Showing posts with label triglycerides. Show all posts
Showing posts with label triglycerides. Show all posts
Thursday, June 6, 2019
Monday, July 23, 2018
Dr. Esselstyn -Nutritional Reversal of Cardiovascular Disease: Fact or Fiction
This talk was part of The Real Truth Symposium on February 9, 2018, but was just put on YouTube the other day.
This lecture not only explains the entire history of Dr. Esselstyn's eating guidelines, but goes over in detail what happens in your coronary arteries, including the function of all the little cells found in the space beneath the endocardial cells (Foam cells? Wow!). He Talks of all his guidelines, including the newest ones that incorporate high nitrate greens 6 times a day and why it's so important to have acetic vinegars, preferably balsamic, with them.
This is THE video to watch if you have heart disease and want to reverse it, or just want to prevent heart disease - or any the other diseases of humanity, from arthritis to cancer!
A word of warning - because it was a free conference and had a lot of sponsors, a lot of advertising pops up as banners across the bottom of the screen telling you who various sponsors are. After the first few you learn to just tune them out.
This lecture not only explains the entire history of Dr. Esselstyn's eating guidelines, but goes over in detail what happens in your coronary arteries, including the function of all the little cells found in the space beneath the endocardial cells (Foam cells? Wow!). He Talks of all his guidelines, including the newest ones that incorporate high nitrate greens 6 times a day and why it's so important to have acetic vinegars, preferably balsamic, with them.
This is THE video to watch if you have heart disease and want to reverse it, or just want to prevent heart disease - or any the other diseases of humanity, from arthritis to cancer!
A word of warning - because it was a free conference and had a lot of sponsors, a lot of advertising pops up as banners across the bottom of the screen telling you who various sponsors are. After the first few you learn to just tune them out.
Wednesday, May 3, 2017
Friday, October 28, 2016
Monday, July 25, 2016
An Evening with the Esselstyn's Video
Plant Based Nutrition Support Group (of Michigan?) meeting. Dr. Esselstyn is introduced at around 33 minutes, Ann and Jane start their talk and cooking demo - and exercise break with a song! - at 1:38.
Friday, April 8, 2016
Why A Plant Based Diet is Best for Heart Disease
A great demonstration on how the heart works, how it's harmed by a SAD diet, and how a plant-rich diet can lower the risk of heart disease. Yes, it's an ad for his new book, The End of Heart Disease, but everything he says goes for the McDougall and Esselstyn food plans, too.
Wednesday, November 19, 2014
The Word Really IS Getting Out!
I love comic strips. As a child of the 50's and 60's, I grew up on them, and even now start every morning reading all my favorite strips. Yes, they're on-line instead of in newspapers now, but because of that I've found more comics to love than ever before.
Non Sequitur is one of those strips. Sure, they sometimes go off in tangents I don't care about, like the old New England fisherman rambling on about mermaids now and then, but it's usually pleasant enough.
On November 10th the artist started doing a story line that led up to a character's heart attack. Look at what today's strip is:
Monday, April 7, 2014
McDougall Program for Maximum Weight Loss
Back in 1994, Dr. McDougall finally realized that not everyone was losing weight effortlessly on his food program and published the book The McDougall Program for Maximum Weight Loss, affectionately known as MWLP by his followers.
He added a 5-day MWLP program in Santa Rosa, which was well attended.
Michelle Dick added a page to her FatFree web site explaining the difference between the two McDougall programs.
A long-time McDougaller made up a list of MWLP recipes found in all the other McDougall books.
Another forum member started doing a blog with photo essays of her making many of the MWLP recipes. She also took the time to make a list with links to all the MWLP recipes found in the McDougall newsletters up to that point.
In January 2005, he wrote a newsletter article on how to refine the MWLP program for better compliance and results. He mentioned all the big weight loss people at his program would achieve. Well, yeah, people always lose big the first week of a new weight loss diet.
Many people still weren't losing weight as easily as promised. I even wrote to him with that complaint, and got the same reply back that doctors had been telling me for decades when I complained I would follow a diet exactly as written but still fail to lose or gain - I must be cheating and not following the plan right. After years of encouraging people to fill their plates to the max, even offering a bet in the MWLP book to people saying that they can't eat more than him, he decided that eating so much isn't a good thing.
In the November 2005 newsletter article on Volume Eaters he admitted that for some people, they do need to reduce the total amount of food, even of his beloved of starches, to levels sometimes as low as those given to clients in attendance of the Rice House, many times reducing the calories to under 1000kcal/day. Yeah, that's what I said when I wrote to him, that I don't lose any weight unless I eat under 1000 calories. I was told to stop counting calories.
