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From:	mydogjo (cpe-066-057-019-025.nc.res.rr.com)
Subject:	suddenly vegen
Date:	March 17, 2007 at 9:06 pm PST

I guess my story is probably typical. I am in my early 40's and have always been slim and in decent shape. Seems like I am slowly dropping vices as I get older. I no longer smoke, drink alcohol, or for the past few days, eat animal products. So I went last week for a routine physical and everything was great except my LDL cholesterol was at 202, total 288. Tris were fine. So doctor said seeing as my BMI is fine and I look so great it is probably genetic. My father had several heart attacks so it sounded reasonable. He gave me a prescrip for a low dose of a statin drug which I took twice and then stopped once I figured out the side effects.

Of course I am an information junkie and so in my internet studies on cholesterol, confusing to say the least, I happened on Eat To Live and Dr. Fuhrman's website. I found a copy of Eat To Live and am reading it and eating it. I did not go for Fuhrman's Cholesterol Protection For Life book because I figured ETL would be comprehensive and relevant and I could read the other later if I wanted to. So I am going to try it out and just go meatless. I should say that prior to this my diet was ok I guess compared to others I know. Not a lot of fast food but I do looooove ice cream. Specifically Breyers. Still I typically ate salads and steamed vegetables, beans and moderate amounts of grains, pasta, chicken, beef, pork, bison, etc....but now I am seeing this is not good enough or as healthy as I might assume. So I hope this works. It won't be too hard for me really food-wise. I am sitting here feeling very satisfied on my lintel stew and salad dinner and I like simple wholesome flavors. The hardest part for me will be dealing with my pro-meat, anti-bean brother who will probably call me a lefty communist or something worse if he has a migraine but he lives in another state so.... And then work will be strange. Going out to eat will be strange until I figure out if I am willing to "treat" myself (haha) now and then or know what to ask for veggie-wise. I'm shooting for that latter.

So I hope this works for me because I am excited about going vegan and don't want to take a bad bad drug that will harm my liver. If my LDL is not down in 8 weeks then maybe I'll take the drug but I think I'll dis the meat from here on out. I also taking an anti-depressant and although I am no longer feeling so depressed due to some life issues getting resolved and because I was seeing a therapist who helped me cope, my doctor kind of insisted that I keep taking it. So I hope this will help that too.

Incidentally the guy at the bookstore looked at the book and asked why I would need a diet book, because again my weight is not an issue, and I told him about the high LDL. He said he had it too and that his dad had heart attacks. Small world. I don't think he was too open to the books dietary recommendations though.

Thanks for reading.

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