For
The Love of Your Heart
Cardio Fusion Diet: Lifestyle Blog and Stories
|
Lifestyle Blog and Stories |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Klaus |
Index
Lifestyle BlogLifestyle Optimization Nov/Feb 2016: Defying Wisdom
and Common Rules Aug/Oct 2015: Caloric
Intake from Olive Oil and Weight Control Jan 2015: How to
Balance Olive Oil and Healthy Weight Heart Disease May 10 – 2014: Klaus’ Heart Disease Story: Why to change
your American Red-Meat/Processed-Food Diet having 30%-Fat? Food
Fights: A Fusion of the Esselstyn Diet and the Mediterranean may harvest
the best of both, i.e., weight and cholesterol control. Dec 2005-2010: A
Long Time Ago (Failed Weight Loss Attempts) Story of Bill Clinton |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
Lifestyle
Optimization
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Esselstyn Diet: Daily Meal
Pictures for over three Months Cardio-Fusion
Diet: Challenge Study Meals for over four Months
|
Nov 2016/Feb 2016: Defying Wisdom and Common Rules Playing the Cholesterol game is really empowering: YES, YOU CAN
CONTROL YOUR CHOLESTOROL LEVELS THROUGH DIET AND HEALTHY BEHAVIOR (see below
Aug/Oct 2-15)! But, to what effect would you like to do such efforts? There is a constant headlining
background noise in the arena of Diet and Healthy Behaviors information. For
example, recent meta studies showed that it really does not matter what you
eat in regards to longevity or heart health. Eat more butter, eggs and dairy!
Eat red meat as an essential diet component; Do not eat read meat in
paleo-diets following early humans; Carbohydrates are essential for the body
function; Be happy and eat what you want, and so on! Everything goes in
getting fleeting publicity attention. With such bewildering messages, where
do you stand? Since the cardio-fusion diet makes
it possible to determine lifestyle conditions that establish desired
cholesterol baselines, it is also possible to test in simple short-term
experimentations some of the “novel dietary advice. Here is my baseline: In Year 1 I could prove that it was possible to establish through
the Esselstyn diet his proposed cholesterol baseline of LDL (<85/70 mg/dL)
and Total cholesterol (<150 mg/dL), which both should guarantee heart
health and longevity. Then came the meta-analysis results (2014) out, that
these Esselstyn-baseline values in fact do not support longevity and other studies
showed (2011) that only high HDL level (<<50-60 mg/dL) are required for
supporting longevity. So I set out in Year
2 to test that strategy by adding to the Esselstyne diet olive oil and a
few other Mediterranean diet components, a combination a describe as
Cardio-Fusion Diet. The results were astonishing by maintaining the LDL level
and boosting the HDL level. In year three, I was struggling with the weight
gain coming mainly from the high caloric intake of the olive oil. In
addition, the drum beat of defying conventional healthy living rules weakened
my self-determination and I started to loosen up my diet with snacks, wine
and occasional conventional dinner outings. The result of this ‘relaxed diet”
during Year 3 was elevated weight and
reversal of my cholesterol to a very dangerous and unhealthy proportion of
increased LDL and reduced LDL. So I set out to regain the cholesterol levels
established in Year 2. In fact, in the three months during the transition
from Year 3 to Year 4 I could completely recover my healthy cholesterol levels
found in high HDL and below-risk level LDL levels! The ‘Recovery Strategy’ included weight reduction to a stable minimum
level and strict adherence to the cardio-fusion diet. I could recover my
health baseline by controlling my healthy lifestyle behavior.
Comparison
of cholesterol profiles at various lifestyle conditions. Year 4. The
publicity drum of “Every Thing in Dieting Goes” and my awareness of being
able to reverse unhealthy cholesterol proportions let me to a dangerous
ignorance of my hard-earned previous experiences. In Year 4 from Thanksgiving
to after Christmas I gave in and allowed myself to self-indulge in everything
I was not allowed to eat in the previous years since my heart operation,
including sweets and sugary desserts, dishes prepared with butter and dairy
and plenty of alcoholic drinks, wine and beer. What a great time I had,
eating what I was missing for so long. During the three month of this ordeal
my weight shot up again as did my LDL level while my HDL values were reduced.
