I could barely walk to the mailbox without getting winded. I remember once, when I was in my mid-30s, a friend asked me to go on a walk around the block with her, and halfway through, I burst into tears and had to stop because I couldn’t breathe and was in so much pain. I was so sick and tired of being sick and tired.

My husband and I tried everything under the sun to lose weight—Weight Watchers, SlimFast, low-carb diets, etc. We’d lose a bit of weight at first, but I always felt hungry and deprived. I was not able to stick to any of these diets for long, and I gained even more weight back than the initial weight lost.

Giving a WFPB Diet a Chance

Fast-forward a few painful years. My hubby, who also was severely obese, spotted a flier for a documentary called Forks Over Knives. We decided to watch it, though at this point I had very little hope that I could ever shed any weight successfully.

I really only heard part of the message of the film: Cut out animal flesh. I told Hubby I wanted to go vegetarian. He said that if we were going to give it a try, he wanted to commit to going vegan. So we committed to it for a year.

After a year without animal products, we’d each lost 100 pounds. The weight came off fairly easily. We decided to try transitioning to the whole-food, plant-based (WFPB) diet advocated in Forks Over Knives, which meant cutting out oil and vegan ultraprocessed foods. We had varying degrees of success with this. For a few years, we ate oil off and on. But slowly, more pounds came off. I decided to also cut out all refined sugar.

Fully into the Whole-Food, Plant-Based Lifestyle

Today I am 52 years old and happily committed to a WFPB lifestyle, as is my husband. I have continued to gradually lose weight and have easily maintained the weight loss, even after having a thyroid gland removed in 2019 (due to a benign but large tumor).

Prior to going plant-based, I had high cholesterol and high blood pressure, and my inflammation markers were off the charts. Now all of these are in the normal range. My doctor has said that my blood work is like that of a healthy young athlete. I take that as a tremendous testimony to the WFPB lifestyle.

I no longer struggle with GERD symptoms. Before going plant-based, I depended on Prilosec and Tums to get through the day. Now I don’t suffer any heartburn; I can eat the spiciest of foods with no problems! To top it all off, I used to suffer from terrible insomnia, and now I sleep like a contented baby.

I run five days a week and am an avid walker. I am sober, happy, and healthy. I have gained a completely new life. My husband and I are fully committed to continuing on our veggie journey and flourishing in this way of living!

Ready to get started? Check out Forks Meal Planner, FOK’s easy weekly meal-planning tool to keep you on a healthy plant-based path. To learn more about a whole-food, plant-based diet, visit our Plant-Based Primer.

The post From Sick and Tired to Happy and Healthy: My Whole-Food, Plant-Based Journey appeared first on Forks Over Knives.

I struggled with being overweight from an early age. I joined my first weight-loss program at 12, setting off a decades-long cycle of yo-yo and fad dieting. I tried any new diet that was touted to help with weight loss. I was always trying to figure out how to get healthy and always on some plan or program. Eating became a very regimented part of my life, from severely restricting my calories and meticulously weighing my food to tracking everything I ate. I would have some success with losing weight, but nothing sustainable. If I lost any weight, I’d soon gain it back. My weight-loss attempts were always about achieving a goal, never about building better habits or a healthier lifestyle.

Opportunity for Change

Over the years, as I made poor diet choices, I experienced weight gain; elevated blood pressure (hypertension stage 1), cholesterol, and blood sugar; chronic arthritis, joint pain, and muscle fatigue; frequent heartburn; low energy; and poor sleep. I also had PCOS (polycystic ovary syndrome) and struggled with infertility. I was on medications for five of these conditions.

In 2017, my weight had gotten up to 278, and I was still in poor health and at a very low place in my life. I remembered hearing someone say, “The lowest moment is when everything changes. When you are suffering, there is an opportunity for change.”

Early that summer, I finally began my journey to wellness. I got into green smoothies and started taking regular walks with a friend. In the fall, I started working with a health coach, who helped me transition to a whole-food, plant-based (WFPB) lifestyle. This was a pivotal moment for me. For the first time in my life, I began to understand what healthy eating was and was not. In the past, I had made it about dieting, deprivation, counting calories, and weighing everything. It was a very rigid approach, and I never enjoyed myself—and this is why I’d never stick to any diet for long!

