STRESS!!!!!!!!!!!

This has been a whirlwind couple of months. First, I got married in June. While this is an extremely happy event, the planning and execution can be extremely stressful. As if getting married was not enough pressure, I also decided it was time for a change of job and location. After some looking around and consideration, we decided on West Lafayette, IN on where to settle. Again, a decision that I am very happy about, but one that leads to a veritable storm of chaos, with selling one house, buying another, preparing to move, and making arrangements for leaving my old job and starting my new one.

OK. Enough about my life. You might be thinking "what does this have to do with a weight loss and wellness blog?" Valid question which I can answer in 1 word: stress. During the year and a half after my divorce, I ballooned from 200 lbs to almost 300. I am still working on losing the weight now. There are several reasons that I gained so much weight so quickly:

1. I overate. Many people, yours truly included, are stress eaters. I eat when I am angry, stressed, or upset. It causes trouble when I am pressed too hard, because I tend to overeat junk food (who has ever called broccoli "comfort food"). Despite the fact that I am aware of my stress eating, it still happens when I get very stressed or upset.

2. I didn't exercise. Exercise requires a fair amount of motivation and time. As I learned in my journey to fitness take one, exercise is something you have to commit to and plan for. It doesn't just happen. When your plate gets very full with other events and obligations, "optional" activities like exercise tend to go on the back burner.

3. Body chemistry. When you are under large amounts of stress, your own body chemistry works against you. Your adrenal glands release cortisol, which is the primary stress hormone. Cortisol oversees many chemical reactions in your body which were meant to deal with the difficulties of living in the ancient wilderness. One of those reactions was to prepare for a possible famine. Cortisol does this in two ways. First, it turns off most of your fat burning pathways, and shunts most new calories taken in to the formation of fat. The idea being to store up as many spare calories as possible for the famine to come. Wonderful if you are a caveman trying to survive the winter. Not so good if you live in a country with a KFC on every corner.

Clearly, based upon the above, I screwed up royally. Although I try very hard to take good care of my body most of the time, I handled this stressful year very poorly. For you all, my readers, my failure can be a good thing. I would love to share with you how I should have handled all of this.

Stress Management: The Right Way

1. Don't worry about what you can't control. I know it is difficult. I am not really good at it myself, but much of what we worry about is not controllable. Whether you choose to write down your worries and burn them, or place them on God, or the universe, or whatever you believe in, find a way to focus on what you can control, and ignore what you can't.

2. Make good dietary choices. Just because you may be a stress eater does not mean you have to gorge on junk food. If you feel the urge to eat, use my why/why method to make good food choices. Instead of gorging yourself on fried chicken and mac and cheese, gorge yourself on blueberries. Write down what you are eating and why, and you can identify problem times and foods.

3. Exercise! I don't care what you have to sacrifice in order to do it, but make at least 20-30 minutes a day to exercise. Exercise releases endorphins (to make you feel happy), lowers cortisol, and reduces stress. The more pressed for time you become, the more important it is to exercise.

4. Get plenty of sleep. Another part of our regimen that we tend to sacrifice when busy is sleep. It's hard to dedicate 6-8 hours to being unconscious. The problem is, inadequate sleep increases cortisol levels, and leads to overeating and weight gain.

Had I managed my stress this way, I might still weigh around 200 lbs, and not have to struggle my way through weight loss again. I hope you all can learn from my many mistakes, so that you don't have to repeat my unhappy situation.

M. Jacob Ott, MD

Vegan Vacation

It is summer. Travel season. Now that the kids are out of school, everyone is planning their summer trips, and going to such exciting vacation destinations as Disney World, Vegas, Hawaii, and the Caribbean. My family and I have a trip planned as well. I have to say that I am quite excited about it.

One of the things I find hardest about vacations is the travel itself. As a reformed overeater and vegan, travel is quite scary at times. At home, I control my diet and exercise stringently, as that is the way that I lost all the weight in the first place. When I travel, all of those rules go out the window. That being said, there are strategies which can help you deal with the rigors of travel, and still keep to your vegan diet and exercise. I will outline these below:

1. The Airport: Unfortunately, the airport is a hotbed of bad food. I have been to many airports in my time, and I am sad to say that the vegan options are very limited. In smaller airports, you are usually limited to a small salad or some fruit from one of the few restaurants available. In larger airports, there will occasionally be an establishment which specializes in vegan cuisine, but at least you can usually find a sushi place or something similar, and get veggie rolls or the like. What I usually choose to do is pack my own snacks ahead of time. Dried fruits, nuts, and fruit bars, such as Larabars are wonderful vegan options.
2. The Airplane: Once you cross the jetway, forget it. I don't know of a single airline who still offers vegan meals. Their pathetic a la carte "menus" offer no vegan choices. Even if you request a vegan meal, the request won't be honored. This applies even if you fly first class. In 7 years of flying as a vegan, I have yet to get a single vegan meal aboard an airplane...
3. The destination: Once you reach your destination, your job is often the hardest. The temptation to eat bad foods "because I am on vacation, and the rules don't apply" is very high. Additionally, if you are like me, you plan lots of activities on vacation. Thus, exercising is difficult, as time is limited. I have learned a couple of strategies to deal with this:
1. Lose the vacation mentality: First, forget you are on vacation. You still need to eat the same as you would on the DevolveHealth eating plan at home. Remember, though, the DevolveHealth plan does allow for "occasional" animal products. If you want a bite or two of dessert, go ahead. Just don't throw the rules out completely
2. Wake up early. I know this is difficult on vacation, but getting up an hour early allows you to get a run in (hopefully on the beach), and still be back and ready before your vacation companions even wake up. You can run 3-4 miles every day during vacation, with only a little discipline.
4. Back Home: Believe it or not, I find this to be the most difficult. Because we all have that vacation mentality, once you return to your home, it is often hard to get back into your normal routine. Saying to yourself "I will start running and eating well again tomorrow, but today, I am going to let everything go" is very easy. I find the best way to deal with this is to re-establish the routine from day one. Get up. eat a breakfast of fruits and veggies, and go for a run. Get right back on the train, so that the human sense of routines kicks in. We are creatures of habit. If you reclaim your routine, it will take over, and your good eating and exercise will support themselves.

Most experts, including me agree that vacations are very hard on a fitness routine. I hope the strategies that I have shared will help you maintain healthy habits during your vacation, yet still allow quite a bit of fun. If you need more help on eating or exercise, please visit my website: www.devolvehealth.com, or contact me: drott@devolvehealth.com. Also, please feel free to post your experiences with diet and vacation on this blog, as other readers may need the inspiration.

Good luck to all and enjoy your summer!!!

M. Jacob Ott, MD

So you call yourself an environmentalist?

