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Going Vegan

Well friends, Matt and I have gone back to our vegan ways for 2013. You are probably wondering how he could possibly give up steak and shrimp. 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.

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Angie Castañeda

Wednesday 30th of June 2021

Good luck! We have done vegan off and on for various health reasons. Some of my favorite vegan cookbooks: Thug Kitchen (all of them but be prepared for language), The Buddhist Chef (tons of FAST recipes), and Began Richa’s Everyday Kitchen. I strongly feel like having the right recipes that works for your family makes a huge difference.

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morganriley97

Saturday 23rd of February 2013

I tried going vegan myself for the health benefits and only ended up incredibly sick for my efforts. I really encourage anyone with cholesterol problems to try what worked for me and many, many others - http://www.marksdailyapple.com/primal-blueprint-101/. I got on it because I found out that I'm allergic to gluten, but the delightful side effect has been a perfect lipid profile, blood pressure and blood sugar, and the 50 lbs I lost doesn't hurt either. It's a no-brainer once you get used to not eating grains, sugar and soy. Besides, there are few more satisfying accompaniments to a beautiful plate of veggies than a bacon-wrapped steak. There's a lot of misleading and just plain bad information floating around about cholesterol, and I'm speaking only as someone who was threatened with a statin prescription after the vegan experiment. Now, I eat three eggs for breakfast almost every day.

Ericka Aspiegirl

Wednesday 9th of January 2013

way to go! what an awesome experience and an awesome testimony!most people don't know that vegan diet is actually the intended diet God gave us. sure, he "allowed" meats later on, but only specific meats because there are meats that are much more dangerous because of the form they are in. obviously, we dont eat eagles or crows, because they eat garbage dead rotting carcasses. pigs will eat any form of food, rotted food, even cans, therefore we shouldnt eat them either! people think those were oppressive rules given to jews, but really, those rules existed far before anyone was considered a jew (just read about the animals on the ark: 7 clean, 2 unclean!) and not because God was punishing or keeping something from the jews, but because He, like a car manufacturer, knows which fuels are best for our bodies. giving adam and eve only plant foods in the beginning is the best signal of the most perfect and healthy diet that can be attained. the american diet is meat meat meat, dairy dairy dairy, and we have more obesity than most of the world, many of which eat plant foods more than animal. there are other factors such as having an overabundance of food, the HFCS issue, pestisides and GMOs, but reading God's original plan for us to only eat plants still trumps any research or information given out by multimillion dollar meat and dairy industries. there is a program out there called CHIP. i think it used to be called "coronary health improvement project" but i think they changed "coronary" to "complete". either way, it is doing what you are doing; switching to a vegan lifestyle. giving you a support group to help you find recipes and foods that are good, simple to use and the like. google hans deihl and you should be able to find videos of him speaking on the matter of health and diet and food. the stuff science is proving about food and diet are incredible things, but we cannot forget the multimillion or even billion industries who do not want people to hear how bad their product is for them have a lot of sway and a lot of power. for example, anyone who knows anything about the WIC program knows they push dairy like there is no tomorrow. and we have research to prove that societies who drink the most milk or animal milks and meats have the highest rates of osteoperosis, yet in this country, when someone gets that diagnosis, they are told to go home and drink plenty of milk, or even more terribly, high fat milk! there is research showing that yes, protein is good for us, but animal protein is not the same as the protein in, an orange (1 g of protein per average size orange!). the animal proteins turn into acid in our bodies, which does NOT rebuilt bone, it disinigrates them!anyway, im kinda rambling, but im really glad you guys had such amazing results with vegan! i think EVERYONE should try it for a month and see what their numbers are. the ONLY source of bad cholesterol is animal products. we could completely eradicate cholesterol issues simply by avoiding animal products. at the very least, REDUCING our intake should be a priority, NOT taking some drug! anyway, WAY TO GO! dont feel too bad for holding on to fish, cheese or egg whites. ;) as i said, reducing by a lot or a little is better than none at all (inspiration for anyone out there who feels helpless and unable to go vegan!)