After working with my health coach and learning about a WFPB lifestyle, I redefined my relationship with food and started to see it for its real purpose: optimal nutrition and joy.

The Healing Power of a WFPB Diet

As I adopted a WFPB diet, I noticed amazing changes. Between 2017 and 2020, I lost 100 pounds naturally. My energy and sleep improved. My blood pressure, cholesterol and A1C (a measure of average blood sugar) returned to normal ranges. I eliminated all symptoms of PCOS. The heartburn, fatigue, and joint pain I’d been experiencing for years slowly dissipated, and I was able to safely come off all the medications I’d been on. This surprised me the most, because all I’d done was fix the food!

Following a WFPB diet has significantly improved my quality of life overall. In addition to being free of chronic health conditions, I have more energy. I exercise consistently, typically five or six days a week.

This lifestyle has also inspired the cook within. I now love to cook and create spice blends to flavor my dishes in exotic ways. I even completed a plant-based culinary program to learn more about plant-based cooking. Grain bowls are one of my favorite things to make. I change up the ingredients, but every bowl features a whole grain, lots of vegetables, and one of my signature sauces or dressings.

Paying It Forward

Today I try to do all I can to spread the word about the health benefits of a WFPB diet. I earned a certificate in plant-based nutrition and became a certified health coach and Food for Life instructor with a nonprofit that provides nutrition and cooking classes to the public. I love teaching people how diet can fight disease and showcasing how versatile this lifestyle is. I also started an online WFPB community to share information and to help grow the movement. I love giving back to my community!

I’m so grateful that I chose to follow a plant-based diet. It changed—and saved—my life.

Ready to get started? Check out Forks Meal Planner, FOK’s easy weekly meal-planning tool to keep you on a healthy plant-based path. To learn more about a whole-food, plant-based diet, visit our Plant-Based Primer.

The post Breaking the Cycle of Deprivation: I Lost Weight and Resolved Several Health Issues on a WFPB Diet appeared first on Forks Over Knives.

Cholesterol is a little molecule with huge implications for human health. Read on for a breakdown of how cholesterol works—including why HDL (“good”) cholesterol might not be as good as you think—and learn the most important steps you can take right now if you’re among the 38% of Americans who have high cholesterol.

What Is Cholesterol?

Cholesterol is a waxy type of lipid found in almost every cell of the body. A building block of animal life, cholesterol helps form cell membranes and plays a key role in the production of hormones, vitamin D, skin oils, and digestive acids.

The liver makes all the cholesterol that the body needs. Some factors can cause excessive levels of cholesterol to enter the bloodstream; over time, this can seriously impair our cardiovascular systems.

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‘Good’ Cholesterol vs. ‘Bad’ Cholesterol

Cholesterol is not water-soluble, meaning it can’t travel through the bloodstream on its own. For transport, it gets bundled with particles called lipoproteins. The main types of lipoproteins that carry cholesterol are low-density lipoproteins (LDL) and high-density lipoproteins (HDL).

What About Triglycerides?

Like cholesterol, triglycerides are a type of fatty acid that come from our liver and from the foods we eat. They, too, get bundled with lipoproteins and carried through the body so cells can extract the fat and protein for use. When we consume more calories than we need, we take in excess triglycerides, which our body stores as fat. Because elevated triglycerides can contribute to atherosclerosis, triglyceride levels are typically measured alongside LDL and HDL cholesterol. Lifestyle measures aimed at reducing LDL cholesterol can also bring down triglycerides.

What Causes High Cholesterol?

For most people, high cholesterol is primarily lifestyle-related, the American Heart Association notes. Lifestyle factors that drive up LDL cholesterol (or decrease HDL cholesterol) include:

• Unhealthy diet
• Being overweight or obese
• Sedentary lifestyle
• Cigarette smoking

Genes play a role in the amount of cholesterol that your liver produces. Familial hypercholesterolemia, an inherited genetic condition, impacts an estimated .05% of the population. Genetics can also influence cholesterol levels in indirect ways, such as by predisposing someone to be overweight.

Having Type 2 diabetes is a risk factor for high cholesterol, though more research is needed to understand the connection.

Diet and Cholesterol

Among the lifestyle factors that can influence LDL cholesterol levels, diet plays a major role.