I read a recent study that 70% of Americans consider themselves to be environmentalists. Green is very much the in color right now. People are opting for higher fuel efficiency cars, recycling their trash, putting solar panels on their roofs, and using fewer utilities to save our precious resources.

I  don't know about all of you, but I love the environmental movement. It is good to know that we can help pass the earth to future generations with hopefully minimal impact. If you ask most people who are the biggest offenders to the environment are, they would say humankind. In a way, they are right.One sector of human endeavor does contribute massively to energy waste and greenhouse gases. It isn't the automobile industry, nor is it factories and other manufacturing. What is this huge drain on our resources? Meat.

The meat industry, in particular factory farms, is a leech on the environment. The meat farmers claim to produce quality products at a cheap price. I'll give them one thing: the price tag on the grocery store packages is relatively low. What they don't tell you about is the cost to society and the planet. Since they won't, I will.

1. The raising of billions of animals for slaughter takes a lot of grain and water. It takes approximately 12 pounds of grain and 2,500 gallons of water to produce just ONE POUND of beef. Due to the fossil fuels required to produce the grain, that equals 1 gallon of gas. Since the average beef cow weighs in around 1000 lbs, it takes 1000 gallons of gas to raise one cow. All in all, factory farming accounts for 18% of the fossil fuel used in America today. That is more than all the cars on the road, even before you take into account the gas required to ship the dead cows around the country to get to your local grocery store.
2. The concentration of thousands of animals in a small enclosure leads to humongous amounts of waste (urine and feces). The waste is pumped into giant lagoons, some of which is used as drinking water for the animals themselves, but the rest of which seeps into the ground water, ruining the quality of the water we all drink every day. Some even seeps into the air, causing asthma and other respiratory ailments. People who live near or work on factory farms have 3 times the rate of asthma of the general population.
3. The cheap corn and soybeans that are used for feeding this mass of animals can come from South America and other places, contributing to deforestation of the precious rain forests.
4. The massive amounts of Methane and Sulfur dioxide produced by the animals (farts) contributes more to greenhouse gases than all vehicles on the roads combined.

The reason I find this interesting is the statistic I quoted at the beginning: 70% of Americans consider themselves environmentalists. Yet 95% of Americans eat meat, and 99% of Americans eat dairy, eggs, or other animal products. Given the facts presented above, you simply CANNOT be an environmentalist if you choose to eat animal products. Unless you farm the animals yourself (in a non factory manner), you are enabling that system. Eating organic doesn't help. Organic operations are just as factory as the next guy.

If you care about the environment like I do, I hope that you use these newly learned facts to opt out of the factory farming system. Your health and our planet will be all the better for it.

Feel free to share any experiences or thoughts you have on your journey to true environmentalism and a truly sustainable lifestyle. Good luck!

M Jacob Ott, MD

Fat Pride. Why it Isn't Good for Us

Let me begin by saying that this post may not be completely politically correct. I don't really like political correctness very much. Being super careful not to offend anyone is not really a great way to motivate. I will also say that I am sensitive to the issues I am about to present. As a fat, then skinny, and now fat again person, I more than most understand the issues that overweight people face. I have been made fun of, and felt insecurity and depression about my body image.

With all of that said, I HATE the current "fat pride" movement. In this era of equality and social progressiveness, we are taught that however a person chooses to live is totally OK, and that we should celebrate their life choices. Now, I am in no way racist or sexist. I am really glad that women have achieved equal rights, and that people of non-white ethnicities have made huge strides in social, economic, and academic circles. I am also very glad that gay marriage has become acceptable. Regardless of your beliefs about the sinfulness or lack thereof of homosexuality, I think most people can agree that gay marriage is a political, not a religious issue. I truly believe that everyone deserves equal protection under the law, regardless of what the dominant religion has to say about it. (I am Christian, but in America, religion and law are two separate issues).

The fat pride movement is quite different. There are plusses and minuses to it. I'll start with the positive. It is a good thing that people are happy with who they are, and don't have to suffer major self-esteem issues because they don't fit society's standard of beauty. Here in America, beauty seems to be the most important objective. Most people want to lose weight because they need to fit into a bikini, or look good in their little black dress.

Which leads us to the big minus: beauty is a secondary concern. As a doctor, I am primarily concerned about people's health. Unlike being a woman, being African American, or being gay, obesity leads to scads of health problems, including high blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease, stroke, depression, chronic pain, and most likely early death. This is my big problem with fat pride. People use it as an excuse to forgive themselves for what is usually a deep emotional issue, or a major addiction. It would be similar to having a movement for alcoholic pride, or meth abuser pride. Just because someone chooses a certain lifestyle doesn't mean that it needs to be celebrated.

I am pissed off at myself because I gave up and got fat again. I don't want to accept my body. I am not depressed or unhappy, but I am not satisfied with how I currently am. My goal is to reach 175 lbs (about 100 from where I am now). After reflecting for a long time about the fat pride movement, I have decided to selectively accept a few things, and reject others. I accept that overweight people should not be ridiculed or disrespected just because they don't fit our narrow view of beauty. I reject that we should stay how we are out of some misguided sense of pride or arrogance. Thankfully, no one need ever be obese. All it takes to find health and a normal weight is a few lifestyle changes.

The DevolveHealth eating plan is simple, easy to understand, and works every single time. All you have to do is follow 3 guidelines:

1. Eat foods like they grow in nature. (No processed sugars, oils, or "food products."
2. Eat a wide variety of fruits, vegetables, legumes, nuts, and grain, and very little if any meat, dairy, or eggs.
3. Choose food for nutrition, not flavor.

Easy to implement, sometimes hard to follow. As I always tell myself in a weak moment, nothing worth having is easy. So refuse to be insulted because you are overweight, but also refuse to accept that obesity is the only possible outcome for you. Join me in reclaiming your health and fitness, and post your comments on here, or on my Facebook page (www.facebook.com/devolvehealth). Or go to my web page, and send me an email (www.devolvehealth.com). I would be thrilled to share in your journey, or hear about your successes and hardships.

M. Jacob Ott, MD

Do you love your pets?

I must admit, I love pets. We currently have 3 dogs and a cat. They cause unlimited amounts of trouble, and I try to convince them that I am mad at them by telling them that I don't like them and that I am upset by what they did.

Fact of the matter is: I like having them around when I am alone. They lay next to me when I sleep, and they are very happy to see me when I get home. Next to my wife and my kids, they are the beings I love most in the world.

I know what you are thinking. How do pets have a place in a health and wellness blog. We'll get there, and you'll likely be horrified, as I was. My job is not to keep you happy, but to expose you to issues that you might not experience in the mainstream media, when it is pertinent to your health and well being. Since I have been a vegan for 4 years, with a year hiatus, and have extensively studied animal execution, factory farming, and animal welfare, I was surprised I had never learned about this. I'm glad I have now. Big Meat might be mad at me for sharing this, but I wouldn't feel right unless I talked about this with you, my followers who have chosen the path of health and wellness.

First, we have to start with the food chains of Asia. In many cultures in Asia, the dog is considered a valid part of the food chain. They kill, butcher, and eat dogs, as we do to cows, pigs, and chicken. Most Americans consider dog eating to be abhorrent, mainly because we choose to keep those animals as pets, name them, and care for them, rather than choosing them as food.

I have two points here. First, why are dogs not considered food in the west? They are just as nutritious as pigs, cows, and chicken. They are no smarter than pigs, in fact, they may be much less intelligent. They are no better as guard animals. A pig will give its life to defend its master against a physical threat, even to the point of death. I love dogs, but how can we justify the way we treat pigs, when they are more intelligent and just as loyal as dogs? If you are unfamiliar with how we currently treat pigs in America, they are contained in crates barely bigger than their bodies. They have their tails cut off without pain control because they go insane under such conditions. After about 6 weeks of force feeding, they are brought to the processing plant, where nearly 1/3 of them are still awake while they are skinned, put through a boiling water bath, and dissected alive, before being bled out and finally dying. I don't know about you, but that isn't how I'd like my dog to be treated. BTW, that is how almost all animals destined for your dinner plate are treated. If you don't believe me, google "slaughterhouse practices." You will see more than you ever want to.

Point two has to do with dogs and cats that are unwanted. Many sources estimate that 6-8 million dogs and cats are euthanized every year. Most of these animals are born because of irresponsible spaying and neutering practices. I feel sad about the number of unwanted pets, but even worse about what I found out considering what happens to them. Let's say a clinic euthanizes a large number of dogs and cats. What do they do with the bodies? They cremate some that their owners want. The rest are sold to rendering plants. The bodies are ground into meat, brain tissue, and bone meal. This meal makes very cheap feed, which is given to chicken, cows, and pigs. Those of you who were happy that you didn't live in Asia because you didn't eat dog or cat, surprise! You eat the flesh of virtually every dog and cat who is killed in this country, only second hand through what you call chicken, pork, and beef.

Why do the meat farmers feed the ground up bodies of cats and dogs to the animals we eat? Simple answer: Money. Rendered dog and cat corpses are rather cheap. That lowers their cost of operation, which lowers the cost of the meat. If they then sell at the same price, they get to pocket the difference as profit. They also grind up the bodies of lame cows, cattle, and chicken, and feed them to the live animals for the same reason. Although the practice has been banned in Europe for decades, it is considered "standard industry practice" and is exempted by federal law. These laws are largely written by Congressmen and Senators who are given scads of money by lobbyists for factory farmers.

There are a couple of reasons I give you this information: first, I want you to know what exactly goes into the food that you eat. The big meat companies could come down on me hard for what I am telling you, but I think you deserve to know the truth. Second, I want you to be healthy. Do you think that chickens, pigs, and cows, whose normal diet is based on grazing should be fed the ground up tissue of their own species (also known as cannibalism) and those of other animals? Is eating the byproducts of those sick animals good for your health? As a doctor, I can tell you the answer is no. Salmonella, E Coli: 0157:H7, Shigella, and prion diseases, such as Mad Cow Disease (known in humans as Crutchfeld-Jacob Disease) are the result of feeding animals to animals.

Fortunately, if you want to avoid adding to this system and contributing to both disease and the cruelty that these animals suffer, all you have to do is adopt a plant based diet. Plants harbor no such diseases, and do not suffer merely because we like to eat a steak now and again. Eating plants, fruits, legumes, and nuts is not only nutritionally sound, and conducive to weight loss, but is also free of killing poor cats and dogs, and eating animals which likely contain deadly disease.

If you want to opt out of factory farming, and the lies told by the meat industry, feel free to comment, email me at drott@devolvehealth.com, or visit my website at www.devolvehealth.com

M Jacob Ott, MD

So You Want to be a Vegan?

I've been looking back on the history of DevolveHealth lately. I started this company in 2010. The reason that I started DevolveHealth was because I saw the results that a plant based diet and good exercise habits had in my life. I went from 350 lbs to 200 lbs, and discovered levels of energy that I never knew were possible.

In 2012, I had a little hiccough in my life. If you define hiccough as your wife has an affair and leaves you, and you go through over a year of depression. Needless to say, this whole episode left me rather devastated. I didn't really care about anything, and that included my own health. I forgot all the hard work I had put into reforming my mind and body, and went back to my old habits of overeating and being sedentary. Not surprisingly, I gained a significant portion of my weight back, topping out near 300 lbs again.

Even despite this, I never forgot the way I was from 2010 to 2012. I longed to get back to the way I looked and felt at that time. I tried multiple diets- I won't mention their names, but they all have very popular books that make a lot of money. For some reason, I didn't consider going back to the vegan diet which had gotten me to my goal in the first place.

Not surprisingly, none of those diets really work. In fact, one of the guiding principles of DevolveHealth is that diets don't work. It is rather amusing, but I didn't take my own advice at all. Finally a few weeks ago, I came back to my senses, and got back to my roots, so to speak.

Returning to veganism made me think about going through the process of eliminating animal products from my diet in the first place. Hopefully, some of you have read some of my other blog posts, and see the wisdom and health value of avoiding animal products. If not, please go back and read some of them. This post is dedicated to those of you who would like to go vegan, but feel like it might be too hard, or just plain don't know how.

For those of you who think it will be hard, I won't lie to you. Avoiding animal products is not easy. Both times I went vegan, I suffered meat cravings for about a week to two weeks. That being said, finding foods to eat is not that hard. Even in your local grocery store, there is a tremendous variety of fruits, vegetables, legumes, and nuts. You just have to be willing to experiment, and have an open mind. When I was just a fledgling vegan, the thing I had the most trouble with was figuring out what to cook. There are loads of vegan cookbooks out there (my personal favorite is the Veganomicon, by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero), and plenty of websites which offer free vegan recipes. My favorites:

www.vegweb.com: offers over 10,000 vegan recipes of all kinds.
www.allrecipes.com: not specifically vegan, but has a large vegan section

I promise you, it isn't nearly as hard as you think it may be. I was a staunch omnivore. In high school, if anyone would have been voted "most likely to die while eating a steak" it was me. The term "meat and potatoes man" found its literal meaning in me. If I can do it, so can you. No excuses.