The LDL reached levels dangerous in heart disease. Even though it seems that
the olive oil prevented a total collapse of my HDL, the LDL level was very
risky. So much for the “Eat what you like” strategy. It is very unhealthy! Can I get back to my Year 2
cholesterol profile? Will the ‘Recover Strategy” (see below under “Aug/Oct
2015”) succeed again? Well, I am working on it now to reduce my weight to 145
lbs while staying on a straight fusion diet. I will post here the results in
a few months. |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
Aug/Oct 2015: Caloric Intake from olive oil and Weight Control The struggle with adjusting to the
Mediterranean Diet centers
on maintaining your weight while being on olive and canola oils, fatty fish,
nuts and chocolate. This is an exhausting struggle because no clear strategic
understanding is available on how to balance the daily high caloric intake
from these sources of ‘good fats’ with an excess of available calories that
are not only just deposited in fatty tissue. The fat cells in return trigger
a natural addiction cycle to consume more calories and thus create a hard to
overcome challenge. Suddenly, at about 156 lbs and visible mid-section
expansion of my body, I realized that I was constantly snacking on ‘healthy
snacks’ like low-fat whole grain pretzels, nuts, dried cranberries and fruit.
As a result, at first unnoticeably, my weight climbed steadily further up.
When, after my daily 1.5 hrs workout before breakfast and following weight
control, my weight began surpassing 160 lbs I started to be conscious of the
problem and luckily was able to make some radical changes. I had similar problems
before my quadruple heart surgery in 2010 (see below under: Dec 2004-2009 – Long time ago). As so often reported
by others, it’s easy to drop weight but it is hard to maintain a lower
weight. I got soon my old weight back and my cholesterol levels worsened but
I never understood how to change the underlying lifestyle to the better. After my heart surgery I
tried to improve my lifestyle by following very strictly Esselstyn’s Diet
(May 2010-2014 – Klaus’ Heart Disease
Story). It did a marvelous job in maintaining a low weight, since it
offers so few calories that a fat-cell-dependent caloric addiction cycle
never started, despite of doubling or tripling portion sizes for satisfying
arising hunger feelings. Once it was
scientifically proven in 2014 that this vegan low-caloric diet does not bare
any real health benefits, like reduction of heart disease or increase of
longevity, I expanded it with recommended components of the Mediterranean
diet like olive oils, fatty fish, nuts and chocolates (all said to provide
such benefits). The olive oil did an amazing good job on my cholesterol
levels changing them to ideal for maximum longevity, but it seemed also to
create the before mentioned problems in weight control. My strategy
to illuminate the role of olive oil in my weight gain is simple: 1. Maintain
all beneficial activities of my lifestyle, 2. Stop snacking, and 3. Reduce
caloric intake to the bare minimum. Then, the weight should drop to a plateau
reflecting the minimum weight base line for that particular lifestyle. On
this basis I would then be able to add again suspected culprits of the
initial weight gain and achieve again a steady but now at a higher level
reflecting those new caloric conditions. Then, it would be up to my free will,
to choose how many calories from which source to add for the establishment of
my desired steady weight. Phase 1: Reduction of caloric
intake to a bare minimum.
While maintaining my
daily lifestyle behavior (in the morning 1.5 hrs gym) I reduced my meals to
very low calorie intake, without changing them in principles (as would have
be done according to Atkins’s with the elimination of carbohydrate): 1. No
Olive Oil, 2. No Granola for Breakfast, 3. No green salad for dinner, 4. No
Red Wine for dinner and evening, and 5. No in-between snacking, like 3-4
servings of apples, oranges, grapes, whole-grain pretzels, chocolates,
almonds and walnuts with dried cranberries, etc.. I maintained all my
supplements.
Practically, I had my
protein shake in the morning, two pieces of dried flat bread during the day
and one single small portion of vegetarian meal in the evening. In the first
three days I satisfied my craving for snacks by drinking approximately 2
liters a day of diet ginger ale. At day four, when I could no longer stand
the soda, I switched to Seltzer water. The results are obvious showing after
three of step decline a flatter approximately linear decrease of my weight
over five weeks: Interestingly again, the weight dropped rapidly
for three days and then declined seemingly linear 0.3.4 lb/day without flattening
out. This indicated that my envisioned weight baseline of 145 lb was still above a
possible minimum weight.
Two episodes modified
the steadily reducing weight curve through delayed defecation: A lobster/corn
(without butter) dinner combined, a day later, with a pita and hummus lunch
(three thick pitas) seen in the peak to the left, and a grilled shrimp meal
(1/2 lb = 16 larger shrimps only with cocktail sauce) caused the peak to the
right. The three to four day long intestinal residence of the proteins (in
contrast to the 12-15 hrs used by greens) caused no real weight gains. After
five weeks dieting I reached my minimum weight target at about 145 lbs,
similar to that of my sport-supported high school weight but 5 lbs lower than
that established by the Esselstyn diet. At no time was measurable ketosis
initiated (see Atkins). So this was a proper weight loss regime driven by
exercise and reduced calorie intake and caused by the physiologically
preferred pathway of glycolysis. During this phase I felt great and,
astonishing enough, I had no longer any cravings for snacks or felt hungry
but very energetic and spiritually harmonized. These are feelings often
reported for low calories conditions in healthy living lifestyles. Although I
consumed no fresh salad greens or eat several helping of fruit (which is
generally not preferred), my physiology was healthy (healthy hair, nails and
smooth skin), which indicates that my Esselstyn-recommended mineral, vitamin
and protein supplements did a sufficient job. Just to make sure that
the leavened whole wheat Italian bread, used for the olive oil consumption,
did not have any effect on the minimum weight, I changed for one week the
lunch menu from 2 pieces of crispbread to four slices of long Italian whole
wheat bread. The chart reveals no effects, what so ever, of this switch in
the weight curve. Phase 2: Caloric intake increase
from 2.5 tablespoons of virgin olive oil.