Possibly disproving my usual preaching that people following our diet always lose weight and become healthier are a few extraordinary people I call “volume eaters.” They eat very large amounts of McDougall approved foods, and their weight remains stubbornly fixed at a point too high for excellent health—although they all lost initially after giving up the high-fat, high-calorie Western diet. I can vividly recall several men and a few woman who exemplify this behavior—and I know there are many more out there (in fact, I am guilty of a tinge of this behavior at times myself—“it takes one to know one”).
and also:
The most successful program for the treatment of people with serious eating disorders is the Kempner Rice Diet.5 This is a diet of rice, fruit, and sugar, plus vitamin and iron supplements, devised by Walter Kempner, MD, of Duke University in the 1940s to treat hypertension. The regular diet consists of about 2,000 calories daily and contains 5 gm or less of fat, about 20 gm of protein, and not more than 150 mg of sodium. However, the initial diet prescribed for weight loss is even more restricted in calories (400 to 800 per day).
I had heard from a number of other women who were experiencing the same thing - weight gain while following the MWLP as-written. When I mentioned this fact on the original McDougall forums on VegSource I was banned. Finally, I was vindicated!
In 2006, he let the world know how he and Mary go on an actual calorie-restricted diet he named the "Mary's Mini" for 10 days at a time and outlined this in the June and July issues of the newsletter. (Also told of Mary's history of what appears to be disordered eating, some days eating only a can of tomatoes or some jars of baby food, then went on to defend it by saying the babyfood squash has all the vital nutrients. Enabling much?)
In 2008 he released another set of lectures on DVD called Dr. McDougall's Money Saving Medical Advice, and the first of those three lectures was The Science Behind the Maximum Weight Loss Program.
In 2011 Dr. McDougall added this short talk to his McDougall's Moments video series:
In April 2011, in a forum post about the buffet table at the seminars, her wrote this:
I have made that same conclusion and have often threatened to reverse the order on the buffet table so that people eat their salad last like I hear they do in Europe.
I teach the Maximum Weight Loss Program (an approach which emphasizes green and yellow vegetables) less enthusiastically than before because people do not do well in short and long term without the starch.
Short term they don't like the food as well, are hungry between meals, and have intestinal distress (gas and pain and upper acid indigestion).
Long term, without satisfaction delivered by starches, compliance falls off.
I believe in a starch-based diet -- green and yellow vegetables and salads are side dished.
In recent years, he's been mentioning in lectures he's given that he no longer pushes the MWLP program because people were turning it from a starch-based program into a green and yellow vegetable based one. You can see that plainly on his forums daily, when certain Star McDougallers encourage people to make their plates 3/4 veggies and only a quarter starch, the complete opposite of Dr. McDougall's teachings. He barely mentions this way of eating in the last book, The Starch Solution, devoting only a page to the principles of it (216) for those with stubborn weight loss and doesn't even refer to it as the MWLP. He no longer offers the MWLP 5-day seminars in Santa Rosa.
Still, for so many of us, weight loss is not possible without it, and many of the female Stars who are on that elite list because of their large amounts of weight loss only achieved it because of the MWLP. As soon as they start to eat foods not on the plan they start to gain. Just as with any weight loss diet, to maintain the loss you have to continue eating the foods that got you there, and in the same amounts. There's no way to eat more and not gain weight.
There were only 3 times in my life I lost any significant amount of weight. The first time was as a child on 1000 calories a day, exercising almost 2 hours each day. It took 2 years to lose 30 pounds, then 1 month at 1200 calories to regain it all plus another 20.
The second times was in 2000 when I followed strict MWLP 5 days a week, the regular McDougall program on weekends. Because of recent injuries and degenerative disc disease, I barely exercised. I lost almost 50 pounds in 6 months before the weight started to come back on, even when I started to reduce calories to below 1000kcal/day. I lost 16 pounds the first week, around 5 a week for the next few, then down to 2, one, none, and then started to regain. Before a year was out, most of the weight was back on. My doc blamed lack of exercise and low thyroid. It took over 10 years to find the root cause of all my pains that had prevented me from exercising more effectively, and my thyroid numbers still aren't all that great, but "good enough" according to my docs.
My most recent weight loss has come after my husband's CABG surgery, when he was barely eating and needed a lot of assistance. During those long days at the hospital without access to decent food so lunch was skipped and it was too late for a decent meal when I got home at night; those busy days at home when I only had time to eat a small amount of food, all contributed to a rapid loss of about 15 pounds. The strict adherence to Dr. McDougall/Dr. Esselstyn food rules have helped release a few more pounds.
Recent lab work that showed a worsening of some values, such as total cholesterol and triglycerides, is now causing me to move from many of the Esselstyn and McD heart-healthy recipes back into MWLP territory. I suspected I would have to do this back in September when my trigs and LDL shot up a bit from July's numbers, but they continued to be flaky in my March lab tests even though I made some changes. Hummus sandwiches, Rip's Big Bowl breakfasts and all those pasta meals have got to go, as well as large amounts of potatoes and brown rice. I'll be eating more soups and stews, more SNAP meals, more very beany Mary McDougall MWLP recipes. I'll take Chef AJ's advice and have green veggies with every meal, including breakfast. I already add greens to my oatmeal and grits, but now even the grits have got to go.
Dr. McDougall may not be that much into the MWLP program any more, but for many of us, it's the only way to go for weight loss and better lab numbers.
Tuesday, October 29, 2013
New Orleans Jambalaya
Note: I started this post over a week ago but never completed it until now, mostly because I had no time with hubby still home and because I never got a chance to transfer the pic from the camera to computer until now. More info after the picture.