If you fall into the "I want to go vegan, but I don't know how" group, then here is some advice I learned the hard way, through trial and error:

1. Eat a variety of foods. Vegan diets are nutritionally sound, and superior to diets with meat in virtually every way, with one proviso. You have to eat a variety of foods. Rice, beans, green leafy veggies, nuts, legumes, and soy, tempeh, seitan. Use the websites above for ideas and be adventurous. 
2. Avoid processed foods. Oreo's are technically vegan. They aren't good for you. With all the processed vegan products out there today, it is easy to become a "junk food vegan." Make sure the foods you eat are in the form they grew in nature. Avoid processed sugars and refined oils as much as possible. It is fine to indulge once in a while, but refined sugars are just as bad for vegans as they are for meat eaters.
3. Get ready to poop a lot. One byproduct of eating lots of vegetables and beans is that you will probably get 50-80 grams of fiber daily. While this is good for preventing colon cancer, It also means several trips to the restroom per day. On the upside, you'll never be constipated...
4. Get a B12 and a Vitamin D supplement. Vitamin D intake is too low in vegans and meat eaters alike. B12, which vegans would normally get from the bacteria in the dirt on the plants they ate, is gone in our toxic soil, and needs to be supplemented. I recommend 5000 IU of D per day, and 1000 mcg of B12 once weekly. The best B12 is the type of tablet that dissolves under the tongue.
5. If you feel craving for meat, get a meat replacement product. Although these aren't the best for you, as they are heavily processed, they are OK in a pinch, and vastly better than going back to meat. There is a wide array of soy burgers, hot dogs, sausages, and other meat like products at your local grocery store.
6. PLAN AHEAD. This is really important. Although restaurants and cafeterias are getting better about offering vegan options, not every place has them. Some places say they have vegan entrees, but they are cooked in butter or the like. Family gatherings, weddings, and parties can be especially bad, as they usually lack vegan food choices. Be sure to bring a snack with you (some nuts or carrots, an apple, banana, or peach) so that you have something to eat in a real pinch. If I am going to a party or wedding, I like to eat a vegan meal ahead of time, just in case. The same is true of air travel. Airplanes never feed you anymore, and airports have very limited choices. Pack some good vegan snacks in your carry-on.
7. Be prepared for people to think you are odd. Meat eating is very ingrained into our culture. People think all vegans are tree hugging hippies. If you tell someone you are vegan, they will pepper you with questions. Read my post entitled "What are you Eating?" for more info on the questions. Even if they think you are odd, most people are intrigued, and those questions can be a good jumping off point to discuss a better lifestyle with them (as long as you don't sound pompous and preachy)
8. Get ready to feel good. Now that your body no longer wastes half of its energy trying to digest meat, you will feel younger, with tons of energy. Funnel that into exercise, family, and fun!

I'm not kidding about any of this. Try going vegan for a month, and if you don't feel a world of difference, I will refund the $0 you paid to read this blog. (Seriously, you will notice a large difference)

If you need more info on how to make the change and opt out of the Standard American Diet, feel free to comment, visit my website www.devolvehealth.com, or email me at drott@devolvehealth.com 

(Not so) Evil Fat

Weight: 272
Running: 3 miles today. Felt AWESOME!!

Fat. It is a word we have all been trained to fear over the last generation or so. It has almost become dogma among doctors and nutritionists that fat makes you fat. If you ask virtually any doctor what you should eat to be healthy, especially if you have a history of heart disease, you will be told to eat a "low sodium, low fat, heart healthy diet."

Why has fat been so stigmatized? To answer that question, we are going to take a step back in time. The beginning of the anti-fat movement has its roots in the 50's. It began not scientifically, but with common sense. If the problem is that you are carrying too much fat, then eating fat will only make things worse. To back this up, they began to design (rather poorly) studies in the 60's which confirmed that increased intake of fat, especially saturated fat, increased risk of heart disease and death. The birth of the low fat diet had happened. From there, citing these poor studies, the American College of Cardiology recommended a low fat diet in the prevention of coronary artery disease (CAD). What the doctors of the time (and even today) failed to realize is that human metabolism is far more complex than fat being turned into fat.

I apologize, but I have to go into a little chemistry here. There are many types of fats:

Saturated fat: a fat in which all of the carbon molecules (the c's) are occupied by hydrogens. Saturated fats occur in most animal products, and some plant products like avocado, nuts, and coconut. They are solid at room temperature.

Monounsaturated fat: Notice that one of the carbons in this molecule has a double bond to the one next to it. Thus, it is not "saturated" with Hydrogen. These fats occur in mostly plant oils, like olive oil.

Polyunsaturated fat: More than one of the carbon atoms has a double bond. There are 3 main varieties:

• Omega 3- The first double bond is in the 3rd carbon atom
• Omega 6- The first double bond is in the 6th
• Omega 9- The first double bond is in the 9th

Trans fat: A type of monounsaturated fat where the Hydrogens in the double bond are on opposite sides of the molecule. These have the advantage of being super stable and having a long shelf life, making them ideal for selling. They have the disadvantage of causing horrible amounts of blood vessel inflammation in humans. These do not occur in nature and only are made by food companies for use in fried foods. Many types of chips and microwave popcorn have vast amounts of trans fat. This is the big baddie.

Cholesterol: A complex molecule used in the cell membrane of virtually every cell in your body, as well as in steroid molecules, testosterone, estrogen, and many other hormones. The USDA has a daily recommended intake of cholesterol, but the human body is perfectly capable of making cholesterol without any help. You don't have to take in any, and a high cholesterol level is well linked to heart disease.

So on to the myth about fats. They are not all bad. In fact, there are essential fats. Our bodies can't make two fatty acids we really need: alpha-linolenic acid (an omega-3 fatty acid) and linoleic acid (an omega-6 fatty acid). They should be consumed in the ratio of about 2:1 with the 2 being omega 3. Flax, walnuts, and some other nuts are great sources of omega 3. 

The truth is even broader than that, however. Fats from plant products are quite beneficial for you. Whereas animal fats (particularly from factory farmed animals who are fattened on corn) cause CAD, systemic inflammation, and create the small LDL's (the bad ones that cause artery disease), plant fats actually decrease information, slow artery plaque formation, and contribute to satiation, causing you to eat less.

You'll notice if you read my DevolveHealth eating rules at www.devolvehealth.com, they say nothing about fat intake. If you eat a varied diet including nuts, seeds, healthy oils such as flax and olive, chia seeds, avocado, and coconut oil in mild to moderate amounts, you will get plenty of the essential fats that you need, and avoid the evil trans fats and animal saturated fats. The foods to avoid are animal products and processed (especially fried) foods.

I know what you are thinking: "what about salmon? They say salmon has lots of omega 3's." While this is true, you can easily get the same omega 3's from plant sources, and avoid the antibiotics fed to farmed fish. Also, you can avoid the Mercury load that you get from predator fish such as salmon. 

Bottom line: if you want to be healthy, ignore the guidelines about fat, stop counting calories, and follow the DevolveHealth eating rule #1:

Eat a wide variety of fruits, vegetables, grains, nuts, and legumes, and very little if any meat, dairy, or eggs.

