Obesity- a problem of under eating

Read the headlines (link). Are we Fat? Call it what you want, but we aren't skinny. Two thirds of the people in my state are overweight and more than one third are obese. Apparently, in South Carolina, we find ourselves in eighth place nationally in these categories(full report here).  We are not doing a good job here at home.  The unfortunate reality is that wherever you live, regardless of your state, the rates of obesity continue to skyrocket.  We are losing BIG. This problem is a monster that's momentum may just be unstoppable. The costs to our society are stunning and enormous. Is there a solution? Of course there is. It starts with you. Don't be a statistic.

Step back for a moment. Why does obesity matter? It's certainly not a disease. Obesity is just a classification that helps us make observations and predictions about what is likely to happen in your health. It's a marker. If you are obese, you are more likely to have heart disease, cancer, depression, asthma, diabetes, sleep apnea, joint and back pain. The list goes on, it seems, forever. You are also probably tired and just don't feel good. But it's not necessarily the adipose tissue (the fat!) that causes these diseases. Everyday we are making choices that either promote health or promote disease. The choices that promote disease are often the ones that tend to pack on the pounds. Thus, we have  an association with our weight and our state of un-health.

Let's be frank. Doctors and nurses are often horrible examples. We might as well be naked when we counsel patients on being healthy. It's obvious that most of us don't practice what we preach. I am happy to point the finger at myself. I am one of the few that could eat a lot of whatever I wanted and not gain weight.  Maybe I didn't have to follow my own sermons.  Identical poor nutritional choices may make YOU heavy, giving you a "premature" heart attack; meanwhile, I get to stay skinny waiting 20 years longer for my pancreatic cancer. I decided to straighten up.  I want to model health. Only now am I becoming a part of the real solution.

Here is an awful picture:

This one is much better:

Our health epidemic has everything to do with WHAT we are eating. The fact is, that in spite of all the sugar, salt, and fat we swallow, we are actually starving on the inside. We have an under-eating problem. It is most simply called whole plants. Fresh fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and leaves are what's missing, and that's where the money is. Plants are cool. People get excited about the acai berry, green tea, ginger, cinnamon, garlic, red wine, tomatoes, oatmeal, and broccoli.  We are learning fascinating things about the health power of different compounds found only in plants. Unfortunately, if you try to roll these things up in isolation and add them to your bacon and eggs or maybe your everything bagel with cream cheese the health promoting properties vanish. It only works when you eat the plant itself. But when you do, amazing things can happen. Plants are nutrient dense and calorie light. Except for nuts and seeds plants don't have a lot of calories.  I could eat three doughnuts and probably be full. But there is no way I could eat 12 or more apples which is the caloric equivalent. Simply put, you can stuff your face with the nutritious stuff. When we are hungry, our body is asking for more than a calorie. It asking for NUTRIENTS. You'll be surprised that you don't get as hungry eating this way. Over the last year my family has been eating differently. My boys like their broccoli (trees!) They like the strawberries, blueberries, and peaches they get to pick at our local farms. They work in the garden and are learning about food. There is a wonderful video that I recently put up about teaching our kids to eat and fighting obesity. Watch it, click here - Teach every child about food-Fight obesity(21min)   If you need help on what to feed your kids (and yourself), click this: www.kidsgethealthy.org

For optimum health the most important thing we can do is eat the right food. 1) EAT as much as you can of low fat whole plant based foods- fruits, veggies, whole grains, leaves. 2) STOP processed foods and STOP eating junk!!!! (Diet soda is also junk- what in the world is it? No nutritional value) 3) DON'T eat animal based foods. (It starts to get complicated with this one, too much animal protein and too much saturated fat. To learn more, watch the videos). 

Be a part of the solution. Get healthy by eating what you've been missing. Model health. Plant a garden. Teach your children to cook. Take a walk. Ride a bike. Pray. Meditate. Get involved in your community advocating healthy eating and activities. Help educate. Help someone less fortunate than you. Help . . .

Forty-nine to nothin'

I have been wondering now for two weeks what my next post would be. There are things that I have learned that need to be shared.  A few minutes ago I had a conversation with a friend who told me of a relative who just had a heart attack. He's only forty years old. That shouldn't happen. I gave a talk recently about nutrition to an older crowd and I chose the heart as the place to start. That sounds like a good idea again.

