Had anyone followed either of these diet/heart health plans?

I'm just reading about options. Both plans are similar in that they rely primarily on whole grains, fruits, veg and some beans/legumes. Stricter than I am used to...

Here is a news tidbit on the Ornish Diet:

After weight loss, lower-fat diets may be best
Thu Apr 23, 2009 1:31pm EDT
By Amy Norton

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Atkins-style diets may help people shed pounds, but once the weight battle is won, diets low in saturated fat are the healthy choice, a new study suggests.

*****

After one month, the study found, the Atkins diet had caused participants' "bad" LDL cholesterol to tick upward, on average. In contrast, the South Beach and Ornish plans led to a nearly 12 percent and 17 percent reduction, respectively.

In addition, the Ornish diet seemed to have the best impact on blood vessel function. Blood vessel function also correlated with the amount of saturated fat participants had been eating -- improving as saturated fat intake declined.

In real life, an overweight person who successfully sheds pounds, on any diet, would likely see improvements in LDL and blood vessel function.

More at:

http://www.reuters.com/article...dUSTRE53M55O20090423

Yeah! I am in the process of finding my balancing points.

The past weeks I have been eating more vegan meals and actually enjoying them. (They've been very low fat too.)

One of the upsides is that I am heading toward the lower end of my range. I can see where eating this way makes people very, very lean. With only 10-15% of calories coming from fat, meals look very different.

But...tonight we went out for dinner and I ate the best pizza with pork and cheese- all imported, of course!

Although I have not found McDougall's book to be guilt or fear producing, I prefer Ornish's spectrum where I can mostly stay on teh vegan end, but can move in and out of it at times- like when we go to friend's or when we want to eat out at our favorite restaurant.

It is super restrictive- even the way I am thinking of doing it now would seem "radical" to many people. But I am a very high risk individual and I feel pretty willing to entertain the vegan/very low fat way of eating most of the time, I think. But, as I said, I am still very much in process with all of this- for now I am only committing to go "mostly vegan"- like 70% of the time. I know the process will evolve...

quote:

My recommendation is to take from the books what will work for you, and feel free to ignore what won’t work for you.

I completely agree and I think this is true for almost any "diet" book. One size doesn't fit all ; )

I did during the ultra low fat 1990's. I did it for about 2.5 years. I have heard that Ornish has a new(er) book out that is good… but I haven’t read it. I haven’t read either of their books since 1998.

On the positive side... I think that they are probably VERY good plans for people who have had a heart attack or in a very high risk category (such as yourself).

On the negative side... they are really all or nothing plans (particularly McDougall). I think that following their plans was a factor in my gaining 55 lbs. For one thing, I got REALLY thin. For another, there is lots of "good" and "bad" food lists and I really lost touch with anything resembling "moderation".

For better or for worse… they both present their plans as a “Life Style Change”, but it can be a hard lifestyle to live 24/7, 365 days a year. McDougall is pretty dogmatic… and I think that he goes beyond “lifestyle change” to “religious conversion” or even somewhat “cult-like” and his way is “good” and everyone else is “evil”.

I also think that McDougall in particular is very fear or guilt driven. I think that both fear and guilt are crappy long term motivators. They work in the short term… but you/me/we need other motivations beyond guilt and fear.

I eventually got sick of eating “Cheezecake” made with fat free tofu and telling myself, “OMG! This is so good!!! It is almost like the real thing!!” (Since it isn’t.) Pretty much everything I was eating in life was some kind of analogue. I had hundreds of recipes for “cream” or “cheese” or “meat” or “ice cream” or “creamy salad dressing” in an attempt to somehow mimic the “real” items. And after a while it was tiring and just took a little too much effort.

I also felt a LOT of guilt when I couldn’t keep up the “life style”. Even something like tofu was considered “high fat” and only to be eaten as a special “treat”. (And only a irresponsible a-hole who cared nothing for his life or health would eat “real” cheesecake.)

I think that I was sort of boarder line orthorexic… or being a obsessed with eating healthy. My extended family also found me to be a PITA, to some degree, because I was somewhat militant about cheese and meat and such.

http://www.findingbalance.com/...deo.asp?clip=FBA1453


Me personally, I also had a hard time when I “fell off the wagon”. I found it virtually impossible to climb back on the nonfat wagon, to the full extent that I was on it in 1997. I read a book called “The Great Starvation Experiment” and I really identified with the guys in this starvation/diet experiment and the inability to eat normally when the experiment ended and just feeling obsessed with the foods that were off limits. I’ve read MANY, MANY articles on bingeing and from what I can tell… I was pretty much text book… and go on a diet (yeah, and call it a lifestyle) and restrict both calories and many food groups… and then end up bingeing on those very food groups. (And these diets do restrict SEVERAL food groups, in a way that I’m no longer comfortable with.)

It took me many years to find moderation again.

OTOH, I have NO idea if I would have had a different frame of mind IF I was in your situation… since I wasn’t. I had high cholesterol, but really no other risk factors.

My recommendation is to take from the books what will work for you, and feel free to ignore what won’t work for you. I eat many vegan meals now. But I’m not a vegan. I was also really shocked to have a RD tell me to eat more peanut butter… since I was pretty much convinced that “fat” was “bad”.

And to this day, I really don’t know who is “right”. I’m not sure that milk is the wonder food advertised by the Dairy Industry. However, I don’t think that dairy products are as evil as McDougall or the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine claim. I suspect that the truth lies somewhere in the middle.

I would also encourage you to find that balance of “OK… I’m willing to change X much” and as your lifestyle changes or circumstances change… don’t be afraid to take a step back and re-examine if X changes are STILL do-able. And if for some reason, you are CRAVING real cheesecake and are slightly gagging at the thought of whirling tofu in the blender and eating cheesecake with just a slightly odd soy after-taste… figure out moderation for YOU. Even if these guys are experts in their fields and have fabulous statistics, if you start hating the plans… their statistics don’t mean squat.

Sadly, we do not get fitTV. I think, though, that our cable line up is scheduled to shift, so I am hopeful down the road...

I remember reading a little from both books many years ago but I don't remember anything much about them.
"The Diet Doctor" on FitTV will probably get around to them eventually but they are not scheduled for the next 2 weeks.
I have been finding that series quite interesting, not because I want to use any of the diets but just so that I understand them.