big changes. :)

So Matt has had high blood pressure for the past couple of years, and his cholesterol levels were all messed up.  He was prescribed medication about a year & a half ago to help with the blood pressure, and there was talk of putting him on meds for the cholesterol if he couldn't get that lower.  Both of Matt's parents had heart disease, so it sure seemed that he was heading down the same road.

Let me just say that having open heart surgery is not fun.  I remember how hard it was on his mom when she had hers in 1994.  Not an easy recovery.  I'd prefer not to see Matt like that if we can avoid it, thank-you-very-much. :)

So anyway.

Yesterday Matt got the results back from this year's annual bloodwork.  Great news!  (The following stuff probably will look like a bunch of gibberish, but somebody out there will know what it means.)  What I do know is that LDL is the "bad" cholesterol and HDL is "good" cholesterol.  And having your triglycerides high is very bad and contributes to your HDL being low.

Cholesterol went from 197 down to 158. (ideal is below 200)

Trigylicerides went from 182 down to 107!  (ideal is below 150)

LDL-calculated went from 126 to 107.

Cholesterol/HDL ratio went from 5.6 down to 4.9 (ideal is less than 5)

VLDL-calculated went from 36 down to 21 (ideal is less than 30)

So, how did he do it?  Well... I've been waiting to tell you about that until after we got the bloodwork back, just to see if it made a difference... which it sure seems to have done!

Last August, our sister-in-law emailed a link to an article about the "Heart Attack Proof Diet", put together by Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn.  He works with people who are at the end of their rope, when it came to their heart disease... nothing more could be done for them surgically, and basically it was just a matter of time before their heart disease would kill them.  Dr. Esselstyn wanted to have them radically change the way they ate to see what would happen.  Their heart disease actually *reversed*, which is something most people would say is impossible.

What is this crazy diet, you ask?  Well, it's a plant-based, very low fat diet.  No meat, no dairy, no eggs.  No animal products.  And no added fat.  Low sodium.

We decided to try it last August. And although we aren't 100% on the diet (aka, *please* don't be afraid to have us over for dinner), we saw some big changes long before Matt got his bloodwork done this month.  For instance, he lost 20+ pounds, and I lost about 15 pounds.  We've both had to buy smaller size clothing.  People are noticing that we've lost weight (which, by the way, wasn't at all what we were trying to do).  Matt doesn't have heartburn or need his blood pressure meds anymore.  We both feel better.

And an interesting note is that the kids continue to grow healthy & strong.  They are definitely getting enough nutrients.  Which of course is a concern many people have about this new thing we're doing.  :)

So anyway, that's the news about our big changes we've been making.  There are weeks where we eat a lot of things not on the diet (think: birthdays & holidays), and weeks where we're a lot better with it.  But we're liking the better health a lot, and it's amazing how many *delicious* foods you can make without animal products or added fat!  

Mmmm....