Archive for the 'Health and Fitness' Category

Going Vegan

Published on January 11, 2011 in Featured Posts, Goals and Dreams, Health and Fitness, Life and Personal Development. 4 Comments

New year, new me. Isn’t that the way it’s supposed to be? Anyway, the title says it all: we (by which I mean my beautiful wife and I) are going vegan. Mostly. At least for a little while. Frankly, I don’t know if it’ll stick (she loves beef, I love fish), but we’ll see where we’re at in a couple of months.

Why I started thinking about going vegan

Weight loss, weight gain, rinse and repeat: the story of my life. After my amazing weight loss, dropping 99lbs, from 324lbs to 225lbs, I jumped back up to almost 250lbs in a matter of two months. When I saw that I was astonished. I had been exercising, but I slipped up on my eating. Still, 20 pounds? Just like that? I needed help.

You need help, fat boy!

Just to get a professional opinion on the matter, and because I thought maybe medical intervention might be in order (via drugs, not surgery), I went to a medical weight loss clinic. During some tests, it was discovered I have a a complete right bundle branch block (rbbb). In short, this means that due to an electrical issue, the chambers of my heart beat sequentially rather than simultaneously. Usually this is safely ignored (it’s the left bundle branch block you have to watch out for), but it was a show stopper: they wouldn’t do anything until I was cleared by my doctor.

Right bundle branch block - Click for full size

Immediately, I headed to my primary care physician who re-tested and saw the same thing. After comparing it to another EKG from five years prior, he decided further exploration was warranted. (The previous EKG did not show the block.) This led to having an echocardiogram a week later and a pulmonary function test (PFT) a week after that, since right bundle branch blocks, when not benign, are associated with either heart or lung issues. Luckily, it looks as if I’m cleared of both, except for maybe some allergy-related asthma starting to show up. According to the cardiologist, the block had been developing for a long time: there were signs of development in the previous EKG, and may have been intermittent, but never previously caught.

Still, I have heart disease. Sort of. Not the kind normally associated with high cholesterol or cardiomyopathy, but the kind which may be nothing more than a statistical anomaly. Good thing my life insurance is paid up, though.

(For the record, I’m currently at 240lbs. I was told by my cardiologist that the best thing I could do right now is exercise, so I’ve upped my routine to include 6+ miles per day walking at a brisk pace, keeping a heart rate of about 135bpm. Needless to say, I’m really hungry now. Hungry, but holding steady on the weight.)

Why go vegan?

When I found out about this–the rbbb–I started to look at more heart-healthy diets. After some reading I decided that a low-fat vegan diet made sense. It’s ironic that the rbbb was found when visiting a medical weight loss clinic where the plan was to go the Atkins, low-carb route.

There are a lot of reasons why I want to try my hand at veganism, but the two most important to me are as follows:

Ethics

Maybe I’m just a bleeding heart liberal, but I’ve always had a problem eatings things with a face. Not because I’m opposed to eating meat–in fact, I think that it’s a necessity, and a big reason why we humans grew capable of taking dominance of the planet–but because I’m opposed to the industrial complex which produces meat. Hunt it yourself? Have at it. Buying it from the store? You haven’t earned the right to eat that flesh.

Yesterday someone told me how their kid is now asking questions like “where do eggs come from?” This saddened me. A kid shouldn’t ever have to ask where the eggs he eats in the morning come from. They should know, because they should have seen it already. This is not an indictment against this kid’s parent, by any means. It’s a commentary on our society. We’ve grown too far separated from our food, and as such no longer revere it for the blessing that it is in abundance. In fact, we now see it as a curse. Therefore, the ethics of meat eating is quite possibly my biggest reason. Jonathan Safran Foer’s book Eating Animals crystallized this for me, and put to words a sentiment that has been brewing inside me for quite some time. (To be fair, I do think he takes the sentimental arguments about the pain and suffering of hunted animals a bit too far. Note that I said “hunted”, not “electrocuted in a factory farm and put through a grinder”.)

Pigs confined in metal and concrete pens (Image thanks to the Farm Sanctuary)

Health

This the more contentious issue when going vegan. The first question we get is “Where do you get all your protein?!” For more informed individuals, the questions a more like “Where will you get all your zinc/B12?” Those are good questions. As for protein, the answer’s easy: some plants are LOADED with protein (spinach, beans, and quinoa come to mind). As for zinc and b12…well, I’m still learning. For the moment, those will come via supplementation.

Supplementation? What's that?