If you do this, you will not only notice weight loss (if that's what you're looking for), but also increased energy, and lower risk of chronic disease.

Happy eating! Feel free to comment and let me know your results!

Vegan Children

Weight: 273
Running: 2 miles today.

I recently had a conversation with my daughter. She is a wonderful girl, almost nine years old, and she wants to be a vet. She loves animals almost more than people, and has a huge heart.

Totally unprompted, she came up to me and ask why people hurt animals. She had overheard a conversation about someone hurting their dog. I told her that some people are just mean, and that they feel strong when they hurt the helpless.

Never one to take a simple explanation at face value, my girl then wanted to talk about hunting and killing animals for food. She said that she understood that we need to eat animals for food, and that people hunt and raise animals for that purpose. She wanted to know why we had to kill animals for food.

I'm not one to hide things from my daughter. She is way too smart for that. I explained to her that in the distant past, humans had to eat whatever they could find, since they didn't have the variety of food readily available that we do today, and this would include whatever animals they could catch or kill. I also explained to her how things had changed. How factory farms now saw these animals immobilized. How beaks and pigs' tails were cut off for the convenience of the farmers. How more than 10 billion chickens were killed annually to feed only 300 million people. And finally, how the animals often get ill or go crazy from the confinement and unnatural conditions.

The funny thing is that none of this needs to happen. All of these animals die for a personal preference. People like to eat meat. It tastes good (not something that I disagree with). People don't HAVE to eat meat. Even the American Dietetic Association, who promoted the absolute necessity of meat for optimal health has acknowledged:

"Many people make the switch to a vegetarian diet because of the potential health benefits. According to the 2010 Dietary Guidelines, vegetarian eating patterns have been associated with improved health outcomes including lower levels of obesity, a reduced risk of heart disease and lower blood pressure. Also, vegetarians tend to consume a lower proportion of calories from fat and fewer overall calories, and more fiber, potassium and vitamin C than non-vegetarians. These characteristics, plus lifestyle factors, may contribute to the health benefits among vegetarians."

Completely true. No one needs to eat meat at all. Not even children. Not only are plant based diets better for health, but they are 100% complete in terms of the nutrients that human beings need. Even B12, which meat farmers (read: animal torturers) tout as only coming from meat, can easily be obtained from nutritional yeast. The ADA has this to say on the subject of vegetarian children:

"Balanced vegetarian diets are healthy for children and 
may help them maintain a healthy body weight."

This brings up an interesting question: how does something as unimportant as taste justify the slaughter of billions of animals yearly? Taste is just a sensation. Would we feel the same about killing animals if we enjoyed it visually? Of course not. Why does our taste get a pass?

My 8 year old daughter reached the same conclusion. In her innocent child like ways, she asked "but daddy, if we don't have to eat animals for food any more, why do we still hurt them?" I don't really have a good answer for that question, but it is a valid one. Why do we continue to kill cows, so that we can have fast food hamburgers? Why do we kill pigs so that we can have ham for New Year's or Christmas? Why do we kill turkeys or chickens so that we can have Thanksgiving dinner, or eat fried chickens and potatoes?

I gave her the best answer I could. I told her that lots of companies made an awful lot of money off of the system, and that the system wouldn't change easily. When she asked me what she could do to fix it, I told her she could opt out. Opting out is a powerful thing. Each of us who refuses to consume animal products takes money out of the hands of the animal farmers. If enough of us do so, we will force them to choose a different income stream.

The main reason I adopted a vegan diet was for health concerns. That being said, I don't like cruelty, and I'm sure most of you feel the same. If you don't like the tortured death of billions of animals for something that we don't even need, choose to opt out too. I'm proud of my eight year old for wanting to do the right thing. She is young and healthy. What she cares about is the animals. If you do decide to opt out for whatever reason, please comment and let me know. I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Gluten Hell

Wheat. It seems pretty innocuous. A tall grass, indigenous to most of North and South America. Humans have been consuming wheat and wheat related products for centuries if not millennia. Records from the earliest settled societies, such as the Egyptians, Babylonians, and Aztecs, show evidence of the consumption of wheat and other grains. In fact, they are possibly the first plants which were grown by mankind in order to eat, a clear fork in the road from the hunting and gathering that our ancestors used to do.

The main difference between grains like wheat and other plants that our ancestors might have been able to find is the need of processing. Most of the wheat grass is indigestible. The seeds of the plant are all that we can eat, but that requires a great deal of processing. Since processing requires technology, most processed foods are not what we are designed to eat.

This seems to go for wheat as well. The main problem with wheat is a protein called gluten. It is from a class of proteins called leptins. They are present in all grains including rice and corn, but the gluten from wheat is by far the worst.

When I was in medical school, they taught us about celiac disease. It was characterized as a very rare disease. I became much more interested in gluten in the past year or so. My new wife, and most likely my son, are gluten intolerant. Just a bit of wheat in bread, cookies, or many other products, gives them abdominal cramping, and in the case of my son, diarrhea.

Given my close connection to gluten intolerance, I did a bit of research. The gluten in wheat is rather toxic to the human body. It causes damage to the intestinal cells, allowing bacteria and other nasties to enter the system. It also interferes with the absorption of other nutrients, leading to the ironic phenomenon of being malnourished while still having plenty to eat. Gluten intolerance is a spectrum, and the degree of symptoms is determined by just how sensitive you are. Symptoms of gluten intolerance include: vomiting, abdominal cramping, diarrhea, weight loss, headaches, and weakness. Additionally, gluten intolerance has been linked to such auto-immune diseases such as Crohn's disease, fibromyalgia, multiple sclerosis, lupus, and certain forms of cancer, such as leukemia and lymphoma.

When I became aware of these findings, I decided to use myself as a guinea pig (I kind of like to do that). I cut gluten out of my own diet. I have occasionally had bouts of cramping abdominal pain, diarrhea, and fatigue, for which I didn't know the cause. Within a month of switching to a gluten free diet, those symptoms went completely away. I had more energy than ever. It even helped with my workouts, since I had more energy.

The interesting thing is how little I learned about this very dangerous nutrient in medical school. As such, if you have been to your doctor with chronic versions of the symptoms mentioned above, it is highly likely that your doctor will not recognize the diagnosis since they are not aware of all of this current research.

If you do suffer from any of these chronic ailments, I would encourage you to cut gluten from your diet (in addition to eating mostly fruits, vegetables, and seeds and nuts) for at least a month. I know it is hard, since wheat is in so many products. If you give it a try, I think you will feel much better and many of your symptoms will disappear, as mine did.

If this works (or even if it doesn't) please comment and share your experience with me. As always, if you want or need nutrition or exercise advice, feel free to contact me: drott@devolvehealth.com. Also, if you respond to this post, look at www.devolvehealth.com, or my facebook page, www.facebook.com/devolvehealth, I will be happy to offer any help I can.

