Steak to the Heart! How to Kill a Vegetarian/Vegan Not a Vampire!

Will I be successful and become vegan? Will I have the "big one" and die before I make it? Will I become vegan but get run over by a car? Will I find recipes or make up new recipes that wow me and my readers? Will I find ways to eat out and stay vegan? Stay tuned!

This morning at Cardiac Rehab I was planning to get my cholesterol results back from the test done last Friday.  I've been almost vegan for a month - by "almost" I mean that I will occasionally have dairy products IF I can have a non-fat (low fat will not do) version.  I may have written this before but I cannot give up Greek Gods Yogurt !  It's like eating ice cream or frozen yogurt - it is impossible to believe that something this creamy and spectacular is non-fat but it is!  When I read Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease by Esselstyn,  I initially committed to the "Vegan plus" diet that he requires.  It's Vegan AND no nuts, no avocado, and no added oil - not even olive oil!  I was thinking that I could do it to save my life - no eggs, no more meat, no dairy - wait, that means no Greek Gods Yogurt!  I was discouraged but then I read that with his first group of "subjects" he allowed dairy IF it was non-fat but he changed his mind later when some enzyme in milk was connected with cancer - well not that I want to spit in cancer's face but I figure I'm much more likely to go from cardiac problems than cancer so I'm on the ORIGINAL Esselstyn Diet - the one that saved so many people's lives!  Got to have the yogurt.

But I digress (I do that sometimes - go off on a tangent and forget where I was going!  This morning I read a recommendation for a new book called When I Stop Talking, You'll Know I'm Dead and I thought, "Damn, I wish I had come up with that title - it could be my autobiography!")  Oh my God!  I digressed from my digression...now what was I talking about?  Oh, I was set to get my blood test results this morning in Cardiac Rehab.  I checked in - we have to weigh in and record our weight and then get a heart monitor and hook ourselves up to the leads and make sure that it's working and we can see the familiar little squiggly line on the EKG screen  (one of the nurses told us that if we see a flatline we'll know that we're dead - hospital humor...what would we do without it?) before a nurse approaches and takes our blood pressure and asks us several personal questions where everyone can hear our answers!

My weight stayed the same which is the first time I didn't post a loss of a pound or two at weigh-in - not great but I know all the ways to explain it (I was a Weight Watchers Leader a long time ago - all the reasons they taught us still apply - except that monthly weight thing for women that I never mentioned anyway cause it just seemed odd to bring up! - Sorry digressing again...) I'm all set to start on the treadmill and I asked, "are my cholesterol results back?"  I was told to start exercising and they would pull a copy for me. SO I did as I was told and forty-five minutes later they escorted me into a "counseling room" to give me my results.

After a month of borderline vegan food and exercising five times a week my results were....
HDL - that's the good one - DOWN - that's the wrong direction!
LDL - that's the bad one - UP - wrong direction again!
Triglycerides - bad stuff  -  UP - wrong direction!
Risk Ratio - want that lower - UP - wrong damn direction!

Disappointed - uh YES!  I had prepared myself for bad news you know like the levels stayed the same or changed in the right direction but not by much. But every measure in the wrong direction after a month of no meat -not a happy camper.  I didn't say anything for a minute just trying to let it soak in and then I clarified, "After a month of completely changing my diet and exercise practices,  every measure went in the wrong direction?"

She tried to come up with some reassuring suggestions -
"really the numbers are not up THAT much! You could almost interpret these as staying the same."
"probably within the margin of error.  Sometimes it takes three months to have measurable impact on your lipid profile."

Seeing I was not convinced but struck silent (a condition anyone who knows me knows is rare), she started trying to make sure I wasn't going to do anything rash! "You're not going to go out and binge on steak are you?"  And then, I'm wasn't sure why in the moment but I cracked up laughing!  She looked at me like maybe something had snapped and her expression made me laugh harder.  When I saw how worried she looked I started to laugh so hard I thought that I might pass out - I glanced through the glass pane in the door and saw two of the nurses looking at my EKG monitor and the thought of it going all screwy cause I was laughing so hard, barely able to get a breath, just made it seem that much funnier.  Tears were rolling down my cheeks and I started thinking that I might really cause myself to have the big one but I was beyond control.  I finally settled down and told her that it started in my head when she suggested that a steak to my heart would kill me and I thought of vampires but that's not spelled the same and then I thought about suicide by steak and I don't know it was early in the morning it just seemed funny in an English minor geeky sort of way...maybe you had to be there?

For my first meal after the bad news I had a delicious Bueno Burger and salad at Mother's Cafe & Garden - it was vegan so I am not losing control BUT in two months when I get my blood tested again if my numbers are worse - well, stay tuned...