More important for me is the focus on the reduced cases of heart disease, diabetes, Alzheimer’s, cancer and hundreds of other conditions. The biggest reason, however is that my GERD doesn’t bother me when I go all vegan for a few days, although it does when I eat meat and meat byproducts. An anti-oxidant heavy, alkaline diet will go a long way in treating my GERD, as well as preventing the onset of Barrett’s esophagus. (Note that by vegan I mean fruits and veggies, not a bunch of grains. Processed or not, these still give me heartburn.)

For the record, I’m not knocking some of the other ways of eating out there, such as the so-called Paleo-diets, or the Atkins approach. I’ve done the Atkins diet and lost a fair amount of weight on it back in college. While I’m not interested in doing that now, I do find the paleo-diet is particularly attractive, and this vegan diet may shift to a paleo-diet sooner rather than later. Also, there’s evidence that higher protein diets will actually assist in the recovery of cancer. The theory is that cancer cells use glycolysis for fueling themselves, but are unable to switch to ketosis when the body reduces its intake of sugars. Without fuel, cancer starves.

Nevertheless, a far graver concern for me than cancer is diabetes, which runs strongly in my family (conversely, cancer is unheard of in my family). A low-fat vegan diet has been clinically proven to reverse and prevent diabetes, and although I am not diabetic, I am flat-line hypoglycemic, verified by a 2-hour glucose tolerance test. This means that if I don’t stop it now, it won’t be long before I do become a diabetic. Add to this the anecdotal GERD evidence and you can see why at this point in my life vegan seems like the best way to eat

What approach to take

The first diet that caught my attention was actually a raw food vegan diet. However, I’d tried this before, and after a few days without family support (no way I was selling this to anyone in my family, least of all my wife), this failed miserably. So I decided to scale it back.

Again, I actually thought that a paleo-diet would be a better way to go, but at this time my mind was flooded with the words “heart disease”. Over and over, I saw that a low-fat vegan diet (a la Pritikin) had been clinically proven to reverse heart disease. (The paleo-diet’s evidence was still not as solid.) Unfortunately, this didn’t apply to idiopathic right bundle branch blocks. Still, their claims that it also reversed diabetes, lowered cholesterol, and helped prevent cancer struck me as worth investigating.

After reading around, I found a couple of books to read on the subject matter.

The Engine 2 Diet: The Texas Firefighter's 28-Day Save-Your-Life Plan that Lowers Cholesterol and Burns Away the Pounds

Ray Kurzweil - Transcend: Nine Steps to Living Well Forever

The China Study: The Most Comprehensive Study of Nutrition Ever Conducted and the Startling Implications for Diet, Weight Loss and Long-term Health

Caldwell Essesltyn - Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease: The Revolutionary, Scientifically Proven, Nutrition-Based Cure

Dean Ornish - The Spectrum: A Scientifically Proven Program to Feel Better, Live Longer, Lose Weight, and Gain Health

I’ll be starting with Rip Esselstyn’s Engine 2 Diet. The biggest reason was that it offered a very clear-cut way to get started, including meal plans, recipes, and shopping lists. Also, it’s an easy read, even though I have a few problems with some of the oversimplifications.
After that I’ll be taking a look at Transcend: Nine Steps to Living Well Forever, by Ray Kurzweil and Terry Grossman. If you know about Kurzweil, you know about his emphasis on longevity, which is why I’m interested in the book. True, it’s not strictly vegan, but I’m sure many of the recipes could be adapted, though mostly what I’m looking for is information.
Next on the list is The China Study. This is one I’ve heard talked about over and over again, and it’ll be interesting to read the information there.

My reading won’t stop there. Books by Rip Esselstyn’s father, Caldwell Esselstyn, as well as those by Dean Ornish will probably make it to my Nook, bookshelf, or both. I’ll also be picking up The Paleo Diet: Lose Weight and Get Healthy by Eating the Foods You Were Designed to Eat, because I’m honestly curious. How well I do by going vegan will determine whether I pick this up sooner rather than later.

For now, here’s how we’re starting: first, our fridge is empty. Time to shop. Second, we’re buying kitchen equipment. We needed new pots and pans because ours are ancient, and I want to move away from Teflon.

Family support

As I said, I’ve tried this kind of stuff before. this and other diets. My biggest reason for prior failures? Family.

I don’t know, maybe I’m just weak-willed, but unless I have my wife having a similar diet to mine, I find sticking to any diet difficult. For example, I’ve tried going vegan before, but having my wife bring leftover pulled pork, beef tips, and grilled from her work lunch eventually drove me back to meat. I’ve also tried the other way, going low-carb. Hard to do when chips and salsa are ever present, and when the pulled pork and beef tips are accompanied by corn bread. Given this history, if I’m going to have a chance at success, I need her on-board.