This is one of Jeff Novick's simple meals that for some reason isn't included on the Facebook page. He does have an Okra Jambalya there, but I'm really not a fan of that slimy vegetable, so made that version only once and vowed to never make it again. This particular version I've only seen posted in his forum on the McDougall web site.
The recipe:
New Orleans Jambalaya
1) 2 28oz can Whole Tomatoes (No Salt Added)
2) 2 cans 14oz can red beans or kidney beans (No Salt Added)
3) 2 lbs frozen Vegetables, corn, carrots, zucchini, yellow squash (equal parts)
4) Success Quick Cooking Brown rice (1 large bag)
5) Spice mix
Cook Brown Rice (Success Quick Cooking). While rice is cooking, place tomatoes, and veggies in pot and heat. Add in 4 cloves garlic, diced, 1 bay leaf, 1/2 tsp thyme, 4 tsp paprika, .25 to .5 tsp cayenne pepper. And heat.
When rice is done, place in a bowl and serve tomato vegetable mix on top.
Since cans of name brand whole tomatoes are getting harder and harder to find in our city, either due to rust, dents, or high sodium content, I was very happy to see that the local Stop and Shop recently expanded their own line of no-sodium added tomato products to include the 15 ounce cans of these beauties. The quality may be a small step down from some of the more expensive name brands, but just as good as some others. They do contain a bit more juicy liquid, the only drawback. I used one can of the Cento that I had left and 2 of the Stop and Shop ones.
I used the dark red kidney beans, and half a bag each of the frozen vegetables listed.
OK, maybe I tossed in a bit more corn and the whole bag of zucchini. :)
Instead of Success rice I cooked up some of the whole grain mix I got from the local Asian food store. I has brown rice, wild rice, barley, and a few other grains. This stuff is as tasty as any Lundburg mix at a fraction of the cost.
For the spices, I've had this jar of Cajun Spice Mix from Penzey Spices that I got free with a coupon for a few years now and never had the chance to use. I used 2 tablespoons and although it was perfect for me, my husband wanted more kick so added his sriracha sauce to his bowls.
See how great it turned out:
This made 2 large servings and 2 smaller servings the first day, and we had enough for 4 of my 3-cup Pyrex containers in leftovers that we had for lunches later that week.
This mealis now was going into my SNAP Foods rotation schedule. I (did) plan on making 3 or 4 of those meals a week for the next few "weeks, months, years, who knows?" to quote Eeyore.
Written today:
I had a whole big paragraph about why I'm going to stick with Jeff's SNAP meals for the time being because they 1) were helping me lose weight at a pretty decent clip there for a while and 2) are great for controlling cholesterol and, more importantly in this house, triglycerides. I had all intentions of doing that, until life once again interfered.
Now my husband has gout.
But I'll save that saga for another blog post.
This is one of Jeff Novick's simple meals that for some reason isn't included on the Facebook page. He does have an Okra Jambalya there, but I'm really not a fan of that slimy vegetable, so made that version only once and vowed to never make it again. This particular version I've only seen posted in his forum on the McDougall web site.
The recipe:
New Orleans Jambalaya
1) 2 28oz can Whole Tomatoes (No Salt Added)
2) 2 cans 14oz can red beans or kidney beans (No Salt Added)
3) 2 lbs frozen Vegetables, corn, carrots, zucchini, yellow squash (equal parts)
4) Success Quick Cooking Brown rice (1 large bag)
5) Spice mix
Cook Brown Rice (Success Quick Cooking). While rice is cooking, place tomatoes, and veggies in pot and heat. Add in 4 cloves garlic, diced, 1 bay leaf, 1/2 tsp thyme, 4 tsp paprika, .25 to .5 tsp cayenne pepper. And heat.
When rice is done, place in a bowl and serve tomato vegetable mix on top.
Since cans of name brand whole tomatoes are getting harder and harder to find in our city, either due to rust, dents, or high sodium content, I was very happy to see that the local Stop and Shop recently expanded their own line of no-sodium added tomato products to include the 15 ounce cans of these beauties. The quality may be a small step down from some of the more expensive name brands, but just as good as some others. They do contain a bit more juicy liquid, the only drawback. I used one can of the Cento that I had left and 2 of the Stop and Shop ones.
I used the dark red kidney beans, and half a bag each of the frozen vegetables listed.
OK, maybe I tossed in a bit more corn and the whole bag of zucchini. :)
Instead of Success rice I cooked up some of the whole grain mix I got from the local Asian food store. I has brown rice, wild rice, barley, and a few other grains. This stuff is as tasty as any Lundburg mix at a fraction of the cost.
For the spices, I've had this jar of Cajun Spice Mix from Penzey Spices that I got free with a coupon for a few years now and never had the chance to use. I used 2 tablespoons and although it was perfect for me, my husband wanted more kick so added his sriracha sauce to his bowls.
See how great it turned out:
This made 2 large servings and 2 smaller servings the first day, and we had enough for 4 of my 3-cup Pyrex containers in leftovers that we had for lunches later that week.
