Vegetarian Diet
Has anyone heard of, read, or might be using one of the Dean Ornish books, "Reversing Heart Disease"? My endocrinologist insists that the best thing for me to do is to adopt the Dean Ornish style of eating. I am having a difficult time with weight and my cholesterol levels are not good after the most recent test. My triglycerides are up to 435 and my HDL is dropping again and is currently at 25. I cut out the hard candy and switched to fruit. This diet is very hard to implement into daily life. 1) the cost of the supplies needed for the receipes, 2) the time it takes to prepare the meals, I am back to work full time, 3) the dishes are not that interesting and or tasteful, 4) hubby swears that I am trying to kill him. We have been trying for the past three weeks and we are at wits end aside from the fact that I gained four pounds instead of loosing. I have felt like throwing in the towel this past week. Weight has always been a problem for me. I don't think I will ever be thin, never was. Weight has been a problem all my life. I do however feel better since my surgery (4.5 months post-op) and am exercing regularly,( I finish my twelve weeks in cardiac rehab Friday the 13th). I feel the doctor is putting too much pressure on me. I feel stressed and depressed about it. What is everyone else doing? What is working for you? Sure, I want to extend my life for as long as I can but I think there is a limit as to what can be expected of a person. I am also tired of everyone else thinking they know what is best for me. Am I getting better or am I going off the deep end? I didn't have to deal with the depression initially after surgery but as I mentioned a few days ago it is coming and going. Is this normal? I am supposed to feel good, to be happy and glad to be alive. I am looking forward to a vacation next week and will celebrate my 49th birthday. Hubby is taking me to see the ocean. I have never been. It's been a dream since I was a little girl. Perhaps things will be better after the vacation. I enjoy reading the message in this club. Sometimes I don't have anything to say. Sometimes I have allot. Tonight is one of them. Take care, Barb
Barb: My diet is pretty simple, but its not always possible to stick to it. I watch the sodium and fat in everything. No fried foods,no salt, no desserts, no red meats. Ive started to eat only fruits at breakfast. At lunch I probably cheat the most since my wife is not there. If I eat a sandwich, it is turkey and alpine lace low sodium cheese. For dinners we eat a lot of pasta dishes. Penne in olive oil, spaghetti in Cento puree with sauteed garlic and onions with oregano, pepper and basil. I hate salads, but eat them as much as I can stand them. Most important, every once in a while I splurge. Like tonight, I went to a Mexican restaurant and ate sodium laced salsa sauce, fat strewn guacamole and greasy chicken. We have to be smart and disciplined, but our diets also have to be something we can live with and incorporate into our lifestyles As far as depression goes, I think it is always just a step behind us - depending on our state of mind and health on any particular day. Unfortunately, we all need to learn to deal with that as well. Hope this helps a bit. Good luck. Dave C.
Dottie : Sorry for the old font. Hope this is better. If I sounded down about my current diet, I am not. The old foods, PIZZA,Big Macs, steaks, etc did taste great, but the new diet is more interesting in that it takes some engineering and creativity to construct a great tasting meal that is heart healthy. May I suggest two books that my wife got for me. 501 Delicious Heart Healthy Recipes. Susan M. McIntosh, M.S., R.D. Oxmoor House. (2001); The No-Salt, Lowest-Sodium Cookbook. Donals A. Gazzaniga. St. Martin's Press. (2001). The low sodium aspect of these recipes has done wonders for my blood pressure. Even most health food store products ignore sodium content. Your diet sounds tasty and exciting. I totally agree with the egg white/onion/alpine lace omlet. We also eat a lot of fish and I have started taking a flaxseed oil tablet supplement. We eat a lot of pasta dishes - even recipes calling for cream based sauces where we use non fat half and half. Chicken is a staple as is rice. Unfortunately, Ihave never taken to the "taste" of soy products so I have missed out on their benefits. If anyone out there has enjoyed a food group or product or recipe we have not mentioned, please let us know. Bon appetit ! Dave C.
