A Health Update

It's been 10 days since hubby was released from the hospital with a newly repaired heart.  Since then...

• We have eaten mostly vegan food with a couple of servings of fish in that time period.
• I have lost 10 pounds (!!!).  And that is without even trying.  I guess cutting out all of the junk food and Starbucks and fancy coffee drinks (plus uping fiber, vegies, fruits, and whole grains) makes the weight practically fall off!
• Hubby's blood sugar has decreased dramatically.  We will need to talk to his doctor about changing his diabetes medications since doctors tend to medicate for a certain baseline (mostly assuming that patients won't change anything) and once the patient makes significant diet changes their blood sugar can sink too low (same for blood pressure and cholesterol levels).  
• We have eaten out once in the past 10 days.  We went to a buffet and ate mostly salad.  Hubby had a little meat and I realized that even vegetables aren't really healthy in a restaurant as they were mostly swimming in butter and salt :(  I had a few bites of coffee ice cream and couldn't even finish it as it was too sweet.  I think our taste buds have been re-calibrated!
• We are eating all of our vegies!  We used to buy a lot of fruit and vegetables but since we ate out so often they would usually go bad and end up in the garbage.  With the way we are eating now (all meals cooked at home) we are actually saving money both in restaurant costs as well as by having much less food waste.
• Aside from our Costco and Whole Foods shopping trip, our over all grocery shopping costs are lower than usual.  We buy mostly fruit and vegetables that are in season and on sale and bought spices at Asian and Mexican stores where they are much cheaper than at a regular grocery store.
• I borrowed the e-book "The End of Diabetes" by Dr Joel Fuhrman from the library.  It is an excellent read and is all about using food to completely reverse diabetes and other chronic diseases.  It's nice to hear a doctor say "you don't need to be chronically ill" instead of "here take these pills, you will need them for the rest of your life".

Overall hubby's health crisis was a huge wake up call.  I am glad it worked out as well as it did (he could have been dead or needing open heart surgery so his minor heart attack was better than the alternatives).  We have really made a complete change in the way we eat and hopefully we will both end up in much better overall heath!