(Note: I’m not blaming my lack of will on her. It’s my life, and my choices which make it up. The fault lies entirely with me.)

Fine. You've twisted my arm. I'll eat that.

Oh, just this once you fuddy duddy!

Considering her love of beef, selling her on a vegan diet wasn’t easy. Inadvertently, I found evidence that the diet could help with one of her more annoying (but not life threatening) medical conditions. Along with showing her that she could lower her cholesterol (which is ~225, although he has an HDL/LDL ratio that’s better than 1/1), and reducing the possibility of cancer (which runs in her family about as strongly as diabetes runs through mine), she decided to try it out. In fact, now she’s excited about it.

(For the record, my cholesterol is already low. Last time it was checked it was about 120 total, with an HDL of 42 and an LDL around 70.)

So what’s next?

Alright, so I’ve laid down my reasons and my plans. Now it’s time to get to work. But I think I’ll keep this on the down-low: I’ve already had people laugh at me and tell me about how they enjoyed a big, juicy burger that very afternoon, while others have, with concern and fear in their eyes, asked me ”So you’re only gonna eat nothing salads? I don’t think I could do that. I need some REAL food.” Then they laugh and try to get me to admit that plant-based foods aren’t “real” food. But this is the kind of stuff that happens whenever you want to do something which differs from what the rest of society does.

Anyway, time to get started. I’m thinking oatmeal, bananas, and all-natural maple syrup.

Oatmeal topped with bananas and maple syrup. OMGYUMYUM!

I am delicious. Eat me.

Side note: Special thanks go out to @thatgirlallie for kicking my butt and telling me to write something.

Before and After

Published on October 1, 2010 in Featured Posts, Goals and Dreams and Health and Fitness. 5 Comments

A friend was over here this past weekend. At one point we were looking through pictures, when we stumbled upon a few which made us both take notice. They’re pictures of me from about 5 years ago and pictures of me now. I know I talk a lot about my weight loss, but this made it all that much more real. (Click the images to enlarge. No pun intended.)

Before

Now

Before

Now

Note that I had lost just under 90lbs when the “Now” set of pictures were taken. I have since lost 10lbs more. Still, they’re accurate enough. My friend and I both said the same thing: Wow.

The 48-Hour Bravo Esophageal pH Test: A Probe to Study Acid via Monitoring Capsule

Published on May 18, 2009 in Health and Fitness and Life. 64 Comments

My throat. It burns. And it’s been burning for far longer than I’d like to remember. Thing is, my doc isn’t so sure that my GERD (gastroesophageal reflux disease) is really caused by too much acid splashing my esophagus. At one point maybe, but not anymore. No, he believes what I have is NERD, or non-erosive reflux disease. (Poetic justice?) To find out, he had me go through a study called the Bravo pH Esophageal Test.

Academic Overview

The 48-Hour Bravo pH Esophageal Test monitors the esophagus (the tube connecting the mouth to the stomach) for 48 hours in order to determine whether the heartburn I’m feeling is really acid or something else. In this case “heartburn” actually means the burning in my throat, as if I’d just swallowed battery acid, rather than in my chest, as if my heart had burst into flames. (This might indicate another condition entirely, one called LPRD, or laryngo-pharyngeal reflux disease. It’s sort of like GERD, but felt in the throat, not in the chest.)

During the test, the doctor puts a 26mm capsule down the throat and sticks it to the side of the esophagus. A monitor is then given to the patient which records the capsule’s pH readings. These will, in theory, help determine if the person has GERD. Two days later, the monitor is returned. A week later the capsule will detach itself and go through the digestive track.

For more details on the test, including getting ready, check out the Cleveland Clinic’s information site on it.

My Experience

I went over to Tampa General Hospital to get implanted with the Bravo pH capsule. I got there, as per instructions, at 1:30 P.M. Got checked in, found the waiting room which overlooked Tampa Bay and Bayshore Blvd. The Wife, there with me, cracked a smile when she realized she “could see [her] old high school from here!” The soft music playing in the background made the scene like something out of a travel video. A few minutes later we looked at one of the nearby televisions and realized it was playing a travel video.

