Well friends, Matt and I have gone back
to our vegan ways for 2013.
You are probably wondering why in the world
anyone would ever choose to be a
vegan. Well, truth be told, we really didn’t have a “choice.”
About 2 years ago Matt went to the doctor
for an annual physical exam and found out that his blood cholesterol was
alarmingly high. For those of you who know nothing about cholesterol like me, normal
cholesterol is under 200 mg/dL, and high cholesterol is anything over 240 mg/dL.
So you can imagine the doctor’s shock when Matt’s blood cholesterol test came
back at 318 mg/dL!!! He immediately informed Matt that this dangerously high cholesterol
level put him at more than twice the
risk of coronary heart disease as someone whose cholesterol is below 200 mg/dL.
So the doctor offered Matt a lifetime
prescription of Lipitor, a cholesterol lowering medication. Matt refused to
accept the prescription and told the doctor that there had to be another
solution. Much to the doctor’s chagrin, he alternatively prescribed Matt to a
strict 3 month vegan diet with regular exercise.
Let me just say, going vegan is tough! After you cut out all animal products and dairy, you are pretty much left with beans, grains and lots of
fake meat products. This also makes dining out nearly impossible.
After 3 long
months on the vegan diet Matt dropped 14 pounds. He returned to the doctor
for a follow up cholesterol test and the results came back at 201 mg/dL!!! The doctor was so shocked
he wrote an article about Matt’s vegan experiment in a medical journal.
We were so proud of ourselves for making it
through the 3 months that we celebrated with a cheeseburger, and have completely
fallen off the bandwagon since. Of course, Matt’s cholesterol has crept back up,
so we are serious about trying this again for 2013!
We will continue to eat fish and egg whites
since both of those foods are pretty low in cholesterol. And since I am only
going vegan to support Matt I refuse to give up cheese.
Anyone want to join us? Probably not.