“Studies have shown that one of the strongest contributors to our blood levels of cholesterol, from a dietary standpoint, is our intake of saturated fat, which is found predominantly in animal products, particularly red meat (processed and unprocessed) and dairy.” Harkin adds that palm oil and coconut oil, which are found in many highly processed foods, are also high in saturated fat.

Trans fats also drive up cholesterol levels. Historically, these fats could be found in the form of partially hydrogenated oils in margarine, shortening, butter, cakes, cookies, and salty snack foods. In 2018, the Food and Drug Administration banned manufacturers from using trans fats, but these fats may still occur in deep-fried foods due to the extreme temperature at which oils are heated.

Does Eating Cholesterol Raise Cholesterol Levels?

There’s been some debate about the degree to which dietary cholesterol raises blood cholesterol levels. Because foods high in cholesterol are also typically high in saturated fat, it’s difficult to tease apart the effects of each.

However, a large 2019 study looked for associations between the consumption of cholesterol and rates of cardiovascular disease in 29,615 participants over a median of 17.5 years. They found that, independent of fat and overall diet quality, higher cholesterol intake was in fact associated with a higher risk of CVD. They identified a dose-response relationship: For every additional 300 milligrams of cholesterol consumed daily, there was a 17% increase in the risk of CVD and 18% increase in the risk of death from all causes. (For reference, a single egg contains around 180 milligrams of cholesterol.)

The easiest way to keep cholesterol out of your diet is to steer clear of animal products. All animals produce cholesterol in their livers, so when we eat other animals or animal-based products, we consume their cholesterol. (This is why, when checking nutrition labels, the presence of any cholesterol is a telltale sign that an item isn’t vegan—though the absence of it doesn’t guarantee that a product is vegan.)

What Are Normal Cholesterol Levels?

Ranges for “normal” cholesterol levels vary based on age, sex, and medical history, but according to the Mayo Clinic, adults age 20 and older should aim for the following numbers.

Interpreting Total Cholesterol Numbers

Source: Mayo Clinic

Interpreting LDL Cholesterol Numbers

Source: Mayo Clinic

Interpreting HDL Cholesterol Numbers

Source: Mayo Clinic

*Note: There is some debate about whether HDL cholesterol in excess of 60 mg/dL is truly beneficial. LDL cholesterol levels may be a more reliable indicator of cardiovascular health. 

For more detailed information about normal cholesterol levels, see the American Heart Association and American College of Cardiology guidelines for clinicians.

Complications of High Cholesterol

The primary complication arising from high cholesterol is cardiovascular disease, including coronary artery disease, stroke, and myocardial infarction (heart attack). Strokes and heart attacks follow a similar chain of events: An arterial plaque ruptures. A blood clot forms on the ruptured plaque. The blood clot completely blocks blood from flowing through the artery, preventing blood from getting to the brain (in the case of stroke) or the heart (in the case of heart attack).

High cholesterol and resulting atherosclerosis may contribute to high blood pressure, as the heart has to work harder to pump blood through constricted, plaque-laden blood vessels.

In addition to cardiovascular complications, a number of studies suggest that high cholesterol may impair insulin sensitivity, leading to insulin resistance. Insulin resistance significantly increases the risk of several chronic diseases including Type 2 diabetes, fatty liver disease, chronic kidney disease, and Alzheimer’s disease.

How to Lower Cholesterol

For patients with extremely high cholesterol and/or established cardiovascular disease, lipid-lowering medications, such as statins, may be necessary. For many people, lifestyle modifications alone may be enough to bring cholesterol down into the healthy range.

“For the vast majority of patients who have elevated cholesterol and who do not yet have heart disease, the first-line therapy is lifestyle modifications,” says Harkin. “That involves changes in diet, exercise, and all the other lifestyle factors, but diet [is] one of the biggest levers that we can pull.”

Success Stories

Forks Over Knives has heard from many readers over the years who have reduced their cholesterol after adopting a whole-food, plant-based lifestyle.

