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Tuesday, December 1, 2015

Three Years After Stent Placement and New Lipid Profile Numbers

DH's last stent placement was three years ago this week.  From that time he has been following Dr. Caldwell Esseltyn's low fat plant based diet program to reverse his heart disease.  http://www.heartattackproof.com

Every three to six months we have had his lipid profile to see if the diet is working.  His numbers continue to improve.

Today he had his lipids checked again, and these are his numbers:

Total Cholesterol: 104
Triglycerides:        166
LDL:                        38
HDL                         33

And now he has his glucose checked and it was at 87.

Take a look at his numbers last time:

Total Cholesterol:  157
HDL:                        28
Triglycerides          198
LDL:                        90

In past months his doctor has always gotten on his case for the LDL, but look in the huge drop, it went from 166 to 90.

I will say that he is on 10 mg. of Atorvastin three times a week, but this is a decrease in medication from a daily dose of 40 mg. of Simvastatin, and the pharmacist told him to tell the doctor he doesn't need to take the statins anymore.

He is not on anything else, no adrenaline blockers, or beta blockers.

Want to know what he eats every day?

Breakfast:  1 huge bowl of oatmeal, 15 frozen cherries, and 1/2 grapenuts
Snack:  1 cucumber
Lunch:  1 large potato, refried beans, 1/4 salsa, 2 T sugar free ketchup, and 2 tablespoons of mustard

(okay, I can't get into the mustard, but he has developed a taste for it)

A discussion on potatoes:

People say that russets cause blood sugar problems, and weight gain, but not for DH.  Russets are what he has added to the diet since the last test and look at the numbers!

Since he has added potatoes to his regime, his glucose has gone from 110 to 87.  The numbers don't lie.  He has also lost 10 pounds, so where is the problem with the potato I ask?

The problem is what is added to the potato.  Dr. Neal Barnard has proven that it is the fat added to the potato in the form of butter and sour cream that drives up the blood sugar.  I was once pre-diabetic and I have tested out this theory over and over again testing my blood sugar frequently and as long as I eat the russet with the skins, and stick to one large, not over eating, my blood sugar stays below 125 during digestion, and goes back to the mid 80s two hours after.

Continuing on with what he eats during the day.......

Snack:  Banana, and or apple.

Dinner:  Dinner almost always consists of something really starchy, whatever the paleo low carbers would call taboo: brown rice pasta, another huge potato, or brown rice.

Examples of dinner meals:

Pasta with low or no oil marinara sauce
Pasta with a veg cheese sauce I make out of blended cooked cauliflower, garbanzo beans, and nutritional yeast.
baked yellow potatoes, ketchup, no oil homemade hummus.
Stir fry with no oil added.

Like I said dinner always has something very starchy and he eats as much as he wants, and at a least a couple of veggies in the from of stir-fry salad, cooked veggies, etc.  Then he also has fresh fruit for dessert as sweet as he wants, like pineapple, and as much as he wants.

He also does something else the diet experts would call deplorable, he eats a huge bowl of oatmeal before bedtime.

He has lost 75 pounds and maintained that weight.  The only exercise he does is 10 minutes of strength training three times per week, and puttering around the house.

I have friends and family struggling with life threatening health crisis as I speak now.  This diet works, and I pray for you that you might give it a try because it is an easy way to live and it's does work to reverse conditions that not even medical intervention has been able to do.   We've been at this for three years, and the proof is in the pudding.  He lifted a 26 cubic foot refrigerator into the back of a pickup yesterday and didn't even break a sweat.

Saturday night we walked two blocks to an event in downtown and I couldn't keep up with him.  He had no breathlessness, no sweating, no dizziness, no left arm heaviness and pain.

Three years ago, he couldn't walk to the end of the block.

How many people do you know who have had heart procedures that have gone for three years without heart medications and without having a degradation in their heart health?  I struggle to find one person.

How many people do you know that have diabetes, or have been diagnosed pre-diabetic, as DH had, reverse their diabetes without medical intervention in the form of pills?  I know many, but all of them are people I have only seen on the Internet, and are doing this diet.  I don't know any personally, except for one and he works hard physically, and has changed his diet, but doesn't do a low-fat plant based diet, but he is on a good diet, but let me make this a long sentence and say he does a lot of hard physical labor.  DH does not.

I only want to bring this up because it has been three years now, and DH has now become one of Dr. Esselstyn's hundreds of statistics that have supported the studies that a low-fat plant based diet reverses heart disease, and if your doctor is saying there isn't anymore he can do for you, and you are crippled by your chronic condition, there is hope that there are answers in this diet.  If you are up against a wall, try this diet.  You don't go hungry, you can eat how much you want (if your a guy), and when you want, and still heal the chronic condition.

All you need is education to learn how to prepare the foods, and setting it as a priority in your lives.

DH is a busy man, works for corporate America, eats out at restaurants because his business requires it, but he has learned how to bring foods to work that keep him going through the day, and he has learned how to order only from the menu what he can eat.  If he can do it, you can to.