The Esselstyn diet is a
pronounced very-low-fat vegan diet that does not allow any plant oils. Changing
the diet to include 300 calories from fat (oil) may require the body to
change its digestive functions with special enzyme expressions. Such changes
may require several weeks, making it necessary to stay in the second phase of
diet analysis for at least three weeks for the observation of the effect of
the added olive oil. The lunch and the dinner
were modified by adding to each 1 ¼ tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil
collected and consumed with 2 slices of whole wheat Italian long bread.
After one week I added
back a small salad tossed with a sesame-olive oil dressing that contained 50%
olive oil. With that salad addition the dinner is now fully restore to
pre-reduction levels. However, wine for dinner and cereal for breakfast are
not yet included.
First
indications show that the added olive oil in fact is raising my weight by 0.5
lb/day, which, instead of steadily dropping by 0.34 lb/day, is now starting
to compensate the weight loss and is actually beginning to increase my weight
by 0.17 lb/day. The 2.5 Tbsp olive oil is definitely a big load of 300
calories, which I obviously do not fully burn under my specific lifestyle
conditions chosen for this test (low weight of 143.2 lb, reduced breakfast,
no wine for dinner and no fruits and snacks, but unreduced activities in the
gym burning 450 calories each morning). After ~2 weeks, when the digestive
system will have adjusted to the olive oil consumption, the weight should at
some point stabilize because the increase body mass will consume the excess
of calories. The added salad by unchanged olive oil volume did not seem to
make any impact on the weight curve. The
bare minimum diet includes now fresh salads, making it more complete, so that
I will stay on it for now until my next blood test in three weeks before
changing anything else. Then, the results from dieting hopefully will clarify
the situation even better. However, the new salad addition makes the dinner
really rich and I’m stuffed after finishing the bread with olive oils, the
salad with olive oil and the meal serving.
What
will happen? Will my weight continue to increase linearly or will there be
finally a steady-state at a constant but elevated level? Well, here are the
first results: My weight seemed to stabilize for 10 days at proximal 145 lb after
I had gained 2 pounds.
It
is again clear that deviation from my routine is answered immediately by my
physiology. On 10/13 was such an occasion with a birthday celebration (wine,
champagne and lots of bread). The alcohol led to retaining of a lot of water
in my tissue so that my weight jumped by 1.5 pounds. However, it dissipated
within the following day Now
it was time for my cholesterol analysis. Look at these results which just
blow my mind: the olive oil caused the same HDL and LDL pattern as it did two
years ago!
Listed values are the
component results from the latest lab results (with 71 mg/dL triglycerides). While
maintaining my life style but after weight loss for 5 weeks of 15 lbs, I
started to take again 2.5 tablespoons of olive oil. Nothing else was changed
for the next four weeks. Look at what the addition of olive oil did! It
balanced HDL and LDL to an ideal proportion, which promises heart health and
longevity! The cholesterol physiology behaves like a biomedical machine, feeding
the right things into it will produce a predictable outcome! The
relaxation of my diet rules in the past two years led instead of
stabilization of my weight to a steady increase. After recovering my
excellent cholesterol values, I now have a good incentive for more carefully
tailor my diet so as to prevent the previous weight related pitfall of the
olive oil derived Mediterranean diet, the temptation to add more calories in
an uncontrolled manner through in between snacking. Well,
after this great lab result from my reduced cardio fusion diet, I added back
some of my favorite enjoyments starting with 3-4 helpings of fresh fruit
(it’s fall harvest time with fresh apples, green grapes and pears) and 2
glasses of wine, one red for dinner and one white of German origin for my
evening leisure. As the weight chart indicates my weight stayed steady at
around 145 lbs. In the gym I am back with my full stamina and endurance and
afterwards feel refreshed and great. I
conclusion of this weight study, it must have been the “snacking” in between
the meals that caused all my weight gain initializing the fat-trap. This time, I’ll be aware of the
temptations and chose instead of pretzels and chips a glass of ice water! These are the sources
for Additional Calories previously
included in daily food consumption (total of 600 calories): 1.
