Disease Proof : Disease Proof : Health & Nutrition News & Commentary : Dr. Joel Fuhrman

Abstinence is staying within the picket fence around us called “boundaries.” The purpose of a boundary is to keep us safe. The nutritional wisdom and guidelines in Dr. Fuhrman’s books, newsletters, teleconferences, etc., if followed, keep us safe and healthy. There’s freedom, optimal health, and many pleasurable perks within the fence.

Seeds of abstinence sown in the soil of our lives will eventually produce a harvest of freedom from addiction that leads to optimal health. Guaranteed.

Yes, of course, we may have imperfect “slip ups”, especially in those first few weeks and months of getting rid of the toxins that have built up in our bodies over the years. The key to success is to recognize and acknowledge the slip up when it happens and quickly continue on eating for health.

If we’ve sown seeds of compromise for several days, weeks, or even months, now is the time to stop. Stop immediately. Continue on the journey to eat for health. Forget the past. The past is the past. Let it go. There’s nothing that can be done about it and dwelling on the misery is counterproductive to optimal health.

Get up. Dust the dirt off and roll up the sleeves. Fix the nicks and dents in the picket fence by going back to key chapters in Eat to Live and Eat for Health and re-read them. Listen to the teleconference on overeating again. Ask for help from like-minded friends on Dr. Fuhrman’s members’ center. Abstain from making ice cream desserts until the taste buds have readjusted to enjoy the subtle flavors of greens again. Turn off the news and go outside for a walk. It may take several weeks or months to get back to optimal health again, but it will be sooooo worth it!

Have the mindset to nurture and gently care for the body. In those seemingly, insignificant choices, let’s all be kind to ourselves. Kindness is the backbone of superior health.

There’s freedom in boundaries.

Abstinence, not perfection, is one of the keys to success.

Let’s all enjoy living within the picket fence!

Freedom to all!

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This is an excerpt from Dr. Fuhrman’s book Eat For Health.

The dietary recommendations contained in this book and the elements that make a diet cardio protective have been tested in multiple studies. The evidence here is overwhelming. Let’s first look at the LDL cholesterol lowering effects of various dietary plans, as documented in published medical journal articles.

Eat for Health puts together many different qualities that make a diet cardio-protective and cholesterol-reducing. It’s not just a low-fat or vegetarian way of eating that makes a diet ideal. This eating-style has such dramatic benefits because it is very high in mixed fibers and vegetables and has sterols and other compounds from beans and nuts. This is the only dietary intervention shown to lower cholesterol as effectively as cholesterol-lowering medications. Though the low-fat vegetarian diet did lower LDL cholesterol 16 percent, triglycerides were actually 18.7 percent higher and the LDL/HDL ratio remained unchanged. The results of the study that patterned the recommendations of Eat for Health differed in that the LDL cholesterol was more significantly lowered without unfavorable impact on HDL or triglycerides, reflecting sizable improvement in cardiac risk factors. I have hundreds of patients in my medical practice who have witnessed dramatic reductions in their blood lipids, especially LDL cholesterol, without drugs.

Keep in mind that cholesterol lowering does not adequately explain the protective effect of Eat for Health in cardiovascular disease since the diet has powerful anti-inflammatory and other beneficial biochemical effects. Even though drugs may lower cholesterol, they cannot be expected to offer the dramatic protection against cardiovascular events that nutritional excellence can. The aggressive use of cholesterol-lowering drugs does not prevent most heart attacks and strokes and does not decrease the risk of fatal strokes.7 That is, in clinical trials a significant percentage of patients on the best possible statin therapy still experience events; however, lowering cholesterol with nutritional excellence can be expected to offer dramatically more protection and disease reversal compared to drug therapy, without the risk or expense of prescription medication.
 

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