My Favorite Plant-Based Pictures

I've taken these pictures over the past few years while working with my wife, Anita Gayle, in her efforts to promote our healthy plant-based whole food way of eating.

You can click on each photo for a closer look. See how many you can identify.

The Permanente Journal Update on Plant-Based Diets

In the recent 2013 Spring edition of The Permanente Journal, published by Permanente Press, a peer-reviewed journal of medical science, social science, and medical humanities, an article appeared entitled Nutritional Update for Physicians: Plant-Based Diets.  With the lofty objective of presenting doctors with cost-effective interventions to improve health outcomes by becoming more involved in helping their patients adopt healthier lifestyles, the article boldly states that "Physicians should consider recommending a plant-based diet to all their patients (italics mine), especially those with high blood pressure, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, or obesity".

Founded in 1945, Kaiser Permanente is one of the nation’s largest not-for-profit health plans, serving more than 9.1 million members. With headquarters in Oakland, California, it comprises: Kaiser Permanente, made up of three distinct groups of entities: the Kaiser Foundation Health Plan and its regional operating subsidiaries; Kaiser Foundation Hospitals; and the autonomous regional Permanente Medical Groups.

The fact that such a large health-care provider with over 17,000 physicians in Colorado, Georgia, Hawaii, Virginia, Maryland, Washington DC, California, Oregon, Washington and Ohio would advise their doctors to consider recommending a plant-based diet to all their patients through their Permanente Journal (with the stated mission of advancing knowledge in scientific research, clinical medicine, and innovative health care delivery) is a very big deal indeed.
Remembering that Kaiser Permanente's goal is to reduce health care costs, the good health of their subscribers is certainly in their own best financial interests.

Please, do yourself a favor. Read this article, and consider giving up meat, dairy, eggs, refined oil products, and processed foods. Then, eat only fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes and a few nuts. You won't be sorry and you'll see beneficial changes in the quality of your health almost immediately, an affect to which I can personally attest.

The Permanente Journal, 2013 Spring

Making, as some would call it, a radical change in their normal Standard American Diet (SAD) of bacon-double cheese burgers, steaks, seafood, mozzarella, yogurt, eggs, and so-called "healthy" oils might seems a lot to ask from people. But, I can tell you from my own experience that the quick but lasting health benefits of a plant diet far outweigh cravings for the food additions I had amassed over my life time. So, in the interest of providing practical, easy-to-understand information about eating plants to those interested in taking ultimate responsibility for their own health, here are some useful links to a few of the research scientists and doctors referenced in the Permanente article.

T Colin Campbell, author of The China Study

Caldwell B Esselstyn, Jr, MD.  author of Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease

Dr. John McDougall, MD, author of The Starch Solution and The New McDougall Cookbook

Living on a plant-based diet does take a little work (as in personal research, reading labels, and asking questions at restaurants) so most folks would rather just go for the quick fix in dealing with health problems, like expecting a doctor to counter our bad eating habits and popping pills as a remedy for every ailment. But, the Permanente article points the way to a better lifestyle with optimum health through a more sensible approach to eating. And, they have the scientific proofs to back up their claims.

Leek & Sweet Potato Soup, My Fav

Three Videos Worth Watching

The Near Demise of The Fat Boy

About 6 years ago, while living in Spokane, Washington, I awoke one night at 3am with a really terrible feeling in the center of my torso. I couldn’t identify it as merely common indigestion, or heartburn, which I was afflicted with often in my “omnivore” years (from age 0 through 64), but I thought it had something to do with my stomach because I felt a bit dizzy, slightly nauseous, and was perspiring profusely.

I clambered out of bed, went downstairs, downed a couple of antacid tablets, and stationed myself at the computer, the prescribed behavior I had adopted for my many previous mid-night indigestion episodes. But, after about 15 minutes, I began to feel a bit worse.  The uncomfortable sensation in my gut was not abating and I began to also experience a feeling of great foreboding. Plus, I was feeling a bit faint (I had never experienced that before!) and my skin felt cold qnd clammy.

Well, these are some of the classic symptoms of shock, I thought. Heart attack? 

I decided to rouse my wife, Anita, who, of course was quite concerned. We headed for the nearest emergency room, a twenty-minute drive.  As we drove to the hospital, my feelings of foreboding increased and I thought, maybe this is how it all will end - the Big One!

