Overdue Update

 I'm feeling good these days, but I've had a seriously troublesome complication from my heart surgery that pretty much wiped out my productivity for the past six weeks. I have Dressler's syndrome and had to have surgery to have a catheter installed to drain the fluid buildup around my left lung. It took a trip in an ambulance and two additional hospital admissions before we got on the catheter idea, and it has been a big help. I'd hoped to only need it for a few weeks, but when my cardiologist tried to step down the amount of Prednisone I was taking, I had a setback, so I'm guessing it will be at least another month. In the grand scheme of things it's not a huge deal, but it's a pretty good example of why avoiding heart surgery in the first place is an excellent plan. 

I've only had one metabolic panel done since I started trying to eliminate the oil in earnest. On 10/18, my totally cholesterol was 90! My goal is 150, so that number is truly remarkable. It was 190 in June. That may have been a fluke. My appetite and taste buds were seriously messed up after the bypass. (I've read, and nurse Marta confirmed, that general anesthesia can have that effect.)

I'm more committed than ever to the whole foods-plant based diet, and keep finding new resources that really help. My current favorite is the Happy Herbivore collection of cookbooks by Lyndsay Nixon. I used six of her recipes for Thanksgiving and everything was great! Reading really helps me stay on track. Between cookbooks and the science, I've always got at least one book going. The latest are The Starch Solution by John McDougall and The China Study All-Star Collection (cookbook) by LeAnne Campbell. I learn something new and motivating from every book I read.

I admit that eliminating oil is a work in progress, but I am  keeping fat to around 10% of my diet. My weight is down 15 lbs and seems to be stable and I am eating a ton. I hope my appetite will subside a bit once I go off the Prednisone. In the meantime, I just eat as much as I want. Pasta and potatoes are favorites after all those years of thinking that a healthy diet had to be low carb. 

I'm incredibly grateful to have discovered the whole-foods, plant-based movement. I know I'm going to live longer and healthier as a result. You can too. 

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