The No Salt, No Fat, No Sugar Journal

I woke up early this morning fighting a mild cold with a bit of an upset stomach. Still in all, I woke up glad to be alive. Six months ago today, I was being wheeled into a surgery to save my life. Doctors had discovered one of the arteries around my heart was 80 percent blocked, meaning blood was barely getting through.

An angioplasty took place, a procedure in which doctors used a small balloon to clear the blockage and then inserted a stent, a wire mesh tube, to keep my artery open. It’s fair to say that changed my life, giving me years I likely would not have otherwise had, hopefully.

It also changed my food life more radically than anything else that has ever happened to me. My diet now bears little resemblance to what it had been. Gone are the daily chocolate candies, snack cakes and diet sodas that once were staples for me. Gone are burgers from McDonald’s, Wendy’s and elsewhere. My lunch almost every day now is a salad with oil and vinegar which I carry myself since most places don’t have it as an option. Dinners involve more vegetables and also more ground turkey, more fish and an occasionally very lean steak or 96 percent lean ground beef burger. White bread, rice and anything made with white flour are out.

The result? When I checked into a hospital Aug. 13, 2012, I weighed 219. This morning, six months later, I weigh 190, so I’ve lost 29 pounds in six months by eliminating everything I once loved from my diet.

I am constantly hungry these days, my appetite has not receded as predicted by some know-it-alls. And my taste for chocolate has not disappeared either. Indeed, yesterday I had the first real chocolate chip cookie I’ve eaten in months and it was amazingly good. This morning, to celebrate my anniversary, I ate the last two Drake’s Yodels I bought on eBay after parent company Hostess went into bankruptcy at the end of last year. And they tasted as wonderful as I remembered.

But like a diabetic who can no longer eat sugar, I can no longer eat my favorite foods if I want to continue living. So I am slowly finding substitute dishes, remaking old recipes with new healthier ingredients, and adapting. In six months, I have established a fairly decent home cooking routine that takes care of most dinners. Lunches out are salads, as I mentioned, boring but not harmful. And my wife and I are slowly assembling a new list of restaurants that have healthy dishes or that can accommodate me when I call ahead and say I want dishes with no salt, no fat and no sugar involved.

I’ve also thrown myself into a wonderful new avocation, acting. I’ve wanted to try acting since I was a kid but was too shy in those days. Luckily, my wife and I starting an acting class before my surgery and I fell in love with the whole process. Now, acting gives me the escape from everyday trials and troubles that food once did. As I write this, I’m preparing to be in my first student-made film and a play I wrote myself.

So if you’ve faced massive life changes like I have and had to leave your safety blanket of old foods behind, take some heart from my experiences. Rebuild and find new ways to enjoy the life you have now. I’m here to help.
John

I’ve been put on a no salt, no sugar, no fat diet since having angioplasty in August, 2012, which basically means the only things I can eat without endangering my health are leaves. But that’s not how I choose to live, so I have started piecing together a new diet.

Gone from the pantry are high-sodium sauces, soups and marinades; sugary ketchup; all chocolates. The freezer still has hot dogs and not-so-lean hamburgers, neither one of which I can eat any longer, but we are saving those for I’m not sure what just yet.

My wife and I spend weekends going to a variety of food stores to find our new weekly menu items and the entire endeavor is still very much a work in progress but steps are being taken.

The last time I had to change what I eat this radically was when I went away to college in 1971. The initial result was much the same. I lost 25 pounds in my first three months of college because pretty much the only dorm food I could stomach was the salad bar and orange sherbet for dessert. This time around I can’t have the sherbet either, but I’m taking it one recipe at a time. To date, I’ve lost 26 pounds in five months.

John

Having angioplasty August 13, 2012, has completely changed what I eat. It has made me a man on a restricted diet, cutting out fat, salt and sugar whenever possible. And it also has greatly changed me. In the four months since the surgery, I’ve lost 23 pounds and now weigh roughly 193 pounds.

In recent years, I’ve cut out or cut back on many of my favorite foods. Pizza and Chinese food, for example, which I once ate weekly, are now a rarity for me. The same can be said for one-pound T-bone steaks and many cheese-filled Italian dishes which I’ve reserved for only holidays. Potato chips and french fries, once daily items for me, also are mostly gone from my diet.

Days of eating giant meatball subs like this one are over for me.

Continue reading →

Hello everyone, welcome to my new food blog, Living on a Restricted Diet. If that title sounds grim, I apologize, it’s meant to simply sound like the reality many of us Baby Boomers face as we get older and deal with more health-related issues that impact how we eat.

In August, 2012, I had an angioplasty done to open an 80% blocked artery to my heart, for example. Since that event, I have completely changed my eating routine, giving up scores of foods I truly loved. I was one of those people who lived to eat rather than simply ate to live. So it’s been a painful process for me.

Trays fo stuffed shells were once my Super Bowl party main course. No more though.

But I’ve learned valuable lessons along the way, along with creating my own no-salt, no-sugar, no-fat recipes, and want to share them with you. I also want to hear what you’ve done because I have no illusion that my approach is the only correct one. I leave that kind of hubris to those writing other food blogs, including one I founded and left after it adopted an incredibly self-righteous tone that included repeatedly insulting me and what I was going through. Continue reading “Welcome to Living on a Restricted Diet” →

Tag: angioplasty

What’s life like six months after angioplasty?

How do you create a new food life after cardio problems?

How Will Having Angioplasty Change What I Eat?

Welcome to Living on a Restricted Diet

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