When we arrived at Sacred Heart Hospital around 4am, we were helped right away, since it was the middle of the night. The male nurse who welcomed us seemed concerned but appeared to be moving in slow motion, although I knew he was not, in taking the required insurance information and signing me into the emergency room.  Since I was an overweight, white, blue-eyed male of 60 with a family history of heart disease, he assumed I was having a heart attack since I was well within the medical establishment’s definition of one fitting into the “at risk” category for arteriosclerosis, or fat-clogged arteries that supply the heart with oxygen that we commoners call heart disease.

The remainder of the night is somewhat of a blur in my memory except that every time they tried to sit me up in the bed, I felt like I might pass out again (which I never did). Of course, the nurses hooked me up to a heart monitor, ran an IV of saline into my arm, and the emergency room doctor ordered a battery of tests since, as he told Anita, “we’re going to give him the once-over since we have him here”. The Doc quickly ruled out a heart attack, but thought it might be a pulmonary embolism, a blood clot in the lung and another potentially fatal condition. So, they checked out my heart and lungs, which took a few hours of x-rays, sonograms, and other high-tech tests. By the time the sun was coming up, I was beginning to feel a lot better. But, just as a precaution, I was checked into the hospital so that I could take a treadmill stress test.

Our health insurance provider had an office right there in the hospital (presumably to protect their interests in the treatment of their “clients”), and their resident doctor paid me a visit in my hospital room at about 8am that morning.

“Say, uh, do you eat a lot of salt, Bill?” she asked politely.

“Why no, I don’t think so,” I answered without thinking very much about it.

“Well, the good news is that you do not have arteriosclerosis, or any heart disease, so don’t let anyone tell you that you do because your arteries are clear,” she said with a smile.

“Oh, really,” I said. But, I  was thinking, now how could that be, given my dietary regimen of potato chips, coffee with cream, cheese sticks, mucho meat, sugar and bacon? 

“Well, that’s good to hear,” I said. I must have looked a bit confused because I was.

I asked the next logical question. “Well then, what was wrong with me last night?” I asked.

“We don’t know, but we want you to see a cardiologist since your blood pressure was pretty high when you were admitted”.  

And, that was it, except that they gave Anita a ring binder book for me designed specifically for heart attack survivors to educate them on heart disease and how to maintain a healthier lifestyle through stress reduction, diet and exercise.

Upon returning home, Anita and I went over the book very carefully and found out why, more than likely, I had awoken during the night with such dramatic symptoms.

The previous day, eating the mindless way that was my custom then, I had poisoned myself with salt.  For breakfast I had consumed probably almost a half-pound of bacon containing lots of healthy animal fat, salt and preserving nitrates and nitrites (more salt). Then, for a healthy, yummy lunch I had downed an entire can of tomato soup by myself, which tastes great but contains lots of salt for just one serving - I had eaten at least two servings.  

Then for dinner, we had dined out at our favorite local Italian restaurant where I had ordered their famous meat-lovers (Hey, that’s me!) calzone - a delicious combination of salt-rich pizza crust, three kinds of high-salt and nitrate/nitrate “enriched” sausage including pepperoni, and lots of salty mozzarella cheese! Plus, even though I had usually taken half of a serving of calzone home as leftovers, this particular night I “decided” (I don’t remember anyone else forcing me) to gobble up the whole high-calorie, fatty, salty feast that would likely be enough to feed a small village in Kenya.

In addition to probably 8 times the recommended daily salt intake, I had mistakenly diagnosed my original discomfort as indigestion and take two antacid tablets made of calcium salts - which is another form of SALT! No wonder it made me feel worse - like throwing a sandbag to a drowning man, or better yet, throwing gasoline on a fire to put it out.

On the first visit to my new cardiologist, I was loaded up with yet a second blood pressure medication (I had started with one on my above-described hospital visit), and began a nightly dose of a cholesterol lowering statin drug (even though my cholesterol blood level was within the normal range) since the doctor wanted me to begin taking it “just to be on the safe side”.  Also, since I fit the profile for being at “high risk” for heart disease (even though I didn’t have it, remember) I was advised to start taking a daily baby aspirin to “thin my blood”. He also told me, as an after thought as he was leaving the examination room to “lose 70 pounds”, which I soon found was not that easy to accomplish.

All in all, I cut down on salt drastically, cut down on bacon, sausage, etc., and began to exercise even more than I had been.  And, while these changes plus drugs did lower my blood pressure and cholesterol readings, I continued to eat meat, fish and seafood, cheese, eggs and oil, AND I continued to slowly gain weight even though I cut down on portions, and was constantly counting calories.

