Martin's Story

I struggled with being overweight all my life.  Three different times I lost weