Free Veganist: Lose Weight, Get Healthy, Change the World by Kathy Freston Page A

three main food groups in the American Food Pyramid: sugar, grease, and salt.
    I did eat other things. I loved breakfast; listening to bacon and eggs talk to me as they cooked in the same pan. Grits had to be consumed with a ton of butter, salt, and pepper. Hamburgers were my favorite food. I always took off the lettuce and tomato and gave the pickle to my wife. I could not pass a hamburger stand without wanting to stop for double fries and triple burgers. When I cooked burgers on the grill (which was often) I always made an extra rare and greasy one to eat while I was cooking the rest. I did like broccoli, as long as it was rendered unrecognizable, swimming in butter and cheese. Then there were doughnuts; fried in oil, dripping hot from the basket, coated in sugar. And more than once, at midnight, I found myself eating Oreo cookies while staring at the clock. So there you have it: breakfast, lunch, supper, dessert, and snacks—a diet of kings.
    I ate a lot of fast food, and dined at other restaurants. When we ate at home there was plenty of meat and potatoes. Of course we added a tiny feel-good garnish of fruits and vegetables that were either loaded with sugar or cooked in some sort of fat. I went to the gym and took vitamins. But while I was eating all this, I was doing something else; I was constructing, piece by piece, the links of a chain. The resulting concatenation: heart disease.
    Awakening
    My awakening was gradual. I had been watching my father take a seemingly inexorable journey. During each of his bypass surgeries I witnessed drops in his cognitive skills. This once sharp and inventive man was moving backward. Holding the thread of a simple conversation became difficult. In parallel with this was an increasingly diminished physical capacity. The strong man of my youth was growing feeble. In many ways our roles were reversing; the child became parent and caregiver. But it made me think…
    A few years ago I started to consider my position. In thinking about my dad, I remembered reading an article in the late ’70s about a treatment that reversed heart disease through diet—the Nathan Pritikin diet. While researching his methods I found other books that detailed the relationship between the typical Western diet and degenerative diseases—books by Ross Horne, Dean Ornish, Caldwell Esselstyn, and Lance Gould. I tried to practice the lifestyle, but could not maintain it.
    Then it happened to me. I became aware of symptoms consistent with heart disease. Once they began, they progressed at an alarming rate. I contacted Dr. Esselstyn and described my symptoms. I had already read his book and asked if he could recommend a doctor who supported his method of treatment. In July 2009, I went to a clinic and had a stress echo test. I failed miserably.
    The attending nurses and doctor wanted to send me to the hospital immediately to have a catheterization and most likely a stent or bypass. I told the attending doctor that I respected his opinion but that I had to put on the brakes. I had already concluded that I wanted to try a plant-based solution to my problem. Needless to say, that announcement caused some hysteria.
    Treatment
    Dr. Esselstyn supported the decision. I was immediately armed with nitroglycerin tablets and instructed to go to the hospital if I had to use them. Beta blockers and statin medications became part of my daily regimen and I renewed my dedication to a plant-based diet. As it turned out, there was a cancellation and subsequent opening in what was Dr. Esselstyn’s first small-group program at the Cleveland Clinic’s newly opened wellness center.
    This was my condition just prior to stress echo testing:
Blood pressure: resting, 130/95.
Cholesterol: 250.
I had to stop three times on my way to the test from the hospital parking lot. No hills or steps; I was on level ground.
During walks with my grandchildren, I could make two driveways before angina onset.
I could no longer maintain my former fast