One 6 oz glass of red wine (10% alcohol) has 150 calories. 2. One serving of fruit provides approximately 50
calories. Four servings provided 200 calories. 3.
Breakfast Cereal: 1/3 cup of granola 125 calories plus 1 cup of fat-free soy
milk 70 calories. Total 195 calories. 4.
A hand-full of mixed nuts and cranberries (1/4 cup) adds 210 calories |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
Jan 2015 What
is the Right Balance between Calorie Intake from Olive Oil and Lifestyle for
maintaining a Heathy Weight?
Jan
19, 2015: I got my Blood values back. At the first glance, my weight
reduced slightly without increasing the Triglycerides and my total
Cholesterol went down slightly on the cost of reduced HDL but increased LDL
just above the critical 70 mg/dL level for the first time since years. From
my initial experiences with weight gain through the Mediterranean Diet I had
reduced over the last 6 month my olive oil from daily 2.5 Tablespoons to 1.5
Tablespoons as measure for weight control. It seemed to have worked but the
reduced olive oil seemed also to have decreased my HDL and increased my LDL. What
would be the right intervention at unchanged level of workout (every morning
for 1.5 hrs burning approximately 450 Calories)? Back to daily 2.5
Tablespoons of olive oil but a reduced additional calorie intake from meals.
For the next 3 months I’ll eat only smaller portions (1.5 cups of soups, 1/3
lb of fish), limited amounts of crisp bread and no snacks (chocolate and
nuts). Let’s see, if the olive oil can do wonders (by recapturing my high HDL
levels)! For
portion reduction I started to cook batches and freeze them. With that I had
always two or three different meals on hand and could with such constant
portion size start to better manage my lifestyle (see Cardio
Fusion Diet tab under Meals). |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
May 2010
-2014 Klaus’ Heart Disease Story
Why to change your American Red-Meat/Processed-Food Diet having
30%-Fat? I thought that I was living a healthy life style including modest eating
habit, no smoking, little social alcohol consumption and infrequent
physically challenging activities (bike riding and summer hiking). At work I
had little stress and at home I consumed the typical American Diet (30% fat)
of almost daily red meat and processed foods (like high sodium orange juice,
chips, cheese, sour cream etc.) and never really cared about my blood work
done for my yearly physicals. I felt great and healthy. Then I realized that
I was slowly gaining weight and changed my diet to what is called a
Mediterranean Diet (20% fat) of vegetables, salads, fruits and white meat
(chicken and fish) using olive oil for cooking. Reducing my cholesterol
levels, as can be seen in the chart of the table below, it did not affect the
silently progressing disease of my coronary heart vessel blockage leading
towards inevitable heart failure because my cholesterol never fell below the
critical thresholds essential for preventing heart failure (dashed lines in
the chart below). Then,
one day while mowing the lawn I felt a strong diffuse chest pain and
consulted my Family Doctor. The Resting ECG (Electro Cardiogram) looked great
and normal. For evaluation of my complaints he sent me to a Cardiologist for
a stress test. I did not pass the test and on the spot was rushed with an
ambulance to the Emergency Room for Quadruple Bypass Heart Surgery:
I was with no minutes to spare
very, very close to heart failure and permanent heart damage. Under
exceptionally professional and loving care by nurses and doctors I left the
hospital five days later. During my rehabilitation I learned too late all
about the risk factors for heart disease but no concrete specific advice was
given on healing my diseased heart except for some general guidelines on to
moderate my (American Diet) eating habit, quite smoking (I do not smoke),
exercise often (OK) and reduce stress (OK) and blood pressure (was and is
OK). So I continued with my Mediterranean diet but added more gym time (2-3
times a week). Hearing from a friend and Googling Heart Disease I learned
about and started to read doctors Ornish’s and Esselstyn’s books on how to
“heal” my diseased heart. If I would not change my life style my newly
implanted artery and veins that now supply my heart would clog with new
cholesterol plaques and I would need another bypass operation in ~ 5-10
years. But this message really did not sink into my consciousness until by
chance I saw a CNN-interview of former President Bill Clinton regarding the
failure in 2010 of his 2004 quadruple bypass and his lifestyle change to
Esselstyn’s diet. Esselstyn’s advice on healing a diseased heart is simple
but dogmatic in that I would have to radically change my lifestyle and eating
habits! The interview was encouraging me to do it and take the first steps. |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Table: 14 years of charted blood component concentrations and body weight.