Hi, Barb. Have you ever heard of K. Lance Gould? He was one of the cardiologists who helped with Ornish's studies and became a convert to the low-fat way of eating. The difference is that Gould thinks Ornish's plan is too high in carbohydrates. Gould suggests a diet that's still very low fat, but is higher in protein and lower in carbs. My husband is a diabetic with heart disease, so the carbohydrates can be a problem. He also gets the skyrocketing triglycerides if he goes off statins, and triglycerides are another thing carbohydrates can really influence. Gould has a book called "Heal Your Heart." Maybe see if you can find it at the library and take a look. He advocates against using high-volume carbs, like potatoes, rice, or pasta. Dropping those items can really help control blood sugars and triglycerides in some people. Let me know if I can give you any more info. I don't have heart disease, but hubby does, and we're both following Gould's diet. Julie
Julie, If I cut out the potatoes, rice and noodles then what is left? I am already cutting out the meat, fat, sodium, cholesterol. The triglycerides are on the rise since I started this dean ornish diet. I am hypoglycemic and have coronary artery disease. I also had to stop the cholesterol medication due to myalgia. Thank you, Barb --- In BypassSurgeryRecoverySupport@y..., JAS Carter
I hope I answer everyone's questions about cutting some carbs out. If not, let me know. When I'm talking cutting out carbs, I'm definitely not talking about cutting them all out! Then you'd have to live on water! :) Rice, pasta, and potatoes are all high-volume carbs. It's hard not to overeat them, and all of them have extremely high glycemic indexes. That means (I hope I get this right) that they all are metabolized really quickly into glucose and cause spikes in glucose levels. That, in turn, causes spikes in insulin levels, which, in turn, can cause low glucose levels, which, in turn, makes you hungry enough to eat more carbs. If you have any sort of blood sugar problems, cutting these super carbs out can really help stabilize sugars. What to replace it with? Well, if you're trying to maintain a very low fat diet, that only leaves protein. Protein can have its own drawbacks, especially if you have kidney problems. So all of these things should be done with a doctor's supervision. Good sources of lean protein are (and I realize some of these are no good if you're vegetarian): chicken breast, fish, soy, beans, lowfat beef jerky, nonfat dairy. "Low carb" means high fat to most people. The Atkins diet, for example, doesn't control the fat. But if you just lower your carbs rather than trying to eliminate them, you may have some good results. Eat just slightly more carbs than protein, say 50% carbs, 40% protein, 10% fat. My husband has been able to stabilize his diabetes for the first time in a long time. We kept trying to do low fat/high carb and his blood glucoses were all over the place. There are lots of really interesting products that have been introduced because of the Atkins type diets. Some of them can be modified a little for low fat (like using egg substitutes, or oil substitutes). We recently tried low-carb spaghetti, and it was remarkably good. Texture a little weird, but the taste seemed fine (I think you'd definitely want a tomato-based sauce). Soy is a staple for a lot of vegetarians because of its versatility, bulk, and good nutrition. Some soy-based things are actually pretty high in fat, so you have to be careful. Some people can have reactions to soy, too. But we eat soy-based "meat" quite a bit. If you eat chicken, things like shredded chicken can be made extremely low fat. Cook the skinless, trimmed chicken breast and then cool and skim off any fat that collects. Same thing for stew meat. You can often find extremely lean stew meat. Trim any fat you can see, then cook, cool, and skim. Some game meats are pretty low fat, too. The only fruits my husband avoids are bananas, which have high glycemic indexes. Some vegetables are a little higher than others, but I don't think we've eliminated any vegetables entirely. The best ones are the cruciferous veggies, like spinach, broccoli, cauliflower, brussels sprouts, cabbage, etc. I can give you some recipes for using cauliflower to make mashed potatoes. Turnips can replace potatoes in many recipes (though turnips are fairly low carb but might be high glycemic index. I've seen two different indexes with two different results for turnips. My husband can eat them without budging his glucose). Beans are great sources of fiber and protein, though they are pretty high in carbs, too. They are a great food, and filling. I know I'm rambling on. I hope this is of some help to someone! Julie
Barb, I'm in your situation. Depression today, OK tomorrow etc... I am going to talk to my PCP about this on my next visit. I am 11 months out from 4X CABG and I thought I was handling everything well until I began going back to the hospital (once in May and again last month). I have also been through the mill with the Endocrinologist and am currently awaiting a thyroid biopsy which she says should be OK despite the fact I have a "mass". I started out great after surgery. Was losing weight (need to drop 20-25 lbs), eating very healthy and going to the gym three days a week. I began to notice that I was obsessing over how much fat I was eating to the point that I would not eat anything over 1g of fat. Tried to stick to 1000 to 1200 calories per day. Now I almost could care less. I have lost interest in everything and nothing makes me truly happy anymore. I mean, I still laugh and joke with friends, but it's the surface kind of joy; the kind that comes and goes. I do not sit and worry or pout over my condition, but I think I may have jumped back in the saddle too soon. I pushed the feelings away thinking that time would make them go away. I returned to work full-time immediately following rehab and returned to full-time college in the spring term. I started teaching again and attending all the regular services at church as if nothing had ever happened (I'm also married with two boys one of which is a teenager). I'm not familiar with Dean Ornish other than I have heard others talk about him a bit. My nutritionist recommended the Mediterranean Diet and I bought the book. I will be getting it out again this weekend to try and "get back on track" diet wise. I also have hypoglycemia. The diet I was on before was really working to keep that at bay. I don't want to sound discouraging to anyone but I feel that it needs to be said that you should not ignore the negative feeling you experience after this surgery. Deal with them early so that they don't come back to haunt you later. You all should also know that with my family history I have just cause for future concerns. That doesn't make it any easier to deal with...... Enough ramblings. Hope everyone else is doing well, Brian