Tag Archives: lifestyle

Reversing Heart Disease and An Anniversary To Celebrate

Progress Reports, , , , , , ,

Well trumpets please, today is an important day!

It marks the 5-year anniversary of Bill’s “event.”  He prefers “event” to heart attack, and says it was the whack upside the head he needed to realize it was time to up his game.

reversing heart disease fixitplan

Five Years Ago Today …

Chugging along back then, Bill was overweight, struggling with uncontrolled blood pressure (though recently on BP medication),  his cholesterol was somewhat elevated along with his LDL and triglycerides.  Even though we thought we ate pretty good, and even though we exercised 2-3 times a week, his heart attack fired the warning shot.   We had work to do!

We are SO fortunate to have been in the ER checking out the chest pain we hoped was  heartburn because he had the heart attack right then and there!  Blessfully resulting in no permanent damage to his heart.  I’ve told this whole story here in:  “The Beginning.”

We desperately wanted to know “CAN THIS BE FIXED?  HOW?”

Continue reading Reversing Heart Disease and An Anniversary To Celebrate →

Book Review~The 30-Day Heart Tune-Up

Heart Health, , , , , , , ,

fixitplan.com book_review
FIX IT PLAN
BOOK REVIEW

 

It’s good to re-fuel with a fresh dose of motivation and guidance, and with that in mind I want to tell you about Steven Masley, MD’s “The 30-Day Heart Tune-Up”. I talked about it in an earlier post and linked to it on the Fix It! Plan Book Review The 30-Day Heart Tune-UpBooks & Links page, and (ta-da!) I’ve just finished reading it cover to cover.

Masley sums up the book’s purpose quite nicely in the very beginning: “What is the 30-Day Heart Tune-up? It’s all about shrinking arterial plaque, improving circulation, and strengthening your heart-beat.”

An important message I got from this book is that medicine may help us live longer, but it doesn’t stop the underlying cause of elevated blood pressure or cholesterol that leads to being prescribed medication in the first place.  So if we rely on medications alone, our bodies will very likely still be forming deadly arterial plaque. Continue reading Book Review~The 30-Day Heart Tune-Up →

SUPPLEMENTS FOR HEART HEALTH

Heart Health, , , , , ,
We receive a lot of emails with questions on this subject so let’s talk about it.
Bowl of Pills, Photo by rselph, CC BY 2.0
Bowl of Pills, Photo by rselph, CC BY 2.0

Bill and I for quite a while have been big believers in the benefits of supplements as natural alternative therapies.  Years ago when he was diagnosed with Rosacea, he didn’t want to go on the life-long regimen of antibiotics as prescribed, so we turned to supplements for help.  And it worked!  Another time I struggled with debilitating pain behind my left ear that progressed to a chronic level, sending me to various doctors which led to a possible prognosis of a brain tumor and a CT scan, which fortunately found nothing.  Then by chance we went out sailing for the day with friends and I took ginger every 3 hours to manage motion sickness (yes it works), only to be amazed at the end of the day that I had been pain free!  Apparently there was inflammation somewhere inside me (ah ha!) so I began a regimen of ginger for a period of time and the problem went away.  And on another occasion we reversed a serious eye condition with supplements, to the amazement of Bill’s eye doctor.  I’m a believer!

But think about this.  By definition, a supplement is:

“Something that completes or enhances something else when added to it.”

So the key word here is supplement–they are not a panacea.  Continue reading SUPPLEMENTS FOR HEART HEALTH →

“Food Should Make You Want to Dance!”

Diet, ,

That line passed by as closed captioned text on the Food Network Channel today while I was sweating my heart rate up on the elliptical.  I stopped on that channel, captivated by the chef sauteing crisp apples and beautiful leeks, and I watched as she scooped out bright orange acorn squash and mashed it with roasted garlic.  She returned the squash to the shell and spooned the leek/apple mixture on top.  It looked delicious–though swimming with too much butter for my taste and I would have sauteed the leeks and apples in coconut or olive oil… but I digress. Continue reading “Food Should Make You Want to Dance!” →