Bag of Veggies from Farmer’s Market

I always knew from other people’s stories, as well as from my textbooks on pathophysiology, that raw and vegan food could lower your cholesterol and decrease your risk of heart disease.  This summer Craig, my husband, was donating plasma when his blood clogged up the machine with lipids (fats).  Too many of them.  So he went to the VA hospital and asked them to analyze his blood.  This is what they found:

The reason I put the LDL Cholesterol in red is because it’s the “bad cholesterol” that is supposed to be less than 100.  It’s bad because it can clog arteries and, according to the Mayo Clinic, “dramatically increases your chance of developing heart disease and having a heart attack.”  They say it is also the “main way you can lower your risk of heart disease.”  Craig’s LDLs were high at 148.

Red Bell Peppers

I’ve been eating mostly raw vegan food for over 3 years now, and what propelled me there was my own deadly food allergies.  My family eats mostly  raw vegan too.  They have to.  There is nothing else in the house.  What Craig was eating when he was home was clean burning fuel, but what he was eating when he was out and about was undermining what he was eating at home.

He decided to get serious about what he was putting in his body.  Brutal honesty.  No more pizza on the fly, muffins on campus, creamy coffee,  Thai food sauces with coconut milk, or fast food breakfast sandwiches.  He started packing Green Smoothies, raw cashew dip with veggies, and fruits for lunches and snacks.  He refused to eat anything with meat, cheese, eggs, or oils it in.  We do still cook rice and vegetables, or baked squash, and other vegan dishes at home.  And we haven’t had bread in the house since I went raw three years ago, so it just wasn’t an option.

4 months later this is the result:

Take a minute to really look at that graph because it is a really big deal.  His LDLs dropped 31 points in 4 months time.  With raw vegan food.  Nothing more, nothing less.

When the nurse at the VA looked at his numbers she said, “Did the doctor put you on a statin?”

A ‘statin’ medication is a drug that inhibits the production of cholesterol (fats/lipids) in the liver.  They are very effective at getting your lipid levels down if you have high lipid levels like Craig did.  The doctor did not put Craig on a statin.  Craig put himself on a vegan diet.  He got brutally honest about what he was eating and changed it. That’s impressive.

Those numbers are impressive.

Beautiful Kale

He rides his bike several times a week, and rides it up to Bentonville and back at least once a week (60 miles round trip) whether it’s 15 degrees out or 60.  His blood pressure is still high at 130-140/70, so we’re planning on getting a meditation routine going together, and looking at other strategies as well.  We’ll let you know how it goes.

Craig is still trying to change his food ratio even more.  He wants to get those LDLs down under 100.

One of the things I tell people when they are trying to transition to raw or vegan food and away from bread, meat, and cheese, is to allow yourself to eat lots of nuts, seeds, and avocados to get that full feeling that you are used to.  Once your body adjusts to clean burning fuel you can think about changing your ratios to more veggies and less nuts.  That’s where he is now.

It’s so much fun watching him go through this transition.  Now he says things that I’ve been saying for a while that you can’t relate to unless you have done it.  Things like, “that cooked oil smells gross,” and “I feel so light now when I’m riding/running.  Before I transitioned I felt so heavy.  It’s like I was fighting my body to get it to move.  Now when I exercise I feel like I could fly.”

About a week after Craig found out how great his lipid levels are now he got a phone call from a friend in the hospital who had just suffered a heart attack.  He was 48 years old.  We’re 44.  Our own mortality is staring us in the face.

I have high hopes for Craig’s health.  He’s doing an amazing job at making this change, and I hope that we will continue to see his lipid numbers, and his blood pressure numbers improve.  We’re only a few months into this particular science experiment, but the prognosis is good.

Wendy Finn is the mother of 4 boys, owner of I.M. Spa, a Raw Food Enthusiast and educator, a world traveler in pursuit of superior massage education, a Master Massage Therapist of 20 plus years, a gardener, and a nursing student.  She’s passionate about touching people and sharing health.  Schedule an appointment 479-251-7422