The data points reflect the blood values at the end of the measuring interval
and may represent the influences of all variations in-between depending on
their persistence which is at this time widely unknown. (Chart detail for
diet years below). |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
The diet experience. Starting the dieting
journey seemed daunting and surreal at first but I figured it out and adapted
to it. Now I am working out every day for 60 min at the local gym and
following strictly Esselstyn’s advice. It was a steep learning curve, cooking
for myself, finding and selecting the appropriate foods and grocery items and
managing my new lifestyle. Already after only four weeks being on the
Esselstyn-based diet my LDL (red: bad cholesterol) had dropped significantly
below the high-risk ceiling of 70 mg/dL and my total cholesterol (blue)
stayed almost always below the safe level of 150 mg/dL. At these conditions
coronary heart disease is not diagnosed. I am now feeling great knowing that
my heart is healing (probably reversing plaque growth and opening up clogged
vessels) and my newly implanted blood vessels will be staying healthy without
getting further diseased. However, this diet system includes many diverse
components and their relationships and effects on measured blood values is
not easily understandable and more or less hidden to both the patient and the
physician, because for most patients it is hard if not impossible to reliably
follow a physician’s even mostly general advice. Additionally, the individual
diet response may vary from patient to patient. As I found out in the second
diet year, short-term deviations from the diet would have dramatic
longer-term effect on the cholesterol levels. I am a scientist and set out
from the start of my dieting to take control of my own health destiny by
critically observing the effects of Esselstyn’s prescriptions on a daily
basis. These are my results and my generalized conclusions. The
chart covers in detail the first years after my heart operation and shows my
blood and weight values related to my diet and some special living events
that occurred since then. It is easily recognizable that there are two groups
of values each changing in their own but very different ways. The
triglycerides (yellow line), weight (purple line) and HDL (good cholesterol:
green line) indicate longer-term adaptation and specific interactions with
each other while the total cholesterol (blue line) as well as the LDL (bad
cholesterol: red line; calculated from the total cholesterol and the HDL)
indicate short-term adaptations to life style changes and parallel
interactions with each other. In
the first diet year I lost 30 pounds regaining my adolescent
school-sport-supported weight which I could maintain in the following years.
However, in the first half year, when my initial weight reduced rapidly, my
triglycerides (yellow) increased steeply, a relationship reported in the
medical literature to be closely related. The triglycerides fell back as
steeply and then stabilized to a plateau for nearly one year before dropping
off again as rapidly to their lowest value yet of 35 mg/dL and then increased
again while the weight reduced only minimally. In contrast, my HDL
(good/green) showed only small variations between 50-70 mg/DL. It was initially
steady over two years but thereafter started to increase at a similar time
the triglycerides where again dropping. Both desirable changes cannot yet be
correlated with other events but it may be that changes are responding to
those of eating habits when I was falling back to conventionally sized
portions (see below) and increasing physical activity (thicker line
indicating activity increase to sweating). The
total cholesterol (blue) and LDL (bad/red) cholesterol appear to react
rapidly and in tandem. Two increases in the second year after the operation
followed a vacation and a holiday season. On these two occasions I was
breaking the diet rules for only a few days. After the vacation incident
(consuming “irresistible” fatty and sugary pastries) elevated LDL (bad/red)
values reach 65mg/dL and after the holidays (consuming sugary foods and a lot
of wine) an even higher value of 85 mg/dL is observed. The rapid increase of
the cholesterol values and the slow recovery over months reveal a high
sensitivity of these two blood components to “breaking the diet rules” for
only a few days despite close adherence to the rules before and immediately
afterwards. In the third year I paid special attention not to break the rules
and both values although fluctuation stayed below the desirable maximum
(dashed lines). Unfortunately,
due to a severe sciatic nerve irritation during the summer preceding the Xmas
holidays I had to stop my gym exercises for 7 month but could pick them up again
after the holidays. This lack of exercise might have been the reason that
excess calories were not burned away fast enough causing an accentuated
increase of LDL (bad/red). Cholesterol increase from excessive calories is
well documented. It underscores that low calorie consumption as well as
exercise are an import part of this diet. As a precaution against further
unintended minor missteps I changed to a very low fat diet, reducing fat
intake wherever possible, especially for breakfast (lowest-fat granola and
non-fat soy milk), lunch (low-fat pita flat breads with no-fat hummus) and
dinner (using if called for only low-fat tofu products). My new lifestyle. It took me three years to get a grip of my
new way of living. In the first year my body was physiologically adjusting.
During the second year I was learning psychologically to live with it. And
only in the third year I was gaining a deeper understanding of the mechanisms
and their control. Meanwhile, my basic metabolism remained quite healthy when
comparing the pre-operative and post-operative values. The recent values (see
table below) were measured in the same blood sample as used at the end of the
third year (analyzed to monitor my kidney function under treatment with the
diuretic Furosemide).
