{"id":722,"date":"2012-09-30T07:49:58","date_gmt":"2012-09-30T11:49:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dennisdanvers.com\/?p=722"},"modified":"2012-09-30T07:49:58","modified_gmt":"2012-09-30T11:49:58","slug":"heart-advice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/dennisdanvers.com\/?p=722","title":{"rendered":"Heart Advice"},"content":{"rendered":"

As a heart attack survivor, stories of heart attacks among friends and colleagues of friends come my way with growing frequency, sometimes tinged with the fear that they might be next since they can’t seem to diet, and they don’t have time to exercise. Let’s say there’s clearly a growing demand for the information I repeat here. \u00c2\u00a0So put down those cheese fries and listen. \u00c2\u00a0You can<\/em> feel better. \u00c2\u00a0You don’t have to die of a heart attack.<\/p>\n

It’s been a bumpy road, but I’ll cut to the chase: Heart disease is a food borne ailment. Here are the dietary rules I follow (after Dr. Esselstyn’s diet):<\/p>\n

1. No animal products of any<\/em> kind (including fish of any kind, fish oil, egg whites, all<\/em> dairy, even yogurt). \u00c2\u00a0Low-fat vegan milks (soy, almond, oat, et. al. are okay).<\/p>\n

2. No oil of any kind in preparation, or added in dressings, etc. (including<\/em> Saint Olive Oil). \u00c2\u00a0Saute in small amounts of added liquid or the expressed liquid from the vegetables themselves.<\/p>\n

3. No nuts or avocados. This includes peanut butter. \u00c2\u00a0If you don’t have heart disease, walnuts in moderation are okay.<\/p>\n

4. No fruit juice.<\/p>\n

5. \u00c2\u00a0Avoid added sugars. \u00c2\u00a0Sweeten sparingly in recipes. \u00c2\u00a0No sweetened drinks, jams, etc. \u00c2\u00a0No artificial sweeteners of any kind. \u00c2\u00a0Some vegans are sugar junkies. \u00c2\u00a0Kick the habit.<\/p>\n

6. Eat lots of vegetables, especially leafy greens like collards. \u00c2\u00a0Tomatoes, onions, garlic, zucchini, kale, potatoes, yams, mushrooms, corn, brocoli, carrots. \u00c2\u00a0Raw, steamed, pureed, stewed, baked.<\/p>\n

7. \u00c2\u00a0Eat legumes. \u00c2\u00a0Every kind imaginable from garbanzos to pintos to lentils. \u00c2\u00a0Mexican, Indian, Italian, American\u00e2\u20ac\u201dall my favorite cuisines have delicious bean-based dishes. \u00c2\u00a0I never worry about getting enough protein.<\/p>\n

8. Eat whole grains, including whole grain pasta, brown rice, quinoa. \u00c2\u00a0Whole grain cereals without added oil or sugar like shredded wheat and Grape Nuts are fine.<\/p>\n

9. \u00c2\u00a0Eat whole fruit. \u00c2\u00a0Apples, oranges, bananas, berries, peaches.<\/p>\n

People say to me, “I don’t think I could give up cheese.” (or butter or name your addiction). \u00c2\u00a0Really? \u00c2\u00a0As for me, I don’t think I could go back to feeling like crap all the time. \u00c2\u00a0I feel infinitely better now than I did ten or fifteen years ago in training for a heart attack. \u00c2\u00a0I have more energy in every way. \u00c2\u00a0I eat all I want, and I never gain weight. \u00c2\u00a0Once your palate adjusts to not being constantly assaulted by sugar, fat, and salt, you’ll find you can taste the food. \u00c2\u00a0Not only do I not crave these things, but the typical “treat” strikes me as fairly repulsive like a salted Crisco milkshake with bacon sprinkles.<\/p>\n

As for the exercise you don’t have time for, don’t you have stairs where you work? \u00c2\u00a0A block you can walk around? \u00c2\u00a0If you can’t spend a half hour a day walking, maybe a priority check is in order. \u00c2\u00a0If you get on the diet, you’ll feel more like exercise. \u00c2\u00a0I walk a lot to school and back, and do some yoga. \u00c2\u00a0You don’t have to torture yourself, but you can<\/em> increase your activity.<\/p>\n

I recommend, as with fiction revision, killing your darlings one by one. \u00c2\u00a0Meat, cheese, sodas, oil, added sugar, starting with the most evil and ideally working your way to the Esselstyn diet. \u00c2\u00a0Not diet in the sense of this weird eating regimen you go on until you can start having crap again because you’ve lost a few pounds, but a permanent change in what you eat and hence who you are. \u00c2\u00a0I know too damn many otherwise smart people who are discriminating as hell about the matter they put into their minds, checking sources, getting second opinions and degrees, but who will fill their bodies with shit as building blocks and act like fate or genes or age has made them sick and fat, who will eat desserts called Death by Chocolate and think it’s a joke. \u00c2\u00a0Tell it to your heart. \u00c2\u00a0It has this delusion it’s in charge, that when it stops, you get to do without everything from butter to thoughts, like it or not. \u00c2\u00a0There is a rational alternative.<\/p>\n

Interested? \u00c2\u00a0Check out Esselstyn’s website<\/a>, as well as his son’s<\/a>. \u00c2\u00a0Live long and prosper. \u00c2\u00a0Please.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As a heart attack survivor, stories of heart attacks among friends and colleagues of friends come my way with growing frequency, sometimes tinged with the fear that they might be next since they can’t seem to diet, and they don’t … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-722","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-heart-and-diet"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/dennisdanvers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/722","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/dennisdanvers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/dennisdanvers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dennisdanvers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dennisdanvers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=722"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/dennisdanvers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/722\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":731,"href":"http:\/\/dennisdanvers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/722\/revisions\/731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/dennisdanvers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dennisdanvers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/dennisdanvers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}