• I Put High Cholesterol, Severe Arthritis Behind Me by Changing My Diet
• LDL Cholesterol Cut in Half on a Plant-Based Diet
• What Giving Up Meat, Dairy, and Processed Foods Did for My BMI, Blood Pressure, and Cholesterol
• Since Going Plant-Based, I’ve Lost 45 Pounds, Lowered My Cholesterol, and Stopped Getting Uterine Fibroids
• How I Curbed High Cholesterol, Fibroids, Heartburn, and Anemia
• I Suffered a Widowmaker Heart Attack at 45. Today I’m Thriving on a Plant-Based Diet

To learn more about a whole-food, plant-based diet, visit our Plant-Based Primer. For meal-planning support, check out Forks Meal Planner, FOK’s easy weekly meal-planning tool to keep you on a healthy plant-based path.

The post What Is Cholesterol? How It Works, Foods to Avoid, and the Truth About HDL appeared first on Forks Over Knives.

As scary as it sounds, half of U.S. adults now have high blood pressure, and more will have it as they age. Read on to learn what constitutes high blood pressure and what you can do to bring yours down.

Blood Pressure: How High Is Too High?

In November of 2017, the American Heart Association and the American College of Cardiology released new guidelines on high blood pressure, or hypertension, stating that the cutoff for diagnosis is now 130/80. (Previously, the cutoff was 140/90.)

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As a result of this change, millions of people with blood pressures that were previously considered normal, like 134/82, now meet the clinical definition for high blood pressure. Under the current guidelines, even a blood pressure with the top number in the 120s is considered to be “elevated,” which means it carries a higher risk for heart disease and death.

Source: American Heart Association

High blood pressure is common, affecting 116 million Americans.

Under the current guidelines, 30% of men and 19% of women under age 45 have high blood pressure. If you don’t have it, you likely will sooner or later: Nearly 90% of U.S. adults develop high blood pressure during their lifetimes.

The scary part is how dangerous the condition can be over time. Often described as a “silent killer,” high blood pressure doesn’t always cause symptoms, which is why having your blood pressure checked is vital. Untreated high blood pressure can lead to heart failure, stroke, kidney disease, heart attack, and even death.

Proven Strategies for Lowering Blood Pressure Naturally

If you are diagnosed as having high blood pressure, you may not need blood pressure medications immediately. Whether you need medication depends on how high your blood pressure is, if you have other diseases (like kidney disease or diabetes), and your long-term risk for having complications from high blood pressure.

More importantly, basic lifestyle changes can help prevent or reverse high blood pressure for many people. The most important changes to make include the following:

Lifestyle Changes Are an Effective Tool

These interventions can be effective depending on the magnitude of the lifestyle change. In one study, 76% of participants who followed a vegan diet for one year were able to discontinue or drastically reduce their medications. However, adhering to these seemingly simple changes can be difficult.

Nevertheless, many of these “lifestyle interventions” are routine for traditional societies that generally have low rates of hypertension. High blood pressure is not a natural part of the human aging process. For example, populations in rural China and rural Africa do not have age-related increases in blood pressure, although this is rapidly changing as Western habits percolate globally.

Immigrants to Western countries develop an increased risk of high blood pressure after arriving, which only continues to rise as more time is spent in the West. This pattern is thought to be caused by adopting a Western diet and decreasing physical activity. Changes in lifestyle can undoubtedly raise—–or lower—–your blood pressure.

Even though statistics say you will probably develop high blood pressure during your lifetime, it doesn’t necessarily have to be that way.

The post Got High Blood Pressure? Here’s How to Bring It Down Naturally appeared first on Forks Over Knives.

I could never seem to get a handle, despite trying every diet that I could find. My weight continued to balloon, reaching 245 pounds—which, at 5-foot-8, is a lot to carry. At 45, I was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes.

Reaching a Dead End

In 2017, I received another troubling diagnosis: full-blown atherosclerosis. My arteries were full of plaque, and an angiogram revealing a 100% blockage in my right coronary artery. Because of issues that prevented me from being able to undergo anesthesia, I was not able to undergo triple bypass heart surgery or have stents put in. I felt that I was at a dead end. In the hopes that it might improve my heart health, my wife and I went vegetarian for six months and then vegan.

