Most people who meet me these days think that I’ve always been a perfect picture of health.
(I’m far from any definition of perfect, but that’s another email for another day😉!)
But, that’s actually not true.
I’ve battled with high cholesterol for many years.
There’s a family history of high cholesterol on both sides of my family.
My paternal grandfather suffered a massive stroke when I was just 7 years old, and most of my memories of him are with him being in a wheelchair with paralysis on his right side.
Most of the adults in my family (both mom’s and dad’s side) have high cholesterol, and are on statin drugs to control it.
I still remember the day my parents threw out basically all the food in our house and replaced it with the Fat Free, Low-Fat, or Sugar Free version. I think I was about 6 or 7 when this happened. We started drinking skim milk, ate fat free ice cream, drank diet soda, and slapped “heart healthy” margarine on our toast.
My parents were doing the best they could with the information they’d been given: they had high cholesterol, and fat was to blame.
Fast forward to when I was 21 years old & got my cholesterol tested for the first time.... it was 267
(To give that number some context, the American Heart Association says anything under 200.)
This was WAY high for a young person who’s never been overweight, never smoked, and didn’t drink (much!).
My doc put me on a statin drug to lower it, claiming that he couldn’t let me leave his office without addressing the issue.
On the statin, my cholesterol dropped to 225.
Fast forward again to 2010 & 3 PCP’s later. My new doc took me off the drug, saying there was zero need for it.
I panicked… what if my cholesterol went back up to 267? Or worse!?
At that time, I started following the Paleo diet… for the first time in ages, I ate real eggs (instead of egg beaters), I ate red meat every week, I snacked on nuts and avocados, coconut oil was a staple in my diet. I filled my plate with as many organic fresh foods and vegetables as possible. And I learned that the source of my food, and the quality of my food was critically important.
Needless to say- I was taking in a LOT more fat than I had in the past few decades.
My cholesterol went down to 202.
I was shocked.
Fast forward, once again, to the present…. I hadn’t tested my cholesterol since about 2013, and wanted to be sure it hadn’t crept back up.
192.
There’s not much more I need to say than this: I’m a girl who grew up eating what doctors said was supposed to help heart health and cholesterol. It did nothing to help. Kicking medicine to the curb and adopting a lifestyle of eating foods most close to their natural source… wholesome, real foods grown in/on our Earth…. Brought me down to 192.
If that doesn’t make the case for “just eat real food” than I don’t know what does.
(I’m far from any definition of perfect, but that’s another email for another day😉!)
But, that’s actually not true.
I’ve battled with high cholesterol for many years.
There’s a family history of high cholesterol on both sides of my family.
My paternal grandfather suffered a massive stroke when I was just 7 years old, and most of my memories of him are with him being in a wheelchair with paralysis on his right side.
Most of the adults in my family (both mom’s and dad’s side) have high cholesterol, and are on statin drugs to control it.
I still remember the day my parents threw out basically all the food in our house and replaced it with the Fat Free, Low-Fat, or Sugar Free version. I think I was about 6 or 7 when this happened. We started drinking skim milk, ate fat free ice cream, drank diet soda, and slapped “heart healthy” margarine on our toast.
My parents were doing the best they could with the information they’d been given: they had high cholesterol, and fat was to blame.
Fast forward to when I was 21 years old & got my cholesterol tested for the first time.... it was 267
(To give that number some context, the American Heart Association says anything under 200.)
This was WAY high for a young person who’s never been overweight, never smoked, and didn’t drink (much!).
My doc put me on a statin drug to lower it, claiming that he couldn’t let me leave his office without addressing the issue.
On the statin, my cholesterol dropped to 225.
Fast forward again to 2010 & 3 PCP’s later. My new doc took me off the drug, saying there was zero need for it.
I panicked… what if my cholesterol went back up to 267? Or worse!?
At that time, I started following the Paleo diet… for the first time in ages, I ate real eggs (instead of egg beaters), I ate red meat every week, I snacked on nuts and avocados, coconut oil was a staple in my diet. I filled my plate with as many organic fresh foods and vegetables as possible. And I learned that the source of my food, and the quality of my food was critically important.
Needless to say- I was taking in a LOT more fat than I had in the past few decades.
My cholesterol went down to 202.
I was shocked.
Fast forward, once again, to the present…. I hadn’t tested my cholesterol since about 2013, and wanted to be sure it hadn’t crept back up.
192.
There’s not much more I need to say than this: I’m a girl who grew up eating what doctors said was supposed to help heart health and cholesterol. It did nothing to help. Kicking medicine to the curb and adopting a lifestyle of eating foods most close to their natural source… wholesome, real foods grown in/on our Earth…. Brought me down to 192.
If that doesn’t make the case for “just eat real food” than I don’t know what does.
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