Past few days

Having fully intended to spend our anniversary on Monday doing "stuff", we were waylaid by the fact that EVERY SINGLE MUSEUM IN THIS CITY IS CLOSED ON MONDAYS. But it was a gorgeous day and it called for a walk. We went to the Arboretum (which is NOT closed on Mondays, nor any other day: you go,  Mama Nature!) and walked and talked and just enjoyed being together, After that a lunch out and errands to run. Funny how life does not stop around us even as we feel like time has stopped. On Tuesday we went to see the dietician to see what can we be doing differently to not just prevent further damage, but improve the occluded arteries. We had watched a movie "Forks Over Knives" on the recommendation of several friends that touts a complete vegan lifestyle. (including no processed oils etc) While the documentary seemed extreme in some ways, it had a lot of good points to make, but looking for a balance is more in line with our beliefs. I am a vegetarian, but leaning heavily towards "veganist" since I cannot eat cow dairy, but I do eat eggs in moderation. The dietician was super nice, didn't really give us a whole lot of new info, but clarified things that we were questioning. Things like "Does DH have to give up his 3 cow a day habit?" Kidding on that one, but DH has been known to be an all or nothing kind of guy. He was thinking zero meat from now on (my ideal) vs some. We will settle for the "some", but the limit is this: No more than 3 oz of lean red meat/chicken breast/low-fat cheese a day. And that is total, as in cheese sandwich for lunch that =1 oz, then only 2 oz of meat that evening. I have been pushing him to do more and more veggies, their recommendation 4-5 cups a day, plus 4-5 servings of fruit i.e. small apple would be a serving etc.They also said zero egg yolks, but if we had to have them, no more than 3 a week.  All these are common sense of course, but my idea of good nutrition may be different. In any case, we will strive for a good balance. Meanwhile, I will stick with my "veganist" lifestyle, as I had amazing results with my cholesterol levels after no meat for the past few months. For instance, my cholesterol, which had been steadily climbing these past few years dropped from 185 (even that was from a high last year of over 200) to 145. LDL went from 113 to 71 and non-hdl went from 123 to 84. Ok, there might just be something to the whole "no-meat" thing. However, DH is not ready for that drastic of a change, though I think he is willing to give it his best shot, as we really want to aim for reversal, a healing, not a band-aid approach to just stop the bleeding, so to speak. We were encouraged that we were on the right track. However, this is the bone I want to pick. Seeing a dietician is NOT covered by insurance unless you are diabetic Now if you were an insurance company and you had people prone to stroke/heart attack/obesity, wouldn't you want to encourage them to eat more healthy to cut back on the medical bills? I know a lot about nutrition from years of study but I am not an expert by any means, nor no former schooling for it, but I feel as if we have a pretty good handle on good nutrition. Granted everywhere you look you see articles on what to eat, so you would think it second nature that people would get the message. But our country's obesity and disease numbers are scary. Granted some of those diseases are due to chemicals, smoking,drugs and so on blah blah blah, but how much healthier would we be if the way we ate changed? Oh I could go on and on and bore you silly. Preaching over, but just wondering. Well, I am thinking that in a few months we might see a change in DH's bloodwork and possibly the occlusion. Should that be the case, I will try very very hard to not say "I told ya so!" Zip the lip. Not look superior. Just smile. I know it is extremely hard to work against genetics, as DH's dad died at the age of 49 from heart disease, but his mum lived into her 90's. So there you go, it's a 50/50 crap shoot.
PS My blog title today was "the last few days" but that sounded incredibly pessimistic. We agreed that we are still aiming for our 50th wedding anniversary, which would make DH 100 years old, and me 42. Cool. Good thing he married a child bride, I just keep getting younger....Here's to at least 32 more years...he promised me!