M. Jacob Ott, MD

The "Wonders" of Modern Medicine

Doctors are excellent salespeople. I know, because I am one. When I see a patient, I have a lot of selling to do. First, I have to sell myself to the patient, in the sense that I have to get them to trust me. Without the patient's trust, they are very unlikely to do anything I say. Next, I need to sell my chosen course of therapy to the patient. It is well known that the placebo effect constitutes about 30% of any treatment. The practical meaning of this is that if the patient does not believe the medicine I am giving them will work, it is highly unlikely to do so. Finally, if I am to admit the patient to the hospital, I have to "sell" the admission to the physician who will be taking care of them on the floor. If I do a poor job of this, and the admitting doctor doesn't believe there is enough cause to justify the admission, they will not admit the patient, and the patient's life could potentially be jeopardized.

The profession of medicine has sold our usefulness to the general public. We have done so out of necessity. Most of us, while getting into medicine in order to help people, also need to make a living. I am one of the lucky few who are employed by a hospital, and am paid hourly for my work. In private practice, a doctor's earnings come solely from the number of patients they see, and what exams, studies, and procedures they can bill for.

With this comes a sort of hypocrisy. Doctors have to make themselves indispensable to patients, in order to get them to come to the office. Also, they have to have reasons for patients to keep coming in. Hence the yearly physical your doctor insists that you get, and for the older population, the monthly or weekly visits for blood pressure checks and the like.

The problem is, somewhere along the line, we as a profession oversold ourselves. We made the general public believe that if they had ANY symptom, no matter how mild, they needed to have it checked out by a doctor. As a consequence, during the months of October thru February, my ER is flooded with people who have nothing more than an upper respiratory infection (the common cold). They come to the ED with runny nose, cough, aches, chills, and fever.

The fact of the matter is, no matter what I do, they will be better somewhere between 3 and 7 days, depending on their individual immune system. Barring very high risk groups (infants under 3 months, and people over 90, as well as cancer patients on chemo), these symptoms don't require any tests, treatment, or the monitoring of a medical professional. 99% + of people with URI symptoms don't need to come to the ED. They don't even need to see their family doctor. They just need to drink a cup of tea and rest for a few days, and they will be just fine.

That brings up the natural question of why do these people come see me? People in general are not stupid. They won't do something unless they think they will get something out of it. The only possible answer is that they believe I have something to offer them. Aside from some medicines I can give for symptom relief (many of which can be purchased over the counter), I don't.

What is interesting is when you generalize this principle to all of medicine. In reality, very few things we do in medicine make much difference. There are obviously some exceptions:

• Surgery for emergent conditions such as appendicitis, bowel obstruction, and the like
• Vaccines (no, they don't cause autism, and yes, the absolutely work. When is the last time you saw someone with smallpox)
• Antibiotics for truly life threatening infections (pneumonia, skin infections, sepsis (blood infection), diverticulitis (an intestinal infection), and others)
• Heart catheterization for people having an acute heart attack
• Aspirin for heart attack (although this is a bit of a cheat, given that the ancient Egyptians used willow bark for pain relief and multiple other purposes over 300 years ago. Aspirin is made from willow bark).

This isn't a comprehensive list, but the treatments above are the best of the best.

Other than that, much of what we do, even in the very ill patient, is merely optimizing conditions and waiting for the body to either heal itself, or succumb to disease. Here is a list of medical treatments that have marginal if any benefit:

• Surgery and chemotherapy for most type of cancers (increase survival across the board by 1-2%)
• Heart catheterization for chronic chest pain (no evidence of increased lifespan)
• Coronary bypass surgery (no evidence of either long term symptom reduction or increased lifespan)
• Statins for heart disease prevention (they make your lab numbers look better, but they don't prolong life or prevent heart attacks)
• Opiate pain medicines for chronic pain (they just lead to a cycle of addiction. Your body increases its opiate receptors ironically making ALL pain worse)
• TPA "clotbuster" for acute stroke (the jury is still out on this one, although more studies than not have shown no benefit)
• Insulin and oral medicines for Type II diabetes. (Type I, or childhood diabetes, absolutely benefits from tight glucose control with insulin, but that is a totally different disease process)

So, you might be asking, what is the point of all this? Well, in the midst of all of our advances in technology and multitudes of new drugs hitting pharmacy shelves daily, we have forgotten the forest for the trees. Doctors on average have about 3 hours of nutrition education during school. During the average patient visit (about 10 minutes, just so a doctor can make a little bit of profit with a completely full schedule), virtually no time is devoted to educating patients on the benefits of the correct diet and exercise in preventing disease.

Doctors want to help people. If we had the time and knowledge, we'd talk much more about eating right and exercise than drugs and procedures. Big pharmacy doesn't really care about helping you. Unfortunately, there is no money in healthy people. They don't take very many medicines. If, on the other hand, you have several chronic diseases for which you need to take medicine daily for life, jackpot!

So, if you want to achieve better health, the answer is not in a pill. Now, don't get me wrong. Life threatening emergencies like heart attacks, strokes, and such are still dangerous, and emergent treatment is often quite helpful, so definitely don't avoid medical care if you think you have something serious. Just keep in mind the things that clearly don't work.

Now, compare the list of things that don't work to a vegan diet and exercise. Below are the benefits of a vegan diet:

• 50% lower risk of heart disease as compared to meat eaters
• 50-66% lower cholesterol
• Less than half the likelihood of high blood pressure
• 40-60% lower rate of stroke
• 40% lower rate of depression
• 66% lower rate of obesity
• Lifespan between 4 and 8 years longer than people who eat animal products
• 70% lower risk of cancer (especially the big 3- colon, breast, and prostate)

Hippocrates, the father of modern medicine said over 2500 years ago "let food be thy medicine." I find it ironic that more than two millennia later, despite all of our formidable technology and giant grab bag of drugs, his advice is still the most sound and effective.

Omnivore Rage

Omnivore Rage

Weight: 275

Exercise: Ran 2 mi yesterday, 3 mi today.

Having been a vegan for about 4 years (with a 1 year lapse in between), I am well used to all the usual questions that omnivores ask: 

"Where do you get your protein?"

"Doesn't eating only plants get boring?"

"How can you be a runner and not eat meat?"

"How can you possibly live without milk and cheese? I could never do that."

"What are you eating?!?"

"Quinoa? Never heard of it. Sounds gross."

The list goes on and on. Not that I'm complaining. The massive amounts of energy I get from eating vegan more than make up for it. I knew from the moment 4 years ago that I decided to stop eating meat, eggs, and dairy that I would be viewed as odd by most mainstream people. (Any of you who know me personally, already know that I am a bit odd, and totally comfortable with it). Thus, I thought I was very well prepared for anything that could be thrown my way about the subject of veganism and fitness.

