You will loose weight, look younger, have more energy, reverse heart disease, decrease your risk of cancer, reverse arthritis, reverse diabetes, lower your cholesterol and have a positive mental attitude.
Really? All of those things can occur just by eating plant based? Then why don’t more people do it? It is impossible. It is too hard to follow. I can’t give up cheese. I tried but, I failed because I was too weak. I never lost a pound. You have to be perfect. You have heard it all of those things said before.
After one year and 11 months of changing my practice to a membership practice focusing on wellness with an emphasis on plant based nutrition, I have given up doing cardiac catheterizations. I began doing heart catheterizations in my fellowship in 1993 and in 2019, I no longer need to do them. My patients do not need them. Not in my wildest dreams did I expect such results. I followed my passion to reverse heart disease. Diabetes and heart disease killed my grandparents and uncles. Cousins my same age now have the disease and follow the Standard American Diet. Over my career I have become board certified and then recertified in Internal medicine and Cardiology. I attended the national meetings and looked at the new devices. I learned about the new pharmaceuticals and diagnostic procedures. None of these things reversed the disease that killed my family members and 600,000 other people each year.
It started out for the animals. Why did we need to kill animals in order to feed ourselves. It is destroying our environment. Eating animal products causes the diseases that I am trying to reverse. I started the change with one; me. I felt better, my cholesterol went down, my weight went down, my energy went up and my passion for medicine went up. I educated myself and then started educating others. I was amazed. For the first time, people got better. Rheumatoid arthritis, kidney failure, diabetes and yes, heart disease got better. So much better that I questioned the therapies that I had ever learned over the past 20 years. I began to question everything and could not in good faith subject patients to treatments that were so inferior to plant based nutrition as well as having little risk.
It seems so simple. Don’t eat anything that is derived from an animal. Don’t eat processed oils. Limit sodium and sugar intake as much as possible. Eat colorful plates of fruits and vegetables. Go out side and move your body. That is it in a nutshell. And yes, limit the nuts, a lot.
Why doesn’t everyone try this. Why do people say it is too hard? Why do they doubt the success? It is a change, and although life changes daily, humans think they can hold fast and not change. You have to be an early adopter to join this tiny plant based movement. These folks embrace change and moving forward. You have to go against the large proportion of people wanting instant gratification, overindulgence, who fear they may not get enough and defend your right to be healthy. You have to see through the agendas of profit driven companies even if they are in the “health” industry. That seemed mean spirited. What about the positive mental attitude thing? We are all human, right? Life is short, why deny yourself? We all want instant success. But we have to see through the smoking mirrors of you can have it all now and realize that the massive amounts of processed foods and tempting treats are killing us. A constant over supply of calorie dense, highly fat food is killing us. We are beyond a little bite here and there. We cannot keep track of all the little bites, samples, tastes, and snacks we consume while multitasking. We worry about not getting enough to eat, but do not want to take the time to prepare and sit down and eat nutritious meals.
It is not hard but it requires committment, courage, and taking responsibility. Many of my members have demonstrated this by getting off of their medications and feeling better. It requires learning to shop and prepare your own food. It will mean that you have to subject yourself to other’s criticism and judgement. Most likely they already have, but did not find your health issues politically correct, so they did not voice them publicly. That is all ok. You will be an early adoptor. An innovator in the health revolution. You will be strong and healthy and responsible for your own health and not a victim of the healthcare system. You will look younger, have more energy, and a positive mental attiude. You will reverse your lifestyle diseases, especially heart disease. You will be able to enjoy more time with your friends and family. You will have made this passionate cardiologist proud to have traded a catheter for a spatula.