This meal
Written today:
I had a whole big paragraph about why I'm going to stick with Jeff's SNAP meals for the time being because they 1) were helping me lose weight at a pretty decent clip there for a while and 2) are great for controlling cholesterol and, more importantly in this house, triglycerides. I had all intentions of doing that, until life once again interfered.
Now my husband has gout.
But I'll save that saga for another blog post.
Thursday, October 17, 2013
Back to Doctor Bashing
Those who followed my VeganMoFo posts for the first half of the month might remember the day I mentioned my doctor's appointment to get some lab results. I wrote a long post about being overwhelmed when I finally got all the results.
Well, I did have some blood drawn to repeat some of those labs and got the results last Thursday.
The good news is that the ESR and CRP were well within normal limits, so no excessive inflammation that would indicate lupus, many other auto-immune diseases, or rampaging cardiovascular disease.
My total cholesterol was down to 176 - much better but still not in the heart-attack proof range. VLDL was up a little, but took me just one point over the normal reference range.
My triglycerides level is what shocked me - 237! They went UP even after eating from the 2 heart-healthy books for the 2 weeks prior to the blood draw and strict McDougall/Esselstyn since July 8th when my husband first told me of his chest pains! WTF?!?!?!
Then I looked back over my journal entries to see exactly what I was eating, and saw that for more than half of the entries in the first half of the month I had flour products, and what wasn't mentioned in those entries were the (whole wheat, unsalted) pretzels I was eating most nights. One day I had a load of fruit as a night time snack, and most mornings I had raisins or dried dates in my oatmeal. Most days I was also having a few ounces of POM juice, as recommended by Dr. Fuhrman in his autoimmune protocols, and once or twice some fruit-based salad dressing.
Between the flour and fruits I can see why the trigs were up.
My doc doesn't believe too much fruit has anything to do with triglycerides, that it's only saturated fats that raise it, "anything you can buy in a bakery, including whole wheat bread" is bad, everything else is fine, (here it comes) in moderation." (sigh)
My doctor went into immediate pill-pusher mode and had the student doc start looking up meds to lower triglycerides and wrote a prescription for Lovaza, a purified fish oil pill to raise Omega-3's, even though I told him I'm not going to take it, especially when the web site say it's for trigs over 500, and mine are less than half that. I can take more crushed flax seed and chia seeds to raise Omega 3's, like Dr. Esselstyn says to do.
He told me I'm eating too many carbs on my food plan, to switch to the "heart healthy" Mediterranean diet, to replace all those carbs with protein foods.
I looked him right in the eye and said: "You want me to stop eating my whole food plant based, no sugar-oil-salt food plan and start taking fish oil, eat fish, chicken and beef, and start pouring olive oil over everything so my triglycerides go down? What do you think my total cholesterol is going to do if I do that?" He and the student just shrugged.
I also reminded him that many people with MCTD eventually wind up with kidney failure and on dialysis, and he wants me to load up on kidney-killing animal protein? He shrugged again.
He told me if I don't want to take the Lovaza, at least take fish oil pills from another source, but make sure they're fresh. I shrugged. Now I know he's just not listening.
I told him I'm going to cut the rest of the dried fruit out my diet and stick to only 1 serving a day of either blueberries or apples, and he shrugged.
I told him I'll cut out the processed carbs - the whole wheat flour and cornmeal - and he shrugged again, telling me I should also cut out the beans and potatoes, so I shrugged again.
He didn't even ask if I saw the rheumatologist yet to start treatment for my MCTD, the one thing my husband was most concerned about. I had to come right out and ask how my ESR and CRP results were. He shrugged and said they're fine, then went back to telling me how horrible my diet is.
So here I am, debating whether or not to shut him up and take Lovaza (probably not), other fish oil pills (ditto), grab a bottle of the EPA-DHA or OmegaPure that Dr. Fuhrman sells, or just go with other comments by Fuhrman and Esselstyn, that as long as one is following the whole foods plant based/plant perfect food plan, don't worry about the trigs, because they're not going to be normal until all the excess weight is off, especially if you already have a lot of belly fat, which I most certainly do.
Dr. McD has a few tips, besides cutting down on fruit and eliminating flour products (meaning, go on MWLP instead of the regular/heart healthy program) that includes increasing exercise and eating an extra quarter cup of oat bran, and a few cloves of garlic every day.
So, no to Lovaza or fish oil, yes to more oat bran, garlic (Yum! Really!) and ground flax (I have to remember to drink more water now), no to flour products (Goodbye, pizza and pasta - sniff) and try increase my aerobic exercise a bit without causing any more pain to my already achy joints and muscles (Now attibutable to MCTD and not my fat and degenerative arthritis).
I'm now 60 years old - time to nip this in the bud so I can live to see 70 and beyond.
Well, I did have some blood drawn to repeat some of those labs and got the results last Thursday.
The good news is that the ESR and CRP were well within normal limits, so no excessive inflammation that would indicate lupus, many other auto-immune diseases, or rampaging cardiovascular disease.