The
undesirable sodium and chloride are at the minimum, and desirable potassium
and calcium are in the mid-range. The glucose is close to the maximum but
Furosemide might have affected this value. However, I should watch my
sugar/calorie intake. It may also help to lose some few extra pounds since I
am definitely not skinny. My
lifestyle now includes besides of a very-low fat diet, low sodium as well as
daily exercises (burning around 400 calories) also low-sugar intake in
support of controlling my calorie balance. These changes will help
maintaining my “exceptional good” blood values as my cardiologist just told
me after seeing my latest now stabilized blood analysis results after the third
year post operation. Living on a controlled diet needs attention to EVERY
detail WITHOUT exceptions, as Esselstyn repeatedly stresses in his book and I
am starting to realize now. In
addition to everything known for maintaining good heart health (Gillinow and
Nissen: Heart 411) Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn’s advice for healing a diseased
heart is a “10% Fat and Plant-based Diet” without any cholesterol intake from
animal products, low-salt content, no plant oils and includes the reduction
of the natural liver production of cholesterol by daily exercise and low
dosage (10mg) of a statin (Crestor). Optimal blood values are for Total
Cholesterol below 150 mg/dL and LDL (bad cholesterol) below 85 mg/dL. At risk
patients with heart disease should have a LDL (bad cholesterol) level below
70 mg/dL (see chart dashed lines). These are now widely accepted threshold
values.
In general, a 10% fat diet requires detailed consideration of the nutritional intake in regards to low-fat, low-salt and low sugar content. In the ‘Finding Products’ charts I label those items with a special conformance icon for easier recognition. Please contemplate that plants used for dinner preparation already provide approximately one half of the daily allowance for fat (5%) meaning that only 5% fat is available for the remaining ingredients used for the preparation of dinner, breakfast, lunch and snacks. This is only possible by using ingredients that are for practical reasons fat-free and have per serving a fat content of only 1% or less of the Daily Value as prescribed in the dietary guidance of the Food a Drug Administration (FDA). Such a practice is very cumbersome to follow since it requires constant consultation of food labels. Gone are for breakfast stone rolled oatmeal (1/2 cup has a 5% daily value of fat) and light almond milk (1/2 cup has an additional 2% fat). Inclusion of flax seed flour for supplementing the Omega 3 intake will already introduce 4.6 % fat. And having some bread with hummus for lunch is challenging as well. One slice of salt-free whole grain bread may have 1-1.5% of fat and the choice for fat-free hummus without tahini is limited. There are low-fat or fat-free products available in health food stores and increasingly in supermarkets but it is tedious to find them and remember where they are sold and in which isles they are placed. Well, this is the flip side of staying healthy when having highest risk factors for heart disease. Lucky are those who do not (yet) fall into this category. Weight and Calories. I found
daily weight control very helpful if performed at similar physiological
patterns, i.e., in the morning after bowl movement (being like clockwork in
plant dieting), exercise and shower. If the weight is found to be too high
over several days than it is easy to reduce the calorie effects by exercising
more or eating less (my favorite meal for that purpose is the Yellow Turnip
Vegetable Soup – 005 or some of the Quick Meals. Also drinking plain iced
water instead of juice or wine helps.) In the first two year of 10%-fat-plant
dieting I had a nearly unsatisfyable appetite eating more or less two
portions for one meal and was feeling afterwards heavy and tired while
retaining approximately 4-5 pounds in weight. Now, I am down to more regular
portion sizes and feel much better having also lost the initially remaining
extra weight although I am still have some pounds to go. This energy balance
is essential for maintaining a normal physiology because depleting calorie
intake too much changes the physiology from healthy calorie burning activity
mode to unhealthy starving mode where non-essential calories are converted to
liver fat increasing triglyceride and cholesterol levels. The Daily Practice. Esselstyn-based
dieting necessitates framing your personal life with a regular schedule of
exercise, cooking and shopping but also provides inner instinctive
satisfaction from the enjoyment of preparing the meals, working with natural
ingredients and tasting natural flavors. This site will start you in the
right direction for the latter two activities cooking and shopping. The rest
is up to you. The Challenge of Gillinow and Nissen: FOOD FIGHTS Klaus Peters*) A Fusion of the Esselstyn
diet and the Mediterranean diet may harvest the best of both, i.e., weight
and cholesterol control.