Finding a Way Forward

Then, in 2018, I found the Forks Over Knives documentary, which opened my eyes to new possibilities, and also the books by Dean Ornish, MD, and Caldwell Esselstyn, MD, on reversing heart disease. My wife and I had already been vegan for about a year at that point, but we decided to cut out all oil and highly processed foods and go whole-food, plant-based. We had the help of two tremendous plant-based doctors: my cardiologist, Robert Ostfeld, MD, MSc, and George Guthrie, MD, one of the founders of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine. That’s when everything really started to come together for me. Soon afterward, the angina that I dealt with for 10 months finally stopped. Three years ago, my doctors gave me the green light to start exercising again.

Thriving in My 60s

Today I’m 63 years old, and I’m feeling as energized as ever. I’ve run five half marathons and more than a dozen 5Ks over the past three years. I’m happy to report that I’ve been able to safely discontinue all medications.

I have three beautiful granddaughters. Thanks to my newfound health, I am able to keep up with them (for a few hours, anyway) during our park adventures, running and climbing alongside them. Hopefully, my story inspires someone reading this to see what is possible. Here’s to our health!

Ready to get started? Check out Forks Meal Planner, FOK’s easy weekly meal-planning tool to keep you on a healthy plant-based path. To learn more about a whole-food, plant-based diet, visit our Plant-Based Primer.

The post How I Transformed My Health in My 60s on a Plant-Based Diet appeared first on Forks Over Knives.

Exercise didn’t work, either. I always maintained gym memberships. I had a walking buddy, with whom I walked religiously during warmer months. At one time, I could bench-press more than my 15-year-old son and do 25 consecutive flat-backed pushups, but I still weighed 175 pounds.

At 52, I decided to go vegan, but I ate a lot of highly processed vegan junk foods. Around that time, I gave up on losing weight. It was simply too much work to try to keep the weight off.

Stumbling Across a Surprising Solution

A few years ago, my doctor began pushing me toward statins to lower my cholesterol, as well as medications to address my prediabetes. I was already on medication to lower my blood pressure. I desperately wanted to avoid more meds. Then I met someone who told me that he lost 70 pounds by eating only potatoes. Potatoes?! I was shocked: Didn’t potatoes make you fat? He told me about The Starch Solution by John McDougall, MD. This sounded like the type of thing I could do. I went home and read everything I could about Dr. McDougall and learned about the benefits of a whole-food, plant-based (WFPB) diet. I wanted so badly not just to lose weight but to lower my cholesterol, lower my blood pressure, and prevent Type 2 diabetes.

I decided to jump into a WFPB diet. I stuck to it strictly from the outset, because I wanted the weight loss and the health gains, and I didn’t want anything to pollute the results.

I knew that the results would take some time, and that was OK. It was more about learning how to do this every day and maintain the lifestyle for the long run. So I focused on learning to be happy with what I ate. Weaning off of highly processed foods wasn’t easy, and the first week was really hard, but the second week got a little easier, and from there my palate adjusted pretty quickly. I found that following a WFPB diet strictly, rather than “dabbling” in oil and ultraprocessed foods, was helpful, as it helped my taste buds adjust rather than stay hooked on unhealthy stuff.

A month after starting this way of eating, I had my annual checkup. My doctor was shocked, saying I’d had the largest drop in LDL cholesterol she had ever seen in her career that wasn’t due to medication. My blood pressure was normal, and my A1C was fine, too: I was no longer prediabetic.

The diet resolved some other issues I’d struggled with, like sleep apnea and headaches, and I even noticed a difference in my skin. In the past, the heels of my feet were thick and cracked. Sometimes, if the cracks opened too much, it would get very painful to walk. After going WFPB, they became more supple and soft, with no more fissures! That was a big relief.

Staying Committed to the WFPB Lifestyle

Today I’m 65 years old and don’t need any medications. I lost 44 pounds in the first year of eating WFPB and 10 more pounds the second year, and I’ve maintained most of that weight loss in the year since. I feel that I still have about 15 pounds to lose. As an older postmenopausal woman, it’s coming off extremely slowly. Because I’m trying to lose weight, I limit heavier WFPB-compliant foods such as whole grain bread and tofu.

I’ve had some age-related arthritis flare-ups, but they went away almost as quickly as they came. Added sugar and salt both seem to aggravate my arthritis, so I’ve also done the hard work of eliminating those from my diet. Going salt-free has been a struggle. However, I’m in support groups with many people who assure me that it gets easier as your palate adjusts.

