I totally had it last night. I was SOOO frustrated. AGAIN I was at a nice restaurant, at the bar, having a drink and there was NOTHING on the menu that I could eat. I’m so sick of this!!! I have been eating what I call a Plant-Focused, very low-oil, low-salt, low-sugar, Whole Food diet since my heart scare a year ago.
I looked at the menu, finally decided on extra virgin olive oil-sauteed spinach with roasted garlic bulbs, cherries and pistachios, HOLD the goat cheese whipped dressing. I verified with the bartender that the chef was actually using extra virgin olive oil. Of course they were! And if they could make the dish with no oil or only a VERY, VERY minimum amount. It was only a side dish by the way, and my partner ordered a delicious-sounding blackened mahi-mahi taco with all sorts of great toppings and finished with an aioli coating.
I watched the bartender ask the kitchen manager and she frowned and asked, “With No Oil???” and shook her head in a disbelieving way. The bartender said, “Yeah. She doesn’t want any oil and no goat cheese either.” The kitchen manager looked disgusted. And when our meals came- my side spinach dish and my partner’s Huge Mahi-Mahi inside a wonderful taco ensemble- I looked at my little bowl of spinach drenched in oil. It just all hit me so hard. I got tears in my eyes and said, “Why can’t they just DO what I ask? I don’t even like limiting myself to such a strict diet and I can’t stand everyone’s faces and negative comments when I try to order something that is OK for me to eat”. And that was the way our happy time out to dinner began.
I am exceptionally sensitive right now to everything I eat being healthy for me because several weeks ago I had switched medications, stopping my 5mg daily Crestor and starting 500mg Niacin (Vit B3) instead. I did that because I discovered that my lipoprotein (a), which can be one of the biggest predictors of cardiac events (and that’s not a positive fun-type event) was WAY too high. It was 181 nmol/L and anything over 125 nmol/L is too high. Apparently, it doesn’t respond well to statins, diet or exercise, (1)(5)(6) but niacin, PCSK9 inhibitors and a new drug being developed by Akcea Therapeutics that hasn’t yet completed testing can help. (2)(4)(5) By the way, you’ll probably find a lot of doctors who begin doing routine screening for lipoprotein (a) as it’s getting more well known. It’s what almost took Bob Harper’s (from the Biggest Loser) life. (2)
I had switched my medication since statins apparently don’t bring this down, but Niacin does and my cardiologist told me I couldn’t take both at the same time because of potential liver problems.
I had my cholesterol numbers checked the other day and my numbers in one month had gone from Total Cholesterol 140 to 242!!!, HDL from 60-58, LDL from 56 to 143!!! and triglycerides from 120 to 207! What the??? How the??? Same diet except for a tad more Extra Virgin Olive Oil since I’d read what seemed to me to be some pretty good articles suggesting that it might help bring down the lipoprotein (a). What had I been thinking? My numbers had been so good! I know if I can keep my LDL at 50, or at LEAST below 75 I will significantly decrease my risk of future cardiac events. And the last angiogram I had three and a half months ago showed that bifurcation blockage (branch blockage) in my LAD and branch were closer to 70-90% instead of the 50% as originally in the first report. So, you can imagine my distress when I looked at that oily bowl of spinach put down in front of me. Oh boy.
I want this blog and the videos to be positive and to help people who are eating a restricted diet like I am- in order to stop and reverse their heart disease- to feel good about eating healthy! And to offer lots of encouragement and helpful ideas. And it will be. But I wanted to begin by showing my own vulnerabilities and how and why I find that it IS hard to eat healthy in a world that revolves around so much fried, high animal fat, dairy-heavy, processed foods. It still smells good to me and I miss it. But I’ll die if I eat it, so I stay on my very restrictive diet and find ways to enjoy eating and drinking with family and friends. Last night’s upset was a rarity.
In the following posts I’ll share how I do that and lots of other good information to help us live a life not only long in years, but with life in our years! I hope you’ll join me in this quest to be your healthiest, best self! (If you have any good ideas that work for you, feel free to share them in the comments!)
1.Med Sci Sports Exerc. 1997 Nov;29(11):1429-36. Effects of physical activity and diet on lipoprotein(a). Mackinnon LT1, Hubinger L, Lepre F.
2.https://www.doctoroz.com/episode/bob-harper-heart-attack-nearly-killed-him-and-why-he-shouldn-t-be-a live?video_id=5409292556001
3.Therapeutic Lowering of Lipoprotein(a) A Role for Pharmacogenetics? Michael B. Boffa and Marlys L. Koschinsky Originally published15 Feb 2018https://doi.org/10.1161/CIRCGEN.118.002052Circulation: Genomic and Precision Medicine. 2018;11:e002052
4.Current therapies for lowering lipoprotein (a) Julian C. van Capelleveen, Fleur M. van der Valk, and Erik S. G. Stroes J Lipid Res. 2016 Sep; 57(9): 1612–1618. doi: 10.1194/jlr.R053066
5.J Clin Lipidol. 2016 May-Jun;10(3):594-603. doi: 10.1016/j.jacl.2016.01.005. Epub 2016 Mar 8. Effect of therapeutic interventions on oxidized phospholipids on apolipoprotein B100 and lipoprotein(a). Yeang C1, Hung MY2, Byun YS3, Clopton P4, Yang X1, Witztum JL5, Tsimikas S6.
6. PLoS One. 2014 Dec 15;9(12):e114859. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0114859. eCollection 2014. Healthy dietary interventions and lipoprotein (a) plasma levels: results from the Omni Heart Trial. Haring B1, von Ballmoos MC2, Appel LJ3, Sacks FM4
The Happy Hour Heart 