High Blood Pressure & High Cholesterol

Has anybody else tried following Dr. Ornish's plan for reversal of heart disease?  Any other success stories?

We've been following the reversal plan fairly strictly for about 2 1/2 years now, and my husband's cholesterol has come down to normal (below normal for a regular person, and slightly below the Canadian Heart & Stroke foundations recommendations for people with known heart disease) without drugs.  Up until now, he's been on two different blood pressure medications, because we had an awful time controlling it, which is what caused his stroke in January 2004 - but just recently, after losing some weight and starting to do Walk Away the Pounds with me as well as the regular walking he's always done, he's had to cut it back.  Right now he's taking one of the medications, and looking at possibly lowering the dose of that one!!  Whooo-hoo!

   

Why not visit the Owl Woods?

hi,
I've been meaning too. Was it easy to follow? (I have to walk over to the bookstore, but it's a little to warm for that right now.) Was there a lot of foods to cut out?
Thank you sorry to ask so many questions.

By the way big congratulations to your dh!! :)

That all depends - it's vegetarian, so as long as you're willing to get by without meat, it's not that hard. Once you get used to it, it's like second nature - I can read a recipe now that's high fat and I automatically convert it in my mind, lol.

You have to really cut back on things like nuts and olives etc that are high fat content, but they're not totally cut out, and there are so many fat free options in dairy products now that there's no hardship in that department either. Fat free sour cream makes an excellent substitute for heavy cream in cream based soups; and there are lots of fat-free salad dressings out there now that aren't full of sugar as a substitute for the fat. I could post a few recipes for you if you like. I'm at work right now, but I can probably get a couple on later tonight. : )

One word of warning - if you get the heart reversal book, don't be scared off by the recipes in the back. I guess he wanted to show you could still eat "gourmet" meals on the plan, so he had some famous chefs come up with these recipes. Yikes. I read through them and was thinking that I didn't even know what some of those ingredients were, let alone have them in my kitchen!! He did write one later called "everyday cooking with Dr. Dean Ornish" that has some of my favourite recipes in it, and there are lots of recipes available elsewhere. www.fatfree.com is all low-fat vegetarian recipes, and you can find recipes for just about anything there.

   

Why not visit the Owl Woods?

Thanks for coming by, Karen!! I have never tried the Ornish plan nor has anyone I know.  I don't eat meat, so I guess that's a good thing, eh? :0)

Everyone does what they think is best and so I truly hope that your hubby will never have to go back on bp-lowering prescription drugs! My biggest problem is high cholesterol and that's being kept in check with Lipitor. My blood pressure remains steady for the most part.

Please feel free to share more about the Ornish plan for our members. And please let us know how your hubby is doing when you can.

Hugs, *C*