My total cholesterol was down to 176 - much better but still not in the heart-attack proof range. VLDL was up a little, but took me just one point over the normal reference range.
My triglycerides level is what shocked me - 237! They went UP even after eating from the 2 heart-healthy books for the 2 weeks prior to the blood draw and strict McDougall/Esselstyn since July 8th when my husband first told me of his chest pains! WTF?!?!?!
Then I looked back over my journal entries to see exactly what I was eating, and saw that for more than half of the entries in the first half of the month I had flour products, and what wasn't mentioned in those entries were the (whole wheat, unsalted) pretzels I was eating most nights. One day I had a load of fruit as a night time snack, and most mornings I had raisins or dried dates in my oatmeal. Most days I was also having a few ounces of POM juice, as recommended by Dr. Fuhrman in his autoimmune protocols, and once or twice some fruit-based salad dressing.
Between the flour and fruits I can see why the trigs were up.
My doc doesn't believe too much fruit has anything to do with triglycerides, that it's only saturated fats that raise it, "anything you can buy in a bakery, including whole wheat bread" is bad, everything else is fine, (here it comes) in moderation." (sigh)
My doctor went into immediate pill-pusher mode and had the student doc start looking up meds to lower triglycerides and wrote a prescription for Lovaza, a purified fish oil pill to raise Omega-3's, even though I told him I'm not going to take it, especially when the web site say it's for trigs over 500, and mine are less than half that. I can take more crushed flax seed and chia seeds to raise Omega 3's, like Dr. Esselstyn says to do.
He told me I'm eating too many carbs on my food plan, to switch to the "heart healthy" Mediterranean diet, to replace all those carbs with protein foods.
I looked him right in the eye and said: "You want me to stop eating my whole food plant based, no sugar-oil-salt food plan and start taking fish oil, eat fish, chicken and beef, and start pouring olive oil over everything so my triglycerides go down? What do you think my total cholesterol is going to do if I do that?" He and the student just shrugged.
I also reminded him that many people with MCTD eventually wind up with kidney failure and on dialysis, and he wants me to load up on kidney-killing animal protein? He shrugged again.
He told me if I don't want to take the Lovaza, at least take fish oil pills from another source, but make sure they're fresh. I shrugged. Now I know he's just not listening.
I told him I'm going to cut the rest of the dried fruit out my diet and stick to only 1 serving a day of either blueberries or apples, and he shrugged.
I told him I'll cut out the processed carbs - the whole wheat flour and cornmeal - and he shrugged again, telling me I should also cut out the beans and potatoes, so I shrugged again.
He didn't even ask if I saw the rheumatologist yet to start treatment for my MCTD, the one thing my husband was most concerned about. I had to come right out and ask how my ESR and CRP results were. He shrugged and said they're fine, then went back to telling me how horrible my diet is.
So here I am, debating whether or not to shut him up and take Lovaza (probably not), other fish oil pills (ditto), grab a bottle of the EPA-DHA or OmegaPure that Dr. Fuhrman sells, or just go with other comments by Fuhrman and Esselstyn, that as long as one is following the whole foods plant based/plant perfect food plan, don't worry about the trigs, because they're not going to be normal until all the excess weight is off, especially if you already have a lot of belly fat, which I most certainly do.
Dr. McD has a few tips, besides cutting down on fruit and eliminating flour products (meaning, go on MWLP instead of the regular/heart healthy program) that includes increasing exercise and eating an extra quarter cup of oat bran, and a few cloves of garlic every day.
So, no to Lovaza or fish oil, yes to more oat bran, garlic (Yum! Really!) and ground flax (I have to remember to drink more water now), no to flour products (Goodbye, pizza and pasta - sniff) and try increase my aerobic exercise a bit without causing any more pain to my already achy joints and muscles (Now attibutable to MCTD and not my fat and degenerative arthritis).
I'm now 60 years old - time to nip this in the bud so I can live to see 70 and beyond.
Monday, September 23, 2013
VeganMoFo Day 23 - Another Leftover Day, Lawyers, and Cookbook Perusing
Yes, we had that many leftovers in the refrigerator that we're getting another day out of them, so no new recipe today, either.
Thanks for the encouraging replies yesterday. We really did need that "mental health day" to unwind before starting today's busyness, starting with the lawyer to get new Power of Attorney and Advanced Directives forms drawn up. When hubby was in the hospital the few days before his surgery I looked all over the apartment for the old AD's we drew up when our son was a baby but couldn't find them, so the hospital gave him the Five Wishes booklet to fill out. For 3 days he couldn't get anyone to witness his signing of it, so he went into surgery without one. When he got home, he was in no shape to sit in a lawyer's office to get it done, then when he felt good enough for it, the lawyer was on vacation. So that's how we're spending the early part of this morning. After that's done, it's off to the park for a nice long walk along the waterfront as our exercise for the day, as long as my knee holds out.