The other day, I was totally caught by surprise. I was speaking with a very good friend of mine (who shall remain nameless), and happened to mention the fact that I was vegan again. As most people do, he peppered me with several questions about a vegan diet, and why I choose it. I apparently mistook his questions for genuine interest and politely suggested that he check out the facts, and perhaps consider adopting a vegan diet himself. I was totally unprepared for what happened next.

This friend of mine, normally a quite rational person, became angry. He raised his voice and said that he "would never do that." Further, he asserted that "people have to eat meat," and that anyone who doesn't is not only "dumb" but also a "scrawny weakling."

Ignoring the obvious insults, I asked him why we have to eat meat. He said "what else are you going to eat at Thanksgiving, Easter, or Christmas?" and also that he was a "meat and potatoes" kind of guy, because that's what he had always eaten.

His response to my questions got me thinking. I am definitely not a militant vegan who insists that no one eat animals, ever. I also don't go around throwing buckets of red paint on people who wear fur coats. I don't picket fast food restaurants. I merely advocate eating a plant based diet because it is the surest way to promote health, avoid or cure disease, and maintain vitality as long as possible. My third DevolveHealth eating rule says:

"Eat a wide variety of fruits, vegetables, grains, nuts, and legumes and VERY LITTLE if any meat, dairy, and eggs."

This is based on the simple logic (which has been backed up by a lot of research) that our primal ancestors would have eaten mostly plants (vegetables and legumes), fruit (which was only available certain times of the year), and seeds and nuts (also available only seasonally), and very little meat. It's not that they would try and avoid meat, but meat (also known as an animal) is pretty hard to come by. It turns out most animals, prior to domestication, didn't want to just lie down and be eaten. They were either much faster than we are, or had adequate weapons or size to fight us off. 

It was only after the development of weapons and then the domestication of animals that mankind had ready access to meat. It was only in the past 50 years or so that mankind (at least people living in industrialized countries) had access to as much meat as they wanted on the cheap, due to factory farming practices and cheap government subsidized corn.

As my friend was unintentionally pointing out, what we eat is a very emotional and cultural matter. Some of my own best childhood memories are of Sunday afternoons spent eating homemade spaghetti and London Broil with my mother's spaghetti sauce (if I ever gave that recipe away, she would drive up from Florida to kill me). 

The problem is, culture has changed with time, as have our waistlines and rates of disease. The typical diet about a hundred years ago (garnered from various sources) consisted of a small portion of meat, about 2-3 oz, fresh vegetables and grains, and seasonal fruits. Meat and grain made up about 20-30% of the food eaten, whereas the other 70-80% consisted of vegetables and fruits when available. There was no corner grocery store, and people had to live off of what they could farm, hunt, and fish. Thus, the diet would vary based upon what time of year it was, and how lucky or unlucky the family hunter/trapper was.

Compare to today. The average diet today consists of 50-60% refined grains or oils. These come in the form of processed sweets, pre-packaged foods, sodas, bread, and the like. 30-35% of our diet comes from meat, mostly in the form of chicken, pork, or beef, all of which has been factory farmed and is full of toxins, artificial hormones, and antibiotics used to keep the animals alive long enough to reach slaughter weight. That only leaves a measly 5-10% for fruits and vegetables. The most commonly eaten vegetable? The potato. There is nothing wrong with potatoes. They have many vitamins and minerals, and are quite healthy, when combined with other vegetables. The downside is that they are rather starchy, with a high glycemic index. Combine that with an overload of sugars, raising our post meal blood glucose, and the high protein and saturated fat load of the meat, and you have a perfect recipe for insulin resistance (read: diabetes). 

Sadly, my friend was misled. I can't really blame him though. So was I for many years, and I am a doctor, for God's sake. Since just after World War II, we have been very gradually conditioned to accept processed foods as staples, and encouraged to eat ever more meat and dairy. There are two main groups who are conditioning us this way. Offender #1 is the USDA. The US Department of Agriculture is a farm advocacy group. They are also the people who write our nutritional guidelines, and determine the "% daily value" which goes on the side or back of every food package sold in the US. Their primary interest is to make sure that the people they represent (namely the dairy farmers, meat farmers, and vegetable farmers, 99% of whom grow only corn and soybeans) make as much profit as possible. Is it at all surprising that the nutrition pyramid for at least 30 years has recommended grains, meats, and dairy products as the 3 most consumed nutrients?

Offender #2 is the National Dairy Farmers' Association. As the name implies, they work for dairy farmers. What they also do on the side is provide educational materials to schools on nutrition. I'm sure I don't even have to tell you what they are telling our children to eat. "Milk. It does a body good." speaks for itself. For more on just how bad milk is for you, read my previous post on milk. 

We all eat what we eat for a variety of reasons. Two of the most important are taste and history. We like food that tastes good, and we like to eat what we ate when we were children, because of the memories the food evokes. The same is true of holidays. We don't eat a turkey at Thanksgiving because it is an intrinsic part of the holiday (there is absolutely no evidence that turkey was eaten at the first Thanksgiving. It was probably added sometime in the 1800's). We eat it because it reminds us of our childhood, and happy times with family. In a way, it brings us closer to our distant and deceased family members, if only in our minds. Sadly, those "traditional" meals have been perverted over the years, by ever increasing levels of processing, and the agendas of groups who have placed profits over our health.

Now that makes me mad!

What are You Eating?

What are You Eating?

Weight: 276.6
Running: Getting better. 2-3 miles per day

As a consequence of my job as an emergency physician, I eat lunch and dinner (and even breakfast, depending on which shift I am working) at my desk. Since I get the opportunity to work on the sickest of patients, who are often unstable and can deteriorate quickly, I have to be close to the action at all times. This means eating at my desk most days. Years ago, I never realized the consequence of eating in public. Since I have been a vegan and back, and vegan again, I have become acutely attuned to an interesting phenomenon: people are always quite interested to what other people eat. While sitting at my desk checking labs, looking at past medical histories, and making medical decisions, many techs, nurses, and other physicians pass me without a second glance. Add an open food container sitting innocently next to me, and suddenly every single person who passes me asks the same question: "what are you eating?"

The interesting thing about the question is how it changes when I am sticking to a vegan diet. It isn't the words. They remain the same. It is the tone that changes. When I have a "balanced" plate in front of me, with meat, veggies, and grains, I get the normal "what are you eating?" No tone, no curiosity, no agenda. Similar to when someone asks "how are you today?" They don't really want to know. All they want to hear is "good," or something similar. It is mainly a rhetorical question.