After an hour of watching, waiting, and enjoying the aroma of hot chocolate–especially aromatic considering I’d not eaten anything in almost 24 hours–the nurse stopped by with a device the size of a small-to-medium camera which I would, for the next two days, wear around my neck. This would be the external monitor, which would record all the transmissions sent from the tiny device which I would soon have implanted in me. Additionally it had three buttons which I would press every time I felt I had heartburn, regurgitation (food coming up to the back of my throat) or chest pain. Then she gave me a diary and told me to write down all my symptoms along with the time they occurred, making sure to use the time shown on the device itself, and not any other time piece. Beside the time, I would later find out, there was also a display of my current esophageal pH. I would later find this a very useful tool with which to experiment.

With all that said and done, I was brought in for the procedure. I laid down on a bed, clothes and all, and my gastroenterologist came in. He told me to gargle some numbing liquid–”DON’T SWALLOW IT!” he repeatedly reminded me.

“Aren’t you going to put me to sleep?”

“Nope. The procedure will take about a minute. The stuff you just gargled will numb your throat to quell your gag reflex.” As he said that, the nurse stuck a plastic ring in my mouth to keep it open, then strapped it to the back of my head. (Frighteningly S&M-ish.) Then he continued, “Alright, now I’m going to put this down your throat.” It was at that very moment that he pulled out this long, thin hoobajoob, about the size of my arm, out from under some desk. Oh, shit, I thought, as he asked me to turn to my side. “To make this a bit more comfortable I’ve lubricated the device with a bit of water-soluble KY-jelly.” Seriously, I didn’t need to hear that.

As I lay on my side, the doctor stuck the device in my mouth. When he got to the back of my throat he ordered me to swallow. As soon as I did he shoved the hoobajoob all the way down to just above my stomach. That’s when he turned the suction machine on. “Alright, now this will take about a minute, so just relax.”It took everything I had not to start heaving. All I could do was count. Seventy-two seconds later, he pulled out the hoobajoob. A monitoring device about the size of a #2 pencil’s eraser and ferule had been implanted in my esophagus. It would take about a week for it to dislodge itself and go through the Chamber of Doom.

The whole process, the laying down–the gargling stuff, the implantation–all took about ten minutes. It would be an hour before I ate or drank anything, as per doctor’s orders, seeing as the numbing agent I gargled also numbed the control valve which keeps food from accidentally finding its way into the lungs.

The Testing Period

Normal esophageal pH is somewhere between 4 and 7. If it goes lower it indicates that acid is being refluxed, since the stomach’s pH is between 1 and 2. If it goes higher it might indicate bile reflux, although the stomach sometimes as alkaline periods. (The pH of bile is above 8.) Sudden drops of pH (from 7.1 to 5.3, or 6.1 to 3.8) indicate acid reflux. During the testing period my pH went as low as 1.8 and as high as 8.6, possibly 8.8. All this as per the pH display in the Bravo monitoring device I now had hanging around my neck. (It really did look like a camera.) The vast majority of the time it stuck between 4 and 7, usually between 5 and 7. What this means, I have no idea. I will when I get my results back.

I was told to eat foods which would cause my symptoms, so the first thing I did was head to my parents’ house, where my father, a pizza restaurant owner for years, would be making pizza. It was delicious. Deeeelicious. I topped the pizza off with a small Starbucks frappuccinno. Yes, evil, I know, but these are foods I KNOW would bring about symptoms. There was one small hitch with my plan, however…

Did I tell you I have a bad gallbladder? Yeah, I do. Having it taken out sometime soon (probably in the next week). Runs in the family. Also doesn’t help that I spent more than my fair share of time pigging out to crapstacular food. Mia culpa, mia culpa. Problem now was all those highly acidic foods were also fatty enough to cause problems.

My gallbladder took its revenge on me not immediately, but rather the next day. (It holds grudges.) While I had heartburn after the pizza (the pH reading dropped as low as 2.0 for brief periods, but stayed mostly above the 4.0 mark), it wasn’t until the next morning that the problems really started. After my breakfast–a sandwich made of egg whites, wheat bread and kale, followed by a cup of vanilla almond milk–I started feeling bloated. Real bloated. Then suddenly I started having pains. I was having a gallbladder attack. This was at 9:30 A.M. It would be almost 7:00 P.M. that night before the attack passed. In the meantime, my pH fluctuated between way-too-acidic (pH 3) and way too alkaline (pH 8). Since I wasn’t able to eat or drink during this time, the test was pretty much ruined.

I tried to salvage the situation on the final day. I was feeling well enough to eat what I would regularly eat, including low-fat foods that would cause me symptoms, foods like barley, oats, and juice (although it never dawned on me to try out BBQ sauce). For the most part the worst food of the bunch was the barley, which always gives me problems after a while. Don’t know why, really. It goes down fine, but then about an hour later I start burning up. Same with oats. The pH monitor corroborated this observation.