Getting Better Together

My husband adopted a WFPB lifestyle about a year after I did, after suffering a heart attack. He’s lost 70 pounds. He also ditched migraines, heartburn, gastric reflux, and arthritis pain, and his chronic eczema is almost gone. Since he’s a heart attack survivor, he still has to take statins, but he’s hoping he might eventually be able to get off of those. Because of the cardiovascular disease, my husband and I have been strictly following the dietary recommendations of Caldwell Esselstyn, MD. That means eating six servings of greens every day, 365 days a year.

My daughter was so impressed with our health transformations that she decided to give WFPB a try, too, and she’s lost 40 pounds. All three of us have much more energy. My husband and I now look forward to walking our dog 2 to 4 miles a day (or more, if we have time). We take lots of rigorous hikes.

I’m so excited by all this renewal, I started a group online to share recipes, tips, and progress. My WFPB friends and family members love the way we eat, because we just feel so much better.

Ready to get started? Check out Forks Meal Planner, FOK’s easy weekly meal-planning tool to keep you on a healthy plant-based path. To learn more about a whole-food, plant-based diet, visit our Plant-Based Primer.

The post I Beat Heart Disease and Lost 44 Pounds in 9 Months Without Portion Control appeared first on Forks Over Knives.

In an attempt to get healthier, we adopted a low-carb, high-fat diet. Then, in November 2019, we watched Forks Over Knives. We were convinced by the evidence presented in the film that the whole-food, plant-based (WFPB) way of eating would be better for us than the low-carb diet we’d been following. We read The Starch Solution, by John A. McDougall, MD, and that provided further motivation. In April 2020, I went WFPB. I told Jim that he shouldn’t feel any pressure to change his eating habits, but after three weeks, he decided to join me. I think he saw what the new diet was doing for my energy levels (and felt bad that I was preparing separate meals for him and me). By May 2020, we were both all in.

Getting Used to Plant-Based Eating

The hardest part of the transition was figuring out what to cook. I’m content to eat very simply, but Jim—although appreciative of anything I make—really enjoys having a variety of flavors, so I learned to cater to that in a healthy way, and I was surprised by how our taste buds adjusted. After we’d been WFPB for about three weeks, Jim said, “You know what? I don’t crave chocolate anymore!” You could have knocked me over with a feather.

We found ourselves reaping some health benefits within months. We both had more energy, and my cholesterol dropped to 147.

Never Going Back

Since going WFPB two and a half years ago, I’ve kept my cholesterol down, and Jim has been able to discontinue all but one of his medications. I’ve experienced other benefits, too, especially with my eyesight. I have macular puckering (a condition in which scar tissue grows on the retina, which can lead to vision loss), but I had my eyes tested a couple of weeks ago, and the doctor was amazed how much better things were looking. I’ve had varicose veins since my last pregnancy in 1983, and a few years ago, they seemed to be getting worse; that stopped when I went WFPB. Also, my hair and nails grow faster!

We love the food, too. One recent hit was black bean burgers on homemade whole wheat buns with air-fried French fries. It was a smashing success! Some of our other favorites are veggie stir-fries (with beans or tofu); whole wheat waffles with real maple syrup; hummus and veggie wraps on whole wheat tortillas; and spaghetti and homemade marinara. We love snacking on air-popped popcorn. Sometimes I crisp up some corn tortillas by baking them directly on the oven racks, and we break those and dip them in salsa. We keep a big garden. When it’s in full swing, we eat lots of tomatoes and cucumbers and sweet peppers. Corn-on-the-cob season is something that we look forward to all year. And at 73, I can work hard in the garden in the summertime for several hours and not get worn out or sore. I sometimes get tired of being hot, but I do not get worn out.

Jim and I both just feel so much better. We will never go back to our old way of eating. I have no interest in losing my eyesight or in losing my husband to heart disease. I am so grateful to the doctors who pioneered this movement. I truly believe that going WFPB has saved our lives!

Ready to get started? Check out Forks Meal Planner, FOK’s easy weekly meal-planning tool to keep you on a healthy plant-based path. To learn more about a whole-food, plant-based diet, visit our Plant-Based Primer.

The post On an Oil-Free Plant-Based Diet, I’ve Normalized My Cholesterol and Improved My Eyesight appeared first on Forks Over Knives.