"Forty-nine to nothin' "is how I began.  Dr. Caldwell Esslestyn of the renowned Cleveland Clinic started a study in the mid 1980's to observe the impact that a low fat plant-based diet can have on severe heart disease. The most significant intervention he would make was to have them no longer eat the high fat animal based western diet. They were to eat a low fat plant based diet. He started with very sick patients. An angioplasty, a heart attack, a by-pass surgery, or a stroke were all called "events". In the eight years preceding his study the eighteen patients who participated had accumulated a combined total of forty-nine "events".  Many could not walk down the hall without having chest pain or shortness of breath. They were at the end of their line. The were all medically treated but there wasn't any more to be done. So they signed up and the study began. Dr Esselstyn said give up meat and fat and then dairy too. Apparently he drove a hard bargain. They were either on the bus or they weren't. With apples, oatmeal and carrot sticks in hand, they boarded the bus.  Remember, in the preceding eight years they had totaled forty-nine events.  It would stand to reason that more of the same would occur over the next year. Maybe, even the march to death would have some successes. Well, none of that happened. After the first year they were all alive. Not a single patient had an "event".  Five years later astonishingly, there were still no events. They were all alive. That's amazing.  What I find really amazing is that just weeks into the study some of these patients were now walking down the hall without chest pain or shortness of breath.  To the patients, they were getting their lives back and quick. Back to the timeline. Here we were at five years later and nothing had happened. Well another five years passed. No events you ask? That's right. That ten years turned into seventeen which is where my data ends.  All alive, no events! Forty-nine to nothin'! In this blog there is a link to a video of one of his patients from the study. Watch it.  You'll find her thriving. I didn't tell the whole truth. There was one heart attack in there.  One of the patients just a few years into the study "strayed" from the diet and had another heart attack. He survived and got back on the bus and since that time he has thrived. The blockages in these patients' hearts started to open up. This was proven time and time again by cardiac catheterization. Below is a before and after image of a clogged artery in a 44 year old surgeon who prior to his heart attack was in "perfect" health. The right side of the image shows the dramatic change in his artery only 30 months after changing his diet giving up animals and eating a low fat whole foods plant-based diet.





WOW! What do you think.  When it comes to your heart it seems many things matter, but diet is the trump card.  Hopefully I don't have significant disease yet and through diet I can prevent it. However if I do or you do we can defeat the disease and that's pretty cool.

If you or a loved one want to learn more explore my resources. Also check out www.heartattackproof.com

Number One

Life is worth living.  When it comes to health, if you agree, be curious and pay attention. To consider health is to recognize that there is also un-health. And then come the decisions.  I don't plan on living here forever, but while I'm here I want to really live. "Really" living may include many things, but it would certainly include finding enjoyment. It also probably includes a discipline that inspires self-control without which you probably just won't live very long. For me "really" living includes eating.

A couple of things happened this past year that had me consider eating and what it is we eat.  One of those  "a couple of things" was a very sick son.  My third born, has some still strange illness where he is, of all things, allergic to food. When I say "allergic", I don't really mean allergic, I mean something more poorly understood, and when I say "food", I don't really mean all food just way too many foods. It has been hard to feed him and harder to get him to eat. He is doing pretty good these days. He plans on being two in June and we are all happy about that. So, anyway, here I am eating these days differently than I used to.  When I go to Mac's Drive In for a cheeseburger I don't have to order.  They know what I want.  Mostly they know what I want because I've ordered it so much before.  When I ordered a tomato sandwich there for the first time EVER last fall I received multiple "looks" from people. Pat, with pen in hand, raised his right eyebrow really high as he slightly recoiled, and Esther, who was already cooking my cheeseburger smooshed up her mouth and just mumbled. I actually remember trying to be discreet about it.  A tomato sandwich is about the best one can do at Mac's and be allowed to stay.  Mac's Drive In is a great place to start.  Being there is about culture, and a little about food.  It's a place with a history and tradition.  Being known and welcomed there for me feels good. Bringing the elder two boys (aged 3 and 5) in to climb up on the orange bar stools for lemonades and a hotdog is a sort of a little boy's introduction into society.  We like it there. "When can we go back to Mr. Mac's?", they say.  Mac for whom the place is named happened to be my patient.  He's passed on now but his place still feels the same. It's different of course with him gone, but we the people still come.  I wonder what his reaction to my "tomato sandwich" order would have been. If I break news for you here then I welcome your own recoils, raised eyebrows, and smooshed up mouths.  My own mouth got all smooshed up as I began to learn about eating.

In my studies I have come to accept a few things about what we should eat.  My encouragement to my patients is to Eat More Plants and eat less animals.  While I respect anyone who chooses to not eat meat for moral or ethical reasons, my own decision to refrain is entirely selfish.  I had a patient say to his teasing friends that he would eat a "fluffy bunny" if that's what he needed for his health.  They just figured he'd be eating lean turkey.  It just so happens that eating skinny turkeys or fluffy bunnies might not be good for us.  By the way he's lost about 40 pounds so far. The bunny's amino acids strung together look just like my own.  The arrangement of amino acids in plant protein looks distinctly different from the bunny's and mine.  For some reason that matters.  There is mind boggling evidence that shows the power of animal protein to cause and promote disease.  It's presence or absence in diet can turn on or turn off cancer growth in some labarotory studies.  Really!  That's a teaser for you.  I refer you to T. Colin Campbell for the details on that one.  His astonishing animal protein studies are presented for you in his book The China Study.  Let me stop for a minute.  Read that book.  When I get patients to read The China Study they start to drive their own health bus.  Don't just drive your own bus, love driving it all day long.  If we meet at a stoplight, you in your bus and me in mine, I hope I see you smile. Tomato sandwich anyone?? I'll tell you more later.  If my videos are up and running while you are here watch them.  Good night.