Eating healthy might just save your life

FOOD PYRAMID

Ken Pickels loves to eat.

But after years of pretty much eating what he wanted when he wanted and not being particularly concerned with nutrition, he radically changed his dining habits.

Almost dying will do that for you.

Pickels weighed more than 300 pounds when he had a heart attack in 2006 at age 50. Physicians used stents to prop open blocked arteries and get his heart working properly again. The rest was up to Pickels.

"You basically have a choice . . . how you want to live your life," Pickels said about the lifestyle changes, including his diet, he realized he needed to make. "I couldn't ask my kids to do the best they can and me just say, 'Oh, I'm not going to do that.'"

So he changed the way he eats.

No more stops for fast-food at breakfast and lunch. He cut back on red meat and now dines mostly on chicken and fish. He used to hate salads but now eats them all of the time and has grown, he said, to even like them. He limits his sugar intake -- the heart attack revealed he was diabetic -- and now chooses diet sodas and skips old favorites such as doughnuts.

"I really miss doughnuts," he said. "I haven't eaten one in 2½ years. I won't even eat one because I'm afraid I'd be like an alcoholic and fall off the wagon."

. . .

With his new lifestyle, which includes exercising on a regular basis, Pickels has lost 76 pounds.

"It wasn't easy," said Pickels, a Henrico County resident who's an electrician with the school system. "There were a few times [soon after the heart attack] they'd bring [light] meals, and I could have eaten the plate. But I had a decision to make, and I made it."

February is American Heart Month, and March is National Nutrition Month. After eating our way through the holidays and starting the traditional New Year's diet, which probably has fallen by the wayside for a lot of us, now might be a good time to refocus on eating right -- and not just so you can fit into the swimsuit come June. Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the United States and is a major cause of disability, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The most common heart disease in the United States is coronary heart disease, which often appears as a heart attack. In 2009, an estimated 785,000 Americans will experience a heart attack, and about 470,000 will have a recurrent attack, the CDC said.

Pickels credits much of his success to the support he's received at the cardiopulmonary rehabilitation program at Bon Secours Memorial Regional Medical Center in Mechanicsville, where he still participates in physical therapy sessions.

Jacqueline L. Gray, co-manager with Rebecca W. Crytser of the program at MRMC, also works in conjunction with the new Bon Secours Heart & Vascular Institute and says quite simply:

"Every choice you make has an outcome," Gray said. "Do you want it to be good or bad? When your choices for nutrition are bad, you're going to have health problems."

. . .

In an interview, Gray and Jan Elliott Evans, a clinical dietitian, (http://www.ub-well.com) who work together in cardiopulmonary rehabilitation, offered dietary tips for heart-healthy eating:

"We're getting more and more away from telling patients to have fat-free diets," said Evans, noting even cardiac-rehab patients' diets should include 25 percent to 30 percent of total calories from healthful fats. "Healthy fats are an essential nutrient required for the body to function."

. . .

Evans and Gray are proponents of moderation, not restriction, when it comes to diet.

"People go to extremes," Bunn said "They really need to look at balance in their eating. Make healthy choices. They shouldn't feel like they have to eliminate foods. Just eat more of the good things."

Said Evans, "We really focus more on what the patients can do, and how tasteful and healthy all of the choices are."

As a result, you might have more energy or you might be able to fit in that skirt or those pants you used to wear. Or you might be able to live another 40 years.

"I have seen people able to come off medications for diabetes and hypertension and even cholesterol that in some cases they've been on for years," Evans said. "It doesn't happen overnight, but it certainly can happen."

Contact Bill Lohmann at (804) 649-6639 or .