This afternoon is also planned out, with him doing some work on the computer, and me going through some library books looking for recipes, deciding whether I want to buy the books or not. The first is Dr. Fuhrman's Cholesterol Protection for Life. I know I've used a recipe or 2 from it already, but that's because he has them available in his Member Center. I would have bought this book last year when he still had it in ebook format on his web site, but by the time I got around to doing it, he already pulled it. He said he's working on a new book about heart health that's being released in 2014 that will replace it. I still wish he would have kept the old one available. Used it's still selling for $80 and up! The book itself says nothing new that isn't already covered in Eat to Live, and he even refers people to that book for further details and recipes. There's no difference in the food plans for people needing to lower their cholesterol, including the eating of nuts, which he considers essential for cardiac health.
The second book I'm looking over is Lindsay Nixon's Happy Herbivore Abroad. I have her other 2 books and was undecided about this one, based on recipes I've already seen on her and others' blogs. I bookmarked a few, but they all seem very familiar, as if I've seen them elsewhere. Even the names of the recipes are familiar. I'll spend some time doing a few on-line searches to see if I'm right. I probably won't be buying this book any time soon but wait for cheap copies to show up on Half.com. Lots of photos in it, not only of the food but the places she traveled to while backpacking through Europe.
The other inter-library loan book is Forks Over Knives - the Cookbook. I love the recipes Rip Esselstyn and others share on the Engine 2 sites, and many of the recipes shared in the original Forks Over Knives book were good, too. But when I read that the recipes in this cookbook were coming from a gourmet chef Del Sroufe and Isa Chandra Moskowitz did the dessert section, I had my doubts about it. I'm not a gourmet cook, and the grocery stores around here aren't geared towards gourmet tastes. I have to hit three different stores just to find shallots, it's only the past few years they're carrying more than just white button mushrooms but now offer cremini and portobellos. Shiitake's are still a rare find. Nobody carries any dried mushrooms any more - I found that out while looking for dried porcini mushrooms for a dish of Mary McDougall's I was thinking of making. So far I only glanced through it, but unlike Lindsay's book, I don't have any recipes bookmarked yet. And I won't be looking through the dessert section any more. All Isa did to change her regular recipes to be compatible with the FOK way of eating was change the margarine to nut butters. Since nut butters are now banned from this house, and we really shouldn't be eating sweets because of my weight and both our triglycerides, that whole section can't exist for me.
So, thanks once again to the American free public library system for saving me some money. I'll use these savings to purchase Kindle & other ebook versions of the Esselstyn and McDougall books I already own. I already bought the ebook/PDF of The McDougall Program for A Healthy Heart, and even though it's not really formatted well for use on a Kindle (pages are cut in half and the view - landscape vs portrait - are messed up), or even on the computer (bad OCR transfer so things like "1 1/2" appear as "h y" when I copy and paste), I'll probably also buy the ebook versions of the two Health Supporting Cookbooks, the books that were my introduction to the McDougal program back in the 1980's. And when Amazon's new Kindle MatchBook service starts in October, I'll definitely be nabbing the Kindle versions of the other McDougall books I've purchased through Amazon as well as Dr. Esselstyn's Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease and all of Rip's and lots of other books. Having an ebook version makes saving recipes so much easier than typing things out by hand. At least I'll finally be assured of having all ingredients and directions 100% correct.
Thanks for the encouraging replies yesterday. We really did need that "mental health day" to unwind before starting today's busyness, starting with the lawyer to get new Power of Attorney and Advanced Directives forms drawn up. When hubby was in the hospital the few days before his surgery I looked all over the apartment for the old AD's we drew up when our son was a baby but couldn't find them, so the hospital gave him the Five Wishes booklet to fill out. For 3 days he couldn't get anyone to witness his signing of it, so he went into surgery without one. When he got home, he was in no shape to sit in a lawyer's office to get it done, then when he felt good enough for it, the lawyer was on vacation. So that's how we're spending the early part of this morning. After that's done, it's off to the park for a nice long walk along the waterfront as our exercise for the day, as long as my knee holds out.
This afternoon is also planned out, with him doing some work on the computer, and me going through some library books looking for recipes, deciding whether I want to buy the books or not. The first is Dr. Fuhrman's Cholesterol Protection for Life. I know I've used a recipe or 2 from it already, but that's because he has them available in his Member Center. I would have bought this book last year when he still had it in ebook format on his web site, but by the time I got around to doing it, he already pulled it. He said he's working on a new book about heart health that's being released in 2014 that will replace it. I still wish he would have kept the old one available. Used it's still selling for $80 and up! The book itself says nothing new that isn't already covered in Eat to Live, and he even refers people to that book for further details and recipes. There's no difference in the food plans for people needing to lower their cholesterol, including the eating of nuts, which he considers essential for cardiac health.
The second book I'm looking over is Lindsay Nixon's Happy Herbivore Abroad. I have her other 2 books and was undecided about this one, based on recipes I've already seen on her and others' blogs. I bookmarked a few, but they all seem very familiar, as if I've seen them elsewhere. Even the names of the recipes are familiar. I'll spend some time doing a few on-line searches to see if I'm right. I probably won't be buying this book any time soon but wait for cheap copies to show up on Half.com. Lots of photos in it, not only of the food but the places she traveled to while backpacking through Europe.
