When my wife and I first met twenty years ago, she introduced me to lots of new foods (most of them plant based) and to Dr. McDougall. Her sister had given her a copy of "The McDougall program, 12 Days to Dynamic Health", which I read and enjoyed.
When we married 15 years ago, we cooked a lot, enjoyed a mostly vegan diet, and rarely went to the doctor. We soon were the parents of two children, both of whom eat lots of fruits, vegetables, grains, and legumes.
But during the past five years my lifestyle changed. The pressure of managing my own business combined with lots of volunteer activities left little time for cooking, and I found myself eating out a lot. Since I wasn't gaining weight, I figured that I could eat prettty much whatever I wanted, and didn't give much thought to my health.
Then the wake-up call came. Last November (11-07) my annual physical revealed that my LDL cholesterol had risen from 162 to 214 mg/dl in one year! (The rest of my blood chemistry was normal.) My doctor prescribed a cholesterol lowering drug (of course). I filled the prescription, but never took the pills. Instead, I re-read Dr. McDougall's book and rewound my life back to the time whan I prepared my own meals and only ate meat about once a week. I didn't tell my doctor until yesterday, when I had a follow up blood test (to make sure the cholesterol medicine wasn't screwing up my liver). The results were beyond my wildest expectations. HDL unchanged at 93 mg/dl, LDL down from 214 to 154!
The real shock was my doctor's reaction. "154 is still too high", he said. My reply was that I had better than reversed 12 months of poor diet in six weeks, and if you extrapolate the reduction in LDL I should easily be below the target of 130 mg/dl in another 6 weeks. He agreed, and scheduled me for another blood test in 6 weeks.
Stay tuned!