Oddly, when I have a vegan entree in front of me which is non-traditional, the tone of the encounter changes. Take as an example two days ago. I had for lunch red kidney beans, quinoa, and avocado. Besides being delicious, this dish is full of protein, fiber, good fats, vitamins, and minerals. In short, it is the perfect lunch. Despite its obvious health value, when people looked at my food, they took on an incredulous tone when asking about it. Based on the tone, you would think that I was eating fried tarantula or something equally crazy.

Thinking about the responses of these well meaning people merely confirmed how screwed up our American diet actually is. The reason for the unusual responses is that quinoa and beans is unexpected. It was out of the range of what people who eat the standard american diet expect. These days, we consider a plate of 10 oz meat, a small spoonful of veggies, and a cup of potatoes normal. The diet we were designed to eat was quite different than that.

Our ancestors, before agriculture, were only able to eat what they could find or kill with their bare hands. If you think logically about what their diet might be composed of, we can make some conclusions about what we should be eating. Our ancestors would eat mostly vegetables, as those are plentiful and available year round. Next most likely would be fruit. Fruit is seasonal, but stays still and is easy to collect. Finally, and in the most limited of quantities, would be animal products. Although there are a great many animals in nature, they are rather fast and hard to catch. The ones who aren't fast outweigh us by hundreds of pounds, and have teeth, claws, and tusks to kill us.

Thus, since we are essentially unchanged from our primeval ancestors from a genetic standpoint, the proper diet for modern man should be as follows: 70% vegetables, grains, and legumes. 25% fruit. 5% (or less) meat, eggs, or dairy. Completely off the menu are processed sugars, oils, and flours, as those don't exist in nature in any form. Our bodies are simply not made to process them, and they are the cause of many chronic diseases that we suffer from.

A couple of years ago, when I wasn't quite as mature, I was quite annoyed by the "what are you eating" question. I have since revised my view of the situation. The best way to lead is by example, so when I am eating an extremely healthy meal, and someone asks with suspicion what I am eating, I choose to use it as a teaching moment. Hopefully, if I expose enough people to exciting new vegetables, grains, and fruits, and teach them to avoid animal products such as dairy, meat, and eggs, I can improve not only my health, but also the health of those around me. Not only is that my duty as a physician, but also my goal as a health educator.

The next time someone asks you "what are you eating," consider what you are eating, and if that food is the right kind of food to fuel your body. If so, please share your knowledge with others. For more info on what to eat, please visit www.devolvehealth.com, and learn to eat like our ancestors, and like our bodies were designed to eat.

Quinoa and Red Beans With Avocado
1 cup quinoa, rinsed
1 can red beans
1 avocado
1/4 tsp salt

Cook quinoa according to package directions. Drain red beans. Once quinoa is finished, mix both together. Peel and pit avocado, and dice. Mix in with quinoa and beans. Add salt and mix well. Serves one. Goes well with salad or other green veggies.

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Relapse

Relapse

Hi all. I know it has been a LONG time since I have written. An awful lot has happened to me in the past year and a half or so.

Those of you who have followed my blog the previous couple of years know that through a rigorous vegan diet and daily exercise, I had gone from a horribly obese 350 lbs to a svelte 200. I had reclaimed my health, lost my hypertension and borderline diabetes, and discovered more energy then I knew was possible. My depression, which had plagued me for years, had even gone away. Without a doubt, I knew my avoidance of processed foods and animal foods, as well as daily exercise had been responsible for my weight loss. Overall, I had never felt better in my life. I felt as if I was invincible.

Life, however, is never without its share of tragedy. Just when I thought I had reached my highest point, the universe decided to take me down a peg or two. First, my wife demanded a marital separataion. Not terribly long after, I found out she was having an affair. Finally, three days before our 11th anniversary, she filed for divorce. The marriage I had hoped to save for the months of our separation was over.

I was completely devastated. I went from living in a nice house to a one bedroom apartment. I only got to see my kids 8-10 days a month. The illusion I had of a "good life" was completely shattered. Financially, I was shackled by huge child support and alimony payments, which amounted to approximately 60% of my monthly salary. I was forced to work extra shifts every month in order to make ends meet.

As I have mentioned many times in the past, I am an emotional eater. When I get upset or anxious, I tend to resort to food as my comfort drug. As unhappy as I became, I simply quit. I stopped eating my unprocessed plant-based diet. I stopped exercising. Instead, I took to sitting and watching television to take my mind off of my circumstances. And I ate. A lot. I ate fried chicken, mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese, pizza, and all of the "comfort foods" that I used to rely on. 

It is surprising how simple it is to slip back into old patterns. I vowed that I would never eat animal products again, but under pressure, that vow was easily broken. Not surprisingly, given the research I have shown in previous blog posts (feel free to read them all), bringing back the animal foods meant the return of the weight, and the return of my chronic diseases. Depression, obesity, and high blood pressure quickly returned. I ballooned from 200 pounds to 280. I was afraid to write blog posts advocating health, because I felt like a hypocrite, and I was ashamed to tell my story, as it had taken a huge turn for the worse. 

Not too long ago, however, I realized something. This part of my story is worth telling. Relapse is part of the process of change. The question to ask is not "will I mess up," but "when will I mess up?" Clearly, resorting to those comfort foods was a huge mistake, and It cost me dearly. 

Thankfully, I regained control of my life. I deepened my connection with God, filling a lot of the void in my life. As much as I hate dating, I also met a wonderful woman who is as fully committed to me as I am to her, and we were wed in January. 

The waters having calmed a little in my personal life, I took a look at my health. At first, I thought going vegan again would be too hard, given that I had strayed from it for so long, so I tried to eat Paleo. That just didn't work for me. One good thing I discovered trying that eating plan was how bad gluten is for us. I will elaborate on that in a future post. 

Finally, since no other eating plan has ever worked for me, I decided to return to a vegan diet. Specifically, I decided to follow my own eating advice, the DevolveHealth Eating Rules:

1. Eat foods as they occur in nature

2. Eat a wide variety of fruits, vegetables, legumes, and nuts, and very little if any meat, eggs, or dairy

3. Choose foods for nutrition, not flavor

Within a week of committing to eat plants again, my energy returned, and I began to feel better. I have lost about 10 lbs so far, and will not stop until I reach my goal weight of 185.

As with many things in life, buried in tragedy is hope, and opportunity. I had thought my rough patch was just a punishment, but now I realize that I can make some good from it. The last time I reached out to you readers about nutrition and exercise, I did it as someone "on the other side" if you will. I had already achieved my goal. The mountain always looks smaller when you are at the top. This time, I will take you along with me on the journey, and we can help each other climb.

I encourage each of you to set a goal to reach with me, be it a weight goal or a fitness goal. On my end, I promise to post frequently on my progress and the lessons I learn. I hope you will commit to following me to fitness and a better life. Feel free to post your story, or your commitment in the comments. Mine is far from the only story worth telling.

Either way, this should be an adventure!

Jacob Ott, MD