Is the Truth Really in the Numbers?

And so it goes, on another wild goose chase, of sorts.

Since around December, I have drastically changed what I eat and for the most part my entire daily routine. The drive for the change was my latest echo-cardiogram that showed a “not quite yet operable”, degrading aortic valve that has been regressing into bad and worse over the years.

I eat no meat, or animal products (no dairy, eggs), about 95% of the time. I eat cooked veggies only at home, because you see, in the restaurants they cook everything in butter. Even ‘unbuttered toast’ is absolutely impossible to order in the US of A!

I eat salads out, almost exclusively, except when I travel, when I indulge in bread or fish. I do eat fish about once or twice a week on an average (some weeks, I eat more). To top that, I have had allergies to foods, and the list there has grown every day, it seems. So, I am staying away from soy, too, and because of the fat content, I eat very little nuts, avocadoes, or any oils too. So, yeah, my list of foods is shrinking and shrinking. People ask for labels nowadays, so they ask me all the time if I am vegetarian. I hate labels, but for sake of simplicity I call myself “soy free vegan”, and it’s mostly accurate, except for the days when I eat fish and (very rarely) a piece of turkey (as close to 99% fat free as I find).

And just last week, I went in for the repeat blood tests. I am still allergic “to something”, but even after months of seeing doctors and trying to figure out “what” that something is, we still cannot tell for sure. But all my cholesterol values have dropped unbelievably since September:

Test	September Value	March Value	Difference	Regular Range
Cholesterol	410	284	-126	100-199
HDL Chol	40	31	-9	40-59
LDL Chol	344	225	-119	0-130
Triglycerides	133	142	9	48-149
Chol/HDL ratio	10.3	9.2	-1.1	0-3.1
LDL/HDL ratio	8.6	7.2	-1.4	0

 

I can tell you that this diet is agreeing with my level of energy, too. I wake up earlier, I snooze less and I work 12 hour days most days. I feel horrible in my stomach for the most part, because I still think something, somewhere is wrong with my digestive tract, but I feel great anywhere else. My one wish is still to exercise more, to make my heart stronger.

I still won’t know for sure whether the diet changes will slow down the valve’s degradation, till the following echo-cardiogram in December, but here’s hoping.

One puzzling thought I do still have is my increasing triglycerides: they were hardly ever elevated before, and they typically tell you that if your diet is healthy, they should be low. Well, mine went up! The only fat fraction that did so. Again: am I ever easy to figure out?!

One Day … ahem… Dish at a Time

If you remember, right before Christmas, I got the news that my aortic valve is shrinking as we speak, faster than I thought or even ever realized. When I saw that picture(linked to the above blog) of what my valve could be looking like, something went off, or on, in my brain, not sure which. And the way I eat had to change. I have loved food all my life and have indulged plenty, but at the end of that December something just snapped inside and I just have to keep fats away from my arteries! I will just have to do my very best, this time!

As a result, I have been looking for and trying on plenty of vegan recipes, and I have eaten mostly meat and dairy free. Egg whites are about the only animal product I’ve eaten lately. I don’t use oil in my sautéing, either, or cheese or even butter. I use a vegetal butter in my grits, but it’s not fat free – that is, so far, my biggest challenge at home: trying to make mashed potatoes and grits with fat free vegan butter. It doesn’t exist: you either get the fat free (with milk) or you get the vegetal butter (with fat). Who knew that someone raised in Romania, with a carnivore family and meat for breakfast, lunch and dinner growing up can actually pull this off?!

Here are some examples of dinners I have made lately. They were all incredibly delicious and so filling. I am not missing meat yet. I know it will happen, and I even wonder which meat I’ll crave first. But for now, I am looking forward to my next tasteful and fatless meal! 

 

Gimme Lean vegan sausage with garlic and fresh herbs, over mashed potatoes mashed with Earth Balance butter and light soy milk. My husband made the bread - no milk, eggs or butter in it. 

 

 

Curried Brussels sprouts with potatoes, tomatoes, onions and herbs, over dirty jasmine rice

 

Teriyaki vegetable stirfry (broccoli, bell peppers, yellow squash and mushrooms) with Lightlife vegan "chicken" strips, over rice noodles

 

Bean soup (cannellini beans, potatoes, bell peppers, onion, celery, carrots, tomatoes) with herbs and chilli seasoning.

The biggest challenge is eating out. The only "safe" food I can find is salads - and that is a bit old after a while. And with a full week of being on the road for work coming up, the stakes are about to get very high.

What to Eat? - Part 2

... and a couple of other notes ...
 
Although being on an almost exclusively vegan diet for the past two weeks rendered some ease in my symptoms, it did not make them go away completely. I still get occasional welts, although not as huge as before, and not as overwhelming. But bothersome and worrisome, still. Same thing with my stomach pain – still there, but it’s muted. Just enough to not leave me think about something else!

So, in a way, I am back to square one, seeing what else it can be, as it’s not positively dairy or/ and meats. I am reaching out to friends overseas who are doctors, and see what they might recommend based on my pictures and latest allergy test results.

In the meantime, I am trying to grow into my new diet, and I feel much lighter and just more comfortable overall.

Our air has been insanely bad lately, lots of smog and lots of pollution – so I have had migraines and headaches for the past two weeks, which has eaten up the energy my new diet and exercise regimen has given back! I will continue to push on, for sure. Is there any other option?!

Also, I have read about our local PCSK9 study which has invited me to participate, after my cardiologist recommended me to them. After reading the 36 page pdf about the study, what is known so far, how it works, what involves, and what are the (very little known, now) risks, I decided against participating. I have just never had that heroic streak in me, where I could go forth for the benefit of the future generations. I am more selfish, I guess, that way.

Outside of trying to find some answers for my more recent (relatively speaking – it’s been a year or so since it started) discomfort and continuing on with the diet and exercise, nothing much more new to report.

I am also shocked by the amount of kids with HoFH lately – seems like every day there is a new post on the FH Facebook page from a parent desperate to know some answers. Quite sad, and I wonder why seemingly the increase in cases of HoFH?!

What to Eat?

Happy New Year, and hopefully, Happy New Health, everyone!

I really do wish this to all, from the bottom of my heart! In Romania, we always say that the most important thing to wish someone is health. Not money, not successes, nothing else. If you have health, we say, you have everything else, or the stamina and foundation to build everything else with/on it.

You might remember that I have been flirting with this pain in my stomach for the past year or so. It’s around my upper liver, or the gallbladder area. Since the beginning, I have felt that it’s coming from something I am eating or drinking or taking (meds included) that no longer agrees with me. My doctor, of whom I don’t think too highly, but up here, where I live, I have little choices, has been convinced that it’s my gallbladder. But he has failed to show me one blood test or one test to clearly demonstrate that it is the gallbladder. He tells me we have to take it out (the gallbladder) and I will see that I feel better. I fail to understand why I should play God with my body, just to “try things out”, without proof that something is indeed broken.

So, after a year of pain, and multiple other symptoms that have just piled up on me (more than usual painful gas, diarrhea, and more recently, huge, painful and itchy welts and rashes), as well as blood tests that show some kind of allergy, he finally accepted that I might be allergic to “something”. So, he finally gave me a referral to an allergist.

I will save you the trouble of reading about the drama of this allergist’s screw ups – the office visit was anything if not mind troubling and a chain of non-professional, half-a$$ events – but I will tell you that he did do a food allergy test (I had a general allergy test before, and I already know I am allergic to pets and dust). He did perform an allergy test that showed I am allergic to chicken, pork, cod and clams. I am not allergic to milk (but they only test for lactose, not the other proteins in milk), and to grains, neither (but he did recommend I would go to the hospital for a gluten blood test which is more accurate than the skin test for grains). He also told me to stay away from all dairy for a week and see if that helps with the discomfort in my stomach and the welts.

I am still not 100% convinced that it’s the dairy, but since I have stayed away from it, my welts are almost non-existent. The pain in my stomach and the extra bloated-ness (past what Lipitor and zetia give me) is better when I stay away from milk and meats. If I simply just eat vegan, I feel great! I have virtually no symptoms at all. No pain. No welts. No rash.

And in the light of the news I got for Christmas Eve I am shooting to eat fat free and vegan, all at the same time, as anything with fat and cholesterol pretty much disgusts me.

It has not been easy, though. Going out to eat is a major challenge. Even when you pay the extra buck and go to “fancy” places to eat, they fail to accommodate “special dietary needs”: I asked them to not put milk in the egg white scramble at one place, and they told me they would not, but they did put milk (or cream, or butter) in it anyway. They also put oil on my toast, although I specifically said I wanted it “dry, with no oil nor butter”. Finding milk free and fat free foods is a huge challenge, and I have not found one cheese alternative like that, for instance. Since I am not allergic to lactose (which is more common), but to milk protein, the market caters very little to people who are allergic to the whole product. I am never easy, am I?!

It’s a learning experience, for sure. And like I said, I am not even 100% sure it is milk. Although staying away from it all does show some improvement now.

The last thing I want to experiment with is my meds. Maybe they are the culprit, but they are the only thing that keeps my numbers down and hopefully the damage to my heart slower to progress, for now, so I am making the call to keep taking them for now. As a last resort, I will drop the meds, if all else fails, to see if they are causing all this.

I figured, trying to stay away from dairy helps two targets: less fat intake, and hopefully, less allergens for me.

It will be tricky to stay away from chicken, as that is the number one meat I eat and cook with. But so far, it’s been OK. I am testing out in the next month or so various vegan meat alternatives, and I hope to have some reviews here on them. I travel a bit for work, and that will be my biggest challenge. But that’s when I stock up on granola bars and feed off them for a week, I guess, when all food options in the airports fail. We’ll see.