We need more detail studies on the relationship
between lifestyles and hear health. Two widely publicized very-low-fat diets
for maintaining heart-health (Ornish, 2007; Esselstyn, 2007), were recently
challenged by a third high-fat approach based on olive oil (Gillinow and
Nissen, 2012). It took me over three years post operation to grasp the impact
of my diet choices on my cholesterol levels and I felt ready to test the
proposed high-fat approach in a challenge study. After staying for more than
one year (see data in chart: 3rd Year Post) on Esselstyn’s diet
below high-risk levels for cholesterols, I did not change anything in my
lifestyle except including the recommendations of Gillinow and Nissen. Both
diets embrace low-dose statin application, in contrast to the Ornish diet
that rejects it. For this comparative study I documented with pictures my
daily meals and lifestyle for two months before (see Daily Meal
Pictures for over three Months) the diet
change and four month afterwards (Challenge
Study Meals for four Months). The results of the very-low fat diet showed that I could control my dietary intake exactly as prescribed by Esselstyn with the result of my total cholesterol staying below the recommended level of 150 mg/dL, and of LDL below the high-risk threshold of 75 mg/dL. With this baseline being established for over one year moved to and stayed on the Gillinow-Nissen olive-oil-based Mediterranean Diet (2.5 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil per day) maintaining everything else in my lifestyle. So in fact, only my meal composition changed from 10% to ~30% of Recommended-Daily-Allowance Calories coming from “good” fats, which derive from plants and now as well as from olive oil, nuts, chocolate, chicken and fatty fish. The abrupt diet change did not caused any digestive problems. The recommended olive oil and nuts added some 500 calories per day, which required me to double my daily exercise in the gym to two hours per day combined with heavy sweating in order to maintain my weight at 148-150 lb. However, after four month I had to scale back the workout by 40% and accept a 6 pound weight increase. But what did the olive oil and the fish fat do? It is clear that the HDL increased sharply. Surprisingly, the LDL did not change and stayed below the at risk levels contrary to the total cholesterol that increased in tandem with the HDL. In addition, the Triglycerides deceased to lowest levels. So, effectively the olive oil (in combination with increased of physical activity) decoupled the LDL and the total cholesterol, which were under very-low fat-diet changing in tandem. This puts a new light on the LDL values since they were little affected by the HDL. The increase of the total cholesterol above the “at risk” level is due to the HDL. Changes in weight and small fluctuations in triglycerides levels may mirror the problem of weight control in this high-caloric diet. |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Figure 1:
Blood values and weight of a single patient who is a male Caucasian of 73
years in age (at data end points); Blood pressure 60/120 , weight 156 lb, height 6’ 1’’; Non-smoker;
Only low social alcohol consumption; No other major health problems. Chart
Detail: After 10 years of steadily concomitant increase of all values (not shown
in figure) the cholesterol values could be decreased by diet modification to
a conventional Mediterranean Diet (20% fat) combined with occasional physical
activities. However, this could not stop the progressing cardiac disease
leading to an emergency quadruple bypass operation. During the following 3
years while a very-low fat diet was followed, the first year showed a
dramatic weight reduction and concomitant triglyceride peak, the second year
reflected short-term diet deviations, and the third year demonstrates
expected outcomes below risk-thresholds at full diet compliance. The last six
months reflect the outcome and maintenance of blood component values while
following an olive-oil & nuts Mediterranean diet. |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
Both diets (Esselstyn’s very-low fat vegan diet and Gillinow-Nissen’s high-fat Mediterranean diet) are based on scientific hall-mark large-scale studies (Chinese Study, Mediterranean Study) and can be fully verified when compared side-by-side under self-guided physiological conditions in a controlled single person study under low-dose statin conditions. Both diets can maintain LDL levels below 70 mg/dL. The Mediterranean olive oil-based diet provided the additional benefit of almost doubling HDL levels but at the cost of unrealistically demanding exercise levels (2 hrs sweating per day) for weight preservation. On the other side, the very-low fat diet (Esselstyn 10% fat diet) is also demanding because it does not allow any even minor deviation (from consumption of “bad” fats and excessive calories from alcohol and sugars) without severe long-lasting consequences of elevated LDL levels (see second year post OP). Conclusions: On the background of the recently recommended increase of the statin usage for cholesterol maintenance (CDC, 2013), the Esselstyn diet and the Gillinow -Nissen diet strategies should be fused so as to ease weight control. A reduction of olive oil and fish oil consumption and an increased inclusion of very-low fat plant meals provide a promising flexible diet avenue while maintaining all the other established essential lifestyle practices common to both approaches, like whole-grain flour products, “good” carbohydrates, fruits, nuts, dark chocolate, red wine as well as daily extensive exercise combined with no smoking, normal heart rate, low blood sugar levels and normal body weight. In practice, this is what the Ornish diet prescribes, but including olive oil and replacing the requirement of meditation, group therapy and yoga (for stress reduction) with a low-dosage statin application. So, in the end, all three diet approaches, heavily publicized through books, media appearances and some polemic commenting, should be fused for providing a realistic practical approach to good cardio-healthy lifestyle: It’s not exclusively either very-low fat dieting, statin barring at all cost, or unlimited olive-oil consumption, but a measured approach using all three aspects tailored to the physiological and pathological situation of the individual patient. There is and will be always more that we should know about heart health and it is the scientific comparative approach that will make us understand better the complex human system and guide us in improving health, happiness and longevity. References Esselstyn CB, Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease. Avery, NY, 2007. Ornish D. Dr. The Spectrum: A Scientifically Proven Program to Feel Better, Live Longer, Lose Weight, and Gain Health. Ballantine Books, New York NY, 2007. Gillinov M and Nissen S. Heart 411: the only guide to heart health you’ll ever need. Three Rivers Press, New York NY, 2012. Estruch R, Ros E,
Salas-Salvadó J, Covas MI, D
Pharm, Corella D, Arós F, Gómez-Gracia E,
Ruiz-Gutiérrez
V, Fiol M, Lapetra J,Lamuela-Raventos RM,
Serra-Majem L, Pintó X, Basora J, Muñoz
MA, Sorlí JV, Martínez JA, Martínez-González MA; the
PREDIMED Study Investigators. Primary Prevention of Cardiovascular
Disease with a Mediterranean Diet. N Engl J
Med. 2013 Feb 25.