Anyway, the test ended at 4:00 on the dot; that’s when the monitor shut down. I dropped it off at the hospital and was finally rid of the thing. I should be receiving the results sometime this week. At that moment all I cared about was that I could finally go back to doing things like sipping water throughout the day and eating mostly fruits and vegetables, things which I know keep my heartburn at bay, medications or no.

The hardest part of this test, gallbladder problems aside, was that I couldn’t take anything for the discomfort I felt. I couldn’t chew gum, couldn’t suck on hard candies, couldn’t drink water to wash out the acid, and certainly couldn’t take antacids. Hopefully, however, this test shows that things aren’t as bad as I thought they’d be, even though they’re obviously not good. Now that it’s over I’m only concerned with one thing: getting rid of the bad, un-salvageable gallbladder. That’s a story for some other time.

Still Only Human: A Health Update

Published on March 3, 2009 in Health and Fitness. 0 Comments Tags: addison's disease, brain, emg, gastroparesis, mri.

Neurology appointment today. Got the results from my brain MRI back, and had an EMG done. All good, nothing to report. Guess I’m not an alien after all. Seeing pictures of my own brain put that youthful fantasy to rest.

In case you haven’t had the pleasure, an EMG is used to test nerve and muscle function. The first part of the test involves being tazered repeatedly to check the nerve reactions. Also, to see whether or not your arms and legs flop around like fish when electrocuted. The second part involves being stuck with needles like you’d get at an acupuncturist’s, except unlike at the acupuncturists, these needles hurt, especially when the doc asks you to flex your muscles while the needles are inside. (Believe it or not, they’re listening to the muscles, which apparently sound like scratching an old vinyl record) Perhaps people in charge of performing EMGs would do well to invest in a few acupuncture courses.

About a week before the EMG I had an MRI of my brain done. Unfortunately, this wasn’t an open MRI, and while I’m not claustrophobic, I had to suppress some anxiety: being inside a tube where the walls are inches from your face and where you can’t even lift your arms will make anyone skittish about being there. My only saving grace was a well placed mirror, angled so I would see the outside of the tube, thereby giving the perception of some open space. My mom had actually come to the testing with me, so the sight of her in that small mirror was the biggest source of comfort. Still, I had to keep myself from going off the deep end of and wandering into panic attack territory, even unto needing to be taken out a couple of times between scans.

These tests were done because of complaints I had about headaches, facial and lip numbness, shooting pains in my right arm, numbness on my back and right thigh, and constant twitching on my right leg. To allay any suspicions of mini-strokes, multiple sclerosis, peripheral neuropathy, herniated disc, carpal tunnel, or various other nasties, the MRI and EMG tests were ordered. As I said, all normal. Turns out the headaches and facial and lip numbness were all due to migraines possibly brought on as a side effect to medication (particularly Nexium, but maybe also Domperidone) while in my other body areas I had longstanding pinched nerves.

Needless to say, I was relieved.

Brain tests aside, I’ve also recently been tested of Addison’s disease as a possible reason for my gastroparesis. It was a final test, and looks like it’s negative. No Parkinson’s, no MS, no scleroderma, no kidney issues. My only known issues are GERD and a malfunctioning gallbladder. (My HIDA/CCK resulted in an ejection fraction of 19%. Normal is above 35%.) The condition is therefore officially diagnosed as idiopathic, most likely post-viral in nature. Frankly, I think any actual gastroparesis I might have had has improved to the point where it’s simply dyspepsia amplified by a faulty gallbladder. Testing is ongoing, however. Gastroparesis or not, here’s where things stand:

Current weight: 238 lbs
Cholesterol: LDL 59, HDL 30, Total 119 (I have to improve my ratio, badly.)
Blood pressure: 110/68 (average)
Resting pulse: 60
Fasting blood sugar: 84

Compare this to me 2.5 yrs ago:

Weight: 324 lbs
Cholesterol: LDL 110, HDL 37, Total 165
Blood pressure: 160/100
Resting pulse: 78
Fasting blood sugar: 92

Come to think of it, the gastroparesis may have been a blessing in disguise: I don’t know that I could have lost that much weight otherwise. I certainly didn’t believe I could. I just wish blessings would stop disguising themselves as bodily injuries and health issues.

Anyway, my current goal weight is 200 lbs by year’s end. Maybe that’ll finally put an end to my GERD problems. (The condition has improved with weight loss, but it’s far from gone.) Well, that and the removal of my gallbladder, which my current doc has yet to approve. Of course, all of this is pending test results.