Whatever the cause, his symptoms were concerning enough that we made an emergency trip to a little country hospital nearby, where they were able to determine that his symptoms were indicative of cardiac issues. They had him transported to one of the top cardiac centers in the United States. There, the doctors found that Tony had five major arterial blockages and was at risk of a heart attack. He underwent coronary artery bypass surgery within 48 hours of admission.

Questioning Our ‘Healthy’ Lifestyle

We thought our diet had been decent. “All things in moderation” was our motto. We loved olive oil, steak, butter, cheese, and grilled chicken. We assumed that that diet was working for us both—until Tony’s quintuple bypass. After the surgery our doctor said, “You might look great on the outside, but on the inside you look like a very old man. Your arteries are in terrible shape.”

So, as Tony was recovering, I started to ask around at the cardiac center how we could change our lifestyles to support cardiovascular health upon discharge. The most common response I got was to up our activity levels (though a couple staff members laughed as they made this recommendation, saying that we were already fitter than they were).

I asked the cardiologist for dietary recommendations, and he responded that we should eat all things in moderation and follow the American Heart Association guidelines. When I remarked that that is exactly what we had been doing, he said, “Well, you could eat like a monk, but who can keep up that sort of thing? Just make sure that Tony takes the medication that we gave him, and eat however you want.” The cardiologist also made it very clear that we should expect to be back within the year for a stent and within 10 or 20 years for a redo of the bypass.

Stumbling Upon a Solution

I started to read all that I could find about heart-healthy eating and stumbled upon the phrases “carb-forward diet” and “whole-food, plant-based, no-oil.” A librarian recommended the Forks Over Knives books to us.

I decided that we would be eating whole-food, plant-based (WFPB). It felt like a huge leap of faith: No one in our immediate orbit was WFPB, and none of the health professionals we’d spoken to had suggested it. Still, we went all in on WFPB three days after Tony was discharged from the hospital.

The change seemed to work too well, so much so that it was almost frightening. Tony’s energy levels improved daily, and he quickly recovered from the surgery. His blood pressure, which had been borderline high for a couple years, improved each day, until the doctors had to take him off of his blood pressure medications because he was getting hypotensive. Cholesterol levels improved immensely for both of us, and we both began to drop weight easily. My running times steadily improved over the first three weeks until I had shaved two minutes off of my average mile time. Part of this was definitely the weight loss, but I also found that I was breathing easier on my runs.

After three weeks in the city where Tony had had his surgery, we were given the green light to go home. To our surprise, our doctor back home offered exactly what we had been looking for in terms of medical support. She was thrilled that we had made the change to WFPB, and told us that a few of her other patients had done the same and reaped the benefits in terms of their overall health, energy levels, and physical fitness. We were so encouraged to have her support, and we stuck with the new lifestyle. Just three months post-surgery, Tony was down nearly 40 pounds, and I had lost 10.

Loving the WFPB Life

Today we enjoy the same types of dishes that we ate before Tony’s cardiac incident, just with different ingredients. Our cupboard is full of WFPB staples like dates, whole grains, beans, and Grape Nuts, and our freezer and fridge are always stocked with fresh produce. We spent many years working in Asia, so we have made some adjustments to dishes we picked up there. We have found that Korean and Indian recipes are easy to adjust for WFPB. Tony’s family is Italian, and much of what is familiar to him is still on the menu, with adjustments. We also got an Almond Cow, which has been a fun addition to our kitchen.

The main challenge we’ve run into is finding WFPB meals while traveling. What we have discovered, though, is that people everywhere we go are curious about this way of eating and will generally go out of their way to try to make something that works for us.

Because this diet so positively impacts health, we bring homemade WFPB food to events and family functions so everyone in our families knows how we are eating and why we are eating this way. Earlier this year, we attended my cousin’s wedding reception and brought our own date cake. Our families were very curious about what we had and wanted to try it. I guess that is what we are finding most often: People always want to try the food we bring, and they always want to know how it tastes so good!

We feel so much better in general. For me, the greatest outcome has been a huge drop in my half marathon time—15 minutes faster, compared with a year ago, and no post-race soreness. To us, this way of eating feels like it is a must.