[Chinese Study]
[Mediterranean Study]
[CDC Recommendations, 2013]
*) Dr. Klaus Peters was a biologist and computer scientist at the Southern Connecticut State University, Computer Science, 2003-2015. He is retired now. |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
Dec 2004 - 2009 Long Time ago
Unhappy with my weight during my regular American
Red Meat Diet I tried to lower my weight by reducing carbohydrates and wine and
aiming for a weight baseline of 160 lb. Although very successful in losing 15
lbs (from 175 lb to 160 lb) within 2 ½ weeks I could not maintain the lower
weight and regained it quickly back because I was unaware of effective
lifestyle adjustments. At that time I did not pay any attention to my
cholesterol levels since they were considered normal and fine.
Interestingly, the weight dropped rapidly for
three days and the declined seemingly linear without flattening out. This
indicated that my envisioned weight baseline was still above a possible minimum
weight. Change over to Mediterranean-like Diet. Over time I made several
similar unsuccessful attempts. When years later in 2008 my LDL cholesterol levels rose above critical unhealthy
levels and my total cholesterol reached the accepted maximum I finally change
my diet in reducing red meat in favor of fish and chicken, similar to a
Mediterranean diet but without olive oil since I was not used to that and did
not know how to consume it. Also, I had no idea of the positive effect from
olive oil or that it is essential part of the Mediterranean diet. The changes
had little, but negative effect on my weight although, satisfyingly, they
reduced my LDL cholesterol and Total cholesterol seemingly to safer levels.
This chart shows that all my blood values and my
weight was steadily increasing over more than eight years. This trend could
successfully reversed with a reduced Mediterranean diet that excluded olive
oil. The recovery of the weight loss of 15 lb (red circle) was much faster as
shown in the graph, but no nearby data points are available for indicating
that. |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
Feb 2010 Bill Clinton’s Story at http://www.vegsource.com/news/2010/09/cnn-interviews-caldwell-esselstyn-md-dean-ornish-md-about-bill-clintons-plant-based-diet.html (excerpts below from that website) Caldwell Esselstyn Jr.
MD & Dean Ornish MD Explain Bill Clinton's Diet To CNN CNN.COM | 09/24/10 On Friday, September 24, 2012
CNN's Wolf Blitzer interviewed Caldwell Esselstyn Jr MD and Dean Ornish MD,
the doctors whose diet former President Bill Clinton has used to successfully
return to his high school weight -- and to reverse his serious heart disease. Background: In 2004 Clinton underwent quadruple bypass
surgery, taking four veins from elsewhere in his body and using them to
circumvent the four blocked arteries to his heart. In 2005, Clinton
underwent more surgery, for scar tissue damage and fluid which had accumulated
as a result of the 2004 surgery. In
February of 2010, Clinton's bypass failed, with one of the four veins
installed in the bypass having become 100% blocked. Surgeons installed two
stents inside the clogged vein, in order to prop open the cholesterol-filled
passage. In May of
this year, Clinton began Dr. Esselstyn's plant-based diet program, which has been
shown in published research to arrest and reverse heart disease in 100% of
people who are compliant with the diet. Over the next few months,
Clinton lost 24 pounds, returning to his high school weight, feels great, and
his heart disease is in reversal. Video: The CNN video below starts with about a
minute of Clinton's interview, then cuts to several minutes of riveting
commentary from the two esteemed plant-based doctors responsible for this
health-turnaround.
Click picture to watch YouTube video. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Comments: Write to heart@youworldtree.com and we
will add your contribution here. |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