But then, in September of 2011, Anita and I adopted the “vegan minus oils” way of eating and all that changed.

In the following months, I will relate all the positive effects of our new diet and what it’s like to eat more like an intelligent human being and less like a fast food-addicted-omnivorous-overeating-machine that I call The Fat Boy - the “me” I was.

The Fat Boy in 2007

Looking Forward

What's made from whole fruits, vegetables, legumes, and grains without oil? Me!
I have made three very important choices in my life that resulted in extremely positive outcomes for me.

The first, and the decision that had the most impact on my adult life, was to become involved with and marry my wife of forty years, Anita Gayle. I really can’t imagine what my life’s journey would have been without her by my side through thick and thin. She remains my soul mate and life partner.

The second, was to practice the Korean martial art Tae Kwon Do with my three daughters for almost 20 years. Besides giving me a positive life-strengthening connection to Anna, Beth, and Samantha, it provided a physical and mental discipline that evolved into a practical method to navigate life’s twists and turns at work, in personal relationships, and with family responsibilities.

The third and most recent, was an accidental discovery by my wife and me of a plant-based way of eating. The health results of adopting this extreme form of vegan-ism over the last 17 months have been nothing short of extraordinary.

In August, 2011, Anita and I were at our home one evening when a TV report called The Last Heart Attack aired hosted by CNN’s Dr. Sanje Gupta, MD that reported a new vegan-type diet that was being touted by former President Bill Clinton as saving him another heart bypass surgery and possibly death by cardiac arrest.  Anita was upstairs in our living room with the TV and I was at my basement desk on my computer.

During the hour long show, Dr Gupta revealed the background of the diet: the research of DR. T. COLIN CAMPBELL, Ph.D. of Cornell University, and DR. CALDWELL ESSELSTYN of the Cleveland Clinic over the past decade and more pointing to their scientific research and findings indicating that a diet consisting entirely of whole fruits, vegetables, legumes, and grains along with consuming no oils, meat, fish, eggs, or milk products possibly halt or reversed heart disease, hypertension, Type 2 diabetes, and certain forms of cancer, while slowing the aging process.

I remember hearing most of the show and being struck buy the simplicity of this way of eating - no counting calories, no complicated menus, no extra money to spend on frozen prepared meal plans. Just good, healthy, whole food.  It seemed like an easy and smart way to solve my weight gain and increasing health issues. Plus, it was based on years of scientific research, not some health food company selling pills. I went upstairs and mentioned to Anita that maybe we should try to change our way of eating. She agreed since she had just come to the same conclusion about her own health after watching CNN’s show.

At the time, I was 70 pounds over-weight, on two different blood pressure meds, a statin drug for cholesterol, and not sleeping very well.  Even though I had been exercising constistantly and “dieting” to drop weight for years, my weight kept increasing and I was starting to look more and more like an old fat white guy. I also felt weak because of the side-effects of the drugs I was taking regularly every day.

Anita had been diagnosed about 18 months previously with Type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, and was on the standard regime of a BP med, statin drug, and two drugs to control her diabetes, which included a finger stick twice a day to test her blood sugar level.

Since all three of our daughters were through college and employed, we decided to “experiment” on ourselves to see if this new whole-plant-foods-minus-oil way of eating would help us. 

After doing some additional research on the subject and Anita's reading of Dr. Campbell's ground-breaking book, The China Study, we quit eating meat, eggs, milk products, and oil “cold turkey” and are both VERY satisfied with the return to health we have both experienced during the past year and a half. Staying on this diet is much easier than we thought it would be, is cost effective, and delicious. 

After only a few months on the diet, both Anita and I were able to drop all of our medications because we didn’t need them anymore. So far, I have lost 40 pounds, Anita is no longer diabetic, and we both feel (and look) younger.  

Since we were already on a regimen of daily exercise, our unofficial home-made experiment told us that the dramatic changes in our bodies were primarily a result of our new whole-plant-foods-minus-oil way of eating.

Anita, who worked for over 15 years as an educator with the State University Extension Systems in Washington State and Utah, immediately started a blog called Anita’s Healthy Life as a repository of knowledge about our new way of eating. She also researches recipes and posts them on her site for others to try, and continually looks for new ways to improve the information on her blog.

My own goal in starting this blog is to document my experience with this new eating adventure which has provided me with better health, weight loss, and more intelligent eating choices. While being admittedly anecdotal in nature, I hope my posts will provide a positive incentive to those who wish to try this whole-plant-foods-minus-oil way of eating.