The Last Heart Attack

Day 28.  26.6 to go (down 13.2 lbs)


Yesterday I spent the day on Vashon Island, with the O'Shea-Millinovich family and their assorted friends. It was a great day, beautiful, peaceful and warm out on the water.  Of course, gatherings with my neighborhood crew typically include an absolutely alarming amount of food, and despite Megan's pleas to keep it to a minimum, the meat offerings included:  2 different kinds of sausages, 2 different kinds of steaks, 2 racks of ribs, fresh salmon steaks, and hot dogs.  There were 10 of us out at the cabin.  10 of us, and I'm not eating meat.

We also had appetizers and compliments to the meal, including hummus & crackers & carrots, strawberries & peaches, guacamole with corn chips, and bruschetta.  I did fully enjoy the fresh guac, and the tomato conconction that went with the bruschetta was also very good (sans bread). 

I brought 2 portobello mushrooms that were delicious cooked on the grill, and a giant bowl of brown rice.  :)

Among the group yesterday was Megan's spin class instructor.  When I turned down M&M's and various other snacky foods, mentioning that I'm following a vegan, no gluten, no refined sugar diet -- she actually walked out of the cabin, saying over her shoulder, "I can't even listen to this.  I'm a professional in the industry and what you're doing is not sustainable."  To say I was shocked is an understatement. 

Why does everyone in the world think they're an expert on EVERYTHING?  I am a gracious enough guest to not have an argument about the merits verses detriments of a vegan diet, particularly with someone who is so quickly irritated by the mention of it.  But to say it didn't bug me is absolutely untrue.

Tonight I caught a piece on CNN with Dr. Sanjay Gupta called, "The Last Heart Attack."  Among the things the piece espouses is a diet not dissimilar to the one I'm currently on... advocated by Dean Ornish (highlighted in the piece), who wrote the book several years ago called, "Reversing Heart Disease." 

http://thechart.blogs.cnn.com/2011/08/25/becoming-heart-attack-proof/

One of the subjects of the piece is President Clinton, who after having a quadruple bypass heart surgury went on to have a stent put in (not uncommon in cardiac patients) and experienced significant lethargy as he went about his rather hectic schedule post-Presidency.  After Ornish reached out to him to say that whatever he was doing clearly wasn't working, Clinton adopted his vegan-based diet 2 years ago.  He allows himself "one bite" of turkey on Thanksgiving, but is otherwise completely vegan now (with very little oil as well). 

Clinton has lost 24 lbs since adopting the diet, while maintaining his excercise regimen. 

So I thought it was very interesting for numerous reasons, but the thing that stuck with me most?  Sub-Sarahan African culture follows a vegan diet... and heart disease is virtually non-existent in their culture.  I think that's amazing. 

And not to further incent Megan's instructor, but clearly they (and President Clinton, and Dean Ornish, and tens of thousands of other people) are able to sustain it just fine, thank you very much.