I’ve listened to you since you first came on the air at KFYI. While I have always remained skeptical of many claims of the natural foods, natural healing, homeopathic crowd, I have reason to reconsider my position. If I may take a few minutes of your time:
I’m overweight and have tried diets. Don’t work. Two years ago I went to Lance Dreher. Well I went to his place twice a week, spent a lot of money, and followed the diet religiously for 4 months. Weight came off. And I felt terrible, just like I had before. But the weight did come down. The diet was restrictive, and frankly, unlivable.
Five weeks ago I had a heart test, which is heavily advertised on KFYI. The results scared me to death! Given my weight, blood pressure, cholesterol, and family history (an older brother died of a heart attack two years ago), the heart test put me in the 98% percentile for high risk! I immediately went to my MD with the results. He started using words like “by-pass” scaring me even more. I had a nuclear stress test. Results: negative. As the cardiologist explained it, there’s no correlation between calcium deposits and plaque build up. Still, I was overweight, hypertensive, etc.
I picked up a cookbook by Dr. Dean Ornish, who essentially preaches a vegetarian diet. As far as I can tell, he would agree with your recommendations that I have heard you teach over the years: low sugars, no or low fat, I’m off caffiene, whole grains ok, limit meat and dairy products. Now I realize that had I taken your teaching seriously years ago I would be much better off. In the four weeks that I have been a vegetarian, I have dropped 15 lbs effortlessly. I wake up in the morning and I feel great, and even better, I have energy to go all day. I can live with this: the food choices are exciting and easy to prepare. I even find I have to go to the bathroom less, and time in the restroom isn’t as (how can I put this politely?) smelly. I wish I had chosen a vegetarian lifestyle years ago.
Many times over the past year I would get confused as to whose diet is right: Lance’s or yours. Now I know the answer: yours. Now when I listen I really listen. Thanks for the good you do. You’ve made a difference in my life and thousands of others too.
Martin H.