Ready to get started? Check out Forks Meal Planner, FOK’s easy weekly meal-planning tool to keep you on a healthy plant-based path. To learn more about a whole-food, plant-based diet, visit our Plant-Based Primer.

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About two years ago, I happened upon the WFPB lifestyle while searching for information to help my 82-year-old mother with her neuropathy. I came across the documentary Forks Over Knives, which prompted me to dig deeper. I watched The Game Changers, What the Health, and Cowspiracy, and I bought whole-food, plant-based cookbooks, as well as books written by plant-based doctors. I took volumes of notes.

One of the books I read was Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease by Caldwell B. Esselstyn Jr., MD. It took me back to my childhood. When I was 6, my dad had his first heart attack. He was just 29 years old. In 1986, he had his second one. While he was recovering in the cardiovascular intensive care unit, I stayed overnight at the hospital. I remember a nurse called my room in the middle of the night to tell me that my dad was in cardiac arrest; I ran through the long halls of the hospital, and when I finally got to my dad’s room, I witnessed the respiratory care team putting him on a ventilator. He died a week later. He’d just turned 50.

Decades later, as I read Dr. Esselstyn’s book, I cried, wishing my dad could have had access to this life-saving information. And though I’d set out to research all this for my mom’s sake, it resonated with me on another level: I knew it was time for me to change my own diet, too.

Facing the Music

I hadn’t been to the doctor in years; I was afraid of stepping on the scale or learning what my lab results might indicate. But in March 2021, with some nudging from my husband, I made an appointment for a physical exam.

At the doctor’s office, I sheepishly stepped onto the scale and found that I weighed 212 pounds. Then the nurse took my blood pressure, which turned out to be high. My doctor ordered my labs. I told him that starting the next morning, I was going to leave the standard American diet and move to a whole-food, plant-based (WFPB) lifestyle, free of refined sugar, oil, and added salt (aka “SOS-free”). My doctor supported my decision.

My bloodwork came back, and as expected, my lab results were concerning. My total cholesterol level was 282, my LDL was 189, and my triglycerides were 205. On top of this, my A1C was 6.5, indicating Type 2 diabetes.

The way I looked at it, I was my own perfect test subject as I embarked on my new lifestyle. I bought a monthly planner for meal planning and grocery shopping, a new scale, and a new blood pressure cuff. I was empowered by all of the reading and studying that I’d done, and I was very excited to put what I had learned into practice. Would it work?

The hardest part for me was not having a mentor in my life who was following a WFPB lifestyle, someone who could help me with my questions. I had to figure this all out on my own, for the most part. But I am forever grateful to the authors of the numerous books and cookbooks and documentaries that helped me to understand.

I monitored my blood pressure and weight, and I documented everything in my monthly planner. I continued this every week, being 100% compliant to a plant-exclusive, SOS-free diet.

Bringing Mom Along

Two months into my new lifestyle, my mother came down with COVID-19 pneumonia and was admitted to intensive care. I told her we’d be ready to come pick her up as soon as she was better. Meanwhile, I busied myself making plant-based meals to stash in her freezer. I bought her all the same cookbooks that I’d bought for myself. I stocked her pantry with plant-based staples. Finally, five long days later, my mom was discharged from the hospital. She had her first whole-food, plant-based meal and loved it! She told me how much her body craved healthy food like this while she was in the hospital.

In 18 Months, a World of Difference

March 26, 2023, will be my second anniversary with the WFPB lifestyle. I’ve completely normalized my cholesterol and triglyceride levels. I have reversed my Type 2 diabetes; my A1C is now 5.4. My blood pressure is excellent. As a nice side benefit, I’ve lost 80 pounds and have a healthy BMI.

Mom is now plant-based, too, and so is her devoted husband, who is 80 years old. Being able to help them both improve their health is a very good feeling. We enjoy sharing plant-based recipes, cooking techniques, and delicious meals.

This has seriously been the easiest lifestyle change that I have ever made. I feel so healthy, and I feel empowered knowing I’m doing all I can to protect myself from the No. 1 cause of death in women: heart disease.

To learn more about a whole-food, plant-based diet, visit our Plant-Based Primer. For meal-planning support, check out Forks Meal Planner, FOK’s easy weekly meal-planning tool to keep you on a healthy plant-based path.

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