The other inter-library loan book is Forks Over Knives - the Cookbook. I love the recipes Rip Esselstyn and others share on the Engine 2 sites, and many of the recipes shared in the original Forks Over Knives book were good, too. But when I read that the recipes in this cookbook were coming from a gourmet chef Del Sroufe and Isa Chandra Moskowitz did the dessert section, I had my doubts about it. I'm not a gourmet cook, and the grocery stores around here aren't geared towards gourmet tastes. I have to hit three different stores just to find shallots, it's only the past few years they're carrying more than just white button mushrooms but now offer cremini and portobellos. Shiitake's are still a rare find. Nobody carries any dried mushrooms any more - I found that out while looking for dried porcini mushrooms for a dish of Mary McDougall's I was thinking of making. So far I only glanced through it, but unlike Lindsay's book, I don't have any recipes bookmarked yet. And I won't be looking through the dessert section any more. All Isa did to change her regular recipes to be compatible with the FOK way of eating was change the margarine to nut butters. Since nut butters are now banned from this house, and we really shouldn't be eating sweets because of my weight and both our triglycerides, that whole section can't exist for me.
So, thanks once again to the American free public library system for saving me some money. I'll use these savings to purchase Kindle & other ebook versions of the Esselstyn and McDougall books I already own. I already bought the ebook/PDF of The McDougall Program for A Healthy Heart, and even though it's not really formatted well for use on a Kindle (pages are cut in half and the view - landscape vs portrait - are messed up), or even on the computer (bad OCR transfer so things like "1 1/2" appear as "h y" when I copy and paste), I'll probably also buy the ebook versions of the two Health Supporting Cookbooks, the books that were my introduction to the McDougal program back in the 1980's. And when Amazon's new Kindle MatchBook service starts in October, I'll definitely be nabbing the Kindle versions of the other McDougall books I've purchased through Amazon as well as Dr. Esselstyn's Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease and all of Rip's and lots of other books. Having an ebook version makes saving recipes so much easier than typing things out by hand. At least I'll finally be assured of having all ingredients and directions 100% correct.
Saturday, September 21, 2013
VeganMoFo Day 21 - Fruit and Triglycerides
Well, the Autumnal Equinox is here. I found my first horse chestnuts earlier this week - those come before the changing leaf colors around here. It's so weird to realize that my husband has been out of work since the outside temps were close to 100 degrees and he'll be going back in 5 weeks wearing his winter coat.
I want my fall temperatures! Yesterday hit 79, today 80 is expected. I have hot meals planned, and lighting the oven means the kitchen temperature soars into the low 90's, even with a fan in the window.
We ate nothing new last night. We ate nothing hot last night.
My husband's boss phoned, made small talk, spoke about how sorely missed he is and how far behind the office is with him out this long (Sorry, but he's NOT going to feel guilty about this!), and made up some excuse for needing his home address.
About 2 hours later the doorbell rings - it's a delivery from Edible Arrangements! And not just a bouquet but also a box of dipped fruit, and a balloon! My husband called his boss back, thanked her and the gang profusely, then settled in at the kitchen table and started dissecting the bouquet. He stopped and asked me if he's allowed to eat all this stuff . I nodded my head and he started stuffing his face with melon balls and strawberries. I hadn't seen a smile this big on his face since weeks before his first bout of chest pain! He did a few South Park/Jennifer Love Hewitt and Godfather jokes with a mouth full of melon balls. He had his fill of fruit, we took the rest of the arrangement apart and put the fruit into a container in the refrigerator, and I was getting ready to make the pizzas for dinner.
Then he gave me a guilty look. He was so full of fruit and in the mood to have more later that he wanted to hold off on the pizza. He felt guilty because he thought the dough, made 12 hours earlier because I was up and unable to sleep since before 3am, would go bad. I told him to be at ease, that the dough will easily keep with no problem.
He then pulled a container out and had more fruit.
We shouldn't be eating this much fruit, not with our high triglycerides, but I let him go without a word. Today I'll mention that fact and restrict him (and myself) to the equivalent of 3 servings of fruit. Looking at the size of those strawberries, it'll probably be only 2 of them, that's how big some of them were. I've always wanted to get one of those arrangements but was always thrown aback by the prices. I'm cheap and would never spend that kind of money on ourselves. When I went to grab the graphic to put in this blog post I caught a glimpse at the price of the bouquet and my jaw dropped, but the gals in the office insisted on giving him something he would enjoy, and they noticed that the few times there's something going on at work and food is offered, he skips the meat dishes and all the sweet stuff and just grabs a piece of fruit or a plain bagel, depending on what time of day it is, so figured he would enjoy the arrangement. Well, he may have enjoyed the money they spent for it more, but after seeing that smile, I think they made the right choice.
So, we had fruit for dinner. And as an after-dinner snack while watching As Time Goes By. I dreamed of fruit over night. And we still have a lot of fruit in the container in the refrigerator.
I think the only fruit I'm having today will be some frozen blueberries in my breakfast oatmeal. He can enjoy his bouquet until the fruit runs out or it goes bad, whichever comes first. It's a good thing neither of us have any blood work planned for the near future. Here's Dr. McDougall's opinion on fruit and triglycerides, and here is Dr. Esselstyn's. Dr. Fuhrman claims that triglycerides go down eating all the fruit you want on his food plan and doesn't limit them. I'll stick with Drs. McD and Essy on this, because I've proven it with my own lab work. I've also proven that nuts, even Dr. Fuhrman's limit of 2 ounces a day for fat people like me, keep cholesterol levels and weight high, the same thing a certain famous veg chef also learned. In the 2 months since I stopped using cashews for my cheese sauce or adding almond or cashew butter to my morning oatmeal, I've lost 15 pounds. I'll have the lab results in another week that should show the cholesterol down again, but I do know that they went up as soon as I started using cashew cheese sauce instead of my former tofu based one.
All this to say I'm sorry there's no new recipe today, and possibly none for tomorrow, either. I was going to make and post about Mary McDougall's pancakes that I was going to make for lunch, but besides all this fruit, my husband decided he now wants those red pepper sandwiches for lunch again. Dinner is supposed to be a plain old pot of pasta with jarred sauce. If I decide to fancy it up a bit I'll let you know.
But I really wanted those pancakes. :(
I want my fall temperatures! Yesterday hit 79, today 80 is expected. I have hot meals planned, and lighting the oven means the kitchen temperature soars into the low 90's, even with a fan in the window.
We ate nothing new last night. We ate nothing hot last night.
My husband's boss phoned, made small talk, spoke about how sorely missed he is and how far behind the office is with him out this long (Sorry, but he's NOT going to feel guilty about this!), and made up some excuse for needing his home address.
About 2 hours later the doorbell rings - it's a delivery from Edible Arrangements! And not just a bouquet but also a box of dipped fruit, and a balloon! My husband called his boss back, thanked her and the gang profusely, then settled in at the kitchen table and started dissecting the bouquet. He stopped and asked me if he's allowed to eat all this stuff . I nodded my head and he started stuffing his face with melon balls and strawberries. I hadn't seen a smile this big on his face since weeks before his first bout of chest pain! He did a few South Park/Jennifer Love Hewitt and Godfather jokes with a mouth full of melon balls. He had his fill of fruit, we took the rest of the arrangement apart and put the fruit into a container in the refrigerator, and I was getting ready to make the pizzas for dinner.Then he gave me a guilty look. He was so full of fruit and in the mood to have more later that he wanted to hold off on the pizza. He felt guilty because he thought the dough, made 12 hours earlier because I was up and unable to sleep since before 3am, would go bad. I told him to be at ease, that the dough will easily keep with no problem.
He then pulled a container out and had more fruit.
We shouldn't be eating this much fruit, not with our high triglycerides, but I let him go without a word. Today I'll mention that fact and restrict him (and myself) to the equivalent of 3 servings of fruit. Looking at the size of those strawberries, it'll probably be only 2 of them, that's how big some of them were. I've always wanted to get one of those arrangements but was always thrown aback by the prices. I'm cheap and would never spend that kind of money on ourselves. When I went to grab the graphic to put in this blog post I caught a glimpse at the price of the bouquet and my jaw dropped, but the gals in the office insisted on giving him something he would enjoy, and they noticed that the few times there's something going on at work and food is offered, he skips the meat dishes and all the sweet stuff and just grabs a piece of fruit or a plain bagel, depending on what time of day it is, so figured he would enjoy the arrangement. Well, he may have enjoyed the money they spent for it more, but after seeing that smile, I think they made the right choice.
So, we had fruit for dinner. And as an after-dinner snack while watching As Time Goes By. I dreamed of fruit over night. And we still have a lot of fruit in the container in the refrigerator.
I think the only fruit I'm having today will be some frozen blueberries in my breakfast oatmeal. He can enjoy his bouquet until the fruit runs out or it goes bad, whichever comes first. It's a good thing neither of us have any blood work planned for the near future. Here's Dr. McDougall's opinion on fruit and triglycerides, and here is Dr. Esselstyn's. Dr. Fuhrman claims that triglycerides go down eating all the fruit you want on his food plan and doesn't limit them. I'll stick with Drs. McD and Essy on this, because I've proven it with my own lab work. I've also proven that nuts, even Dr. Fuhrman's limit of 2 ounces a day for fat people like me, keep cholesterol levels and weight high, the same thing a certain famous veg chef also learned. In the 2 months since I stopped using cashews for my cheese sauce or adding almond or cashew butter to my morning oatmeal, I've lost 15 pounds. I'll have the lab results in another week that should show the cholesterol down again, but I do know that they went up as soon as I started using cashew cheese sauce instead of my former tofu based one.
All this to say I'm sorry there's no new recipe today, and possibly none for tomorrow, either. I was going to make and post about Mary McDougall's pancakes that I was going to make for lunch, but besides all this fruit, my husband decided he now wants those red pepper sandwiches for lunch again. Dinner is supposed to be a plain old pot of pasta with jarred sauce. If I decide to fancy it up a bit I'll let you know.
But I really wanted those pancakes. :(
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