Turning My Diet Upside Down

As I understand the Esselstyn diet, it relies on eating large amounts of whole grain starch and other things such as dark green leafy vegetables.  It avoids certain things such as oils and nuts.  In the lecture I saw on You Tube, Dr Esselstyn talked about the high points and how certain foods were responsible for plaque on artery walls, how to improve the endothelium and avoid the resulting heart attack.

From watching Doctors on You Tube describe this, or a similar diet, the fat content is about 12% while in a normal diet it is much higher.  A description of the diet is HERE. 

I do wish that I had known about the Esselstyn diet before I went through a triple bypass. 

One of my grafts failed, within a month of surgery and I decided to carry on without a stent. I would find myself with severe back pain when I went beyond five minutes on a tread mill and my pulse rose above 115. 

The diet cleared my arteries enough so that I could exercise normally, and achieve a sustained pulse rate of 152 without chest or back pain. 

Eventually, I discovered how it felt to have virtually zero omega-3s in my system, because I was missing the enzyme to convert the large quantity of ground flax seed that I was eating into the omega-3  fat that people use.

After failing to see my scores go up with some old fish oil capsules, I purchased a bottle of cod liver oil and started imbibing. 

I was simply amazed at how much better I felt.

This is a very strict diet, and I don't believe I followed it closely, but I did well enough to have the desired affect: my arteries cleared.

Eventually, I felt that I was missing something, but I still felt good, until I gradually developed hives.  

Eventually, my bowl of oatmeal would cause me to break out in hives within an hour of ingesting it.  Same for potatoes, or a bowl of pasta.

Now I can hardly eat starch at all, of course I still do because if I don't my stomach doesn't feel so good.

My new doctor said I might have SIBO (Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth) which is a problem and can lead to other problems. 

As a result, I am eating eggs, and fish in small quantity, daily.  At this point my fish are canned, and the taste varies greatly.  Canned sardines, even in olive oil can have quite an aftertaste.  And I'm not sure all that fat from the eggs is good for me.

I don't have hives as badly as I did before, and I'm not sure what treatment options would be available to me, aside from diet.

But things seem to be improving, and right now I'm thankful for that.