, as it is chockful of antioxidants and great for digestion.

7. Use healthy fats. Try olive oil or coconut oil as a replacement for butter when cooking. Instead of putting butter or margarine on bread, try dipping it in olive oil flavored with herbs and spices.

Here are a few of our favorite Mediterranean recipes:

 Maple and Tamari Glazed Salmon

 Tandoori Spiced Quinoa

 Asparagus and Tomato Farro Salad

 Smoky Baba Ghanoush

Keep in mind that, due to various food allergies and digestive issues that impact us on an
individual basis, there isn’t one particular diet that is proven to be best for people living with
Parkinson’s disease.

You should always talk to your doctor about nutrition concerns and work together to determine
which diet is best for your own unique needs.

Fast and nutritious, this sautéed shrimp bowl comes together easily for a perfect weeknight meal. Healthy and satisfying, with a simple cilantro and avocado oil vinaigrette, you’ll quickly find many ways to vary this recipe to suit your tastes.

Serves: 4
Difficulty: easy

This recipe is provided by our partners at Market of Choice.

Buddha bowls are an excellent way to get many superfoods into one delicious and nutritious meal. Our recipe combines anti-oxidants and anti-inflammatory foods and probiotic-rich beet kraut, all topped with drizzles of lemon-tahini. Simply cook the cauliflower rice and add whichever foods your body and mind are craving.

• Serves: 4
• Difficulty: easy
• Prep time: 20 min.
• Cook time: 30 min.
• Special tools: none

This recipe is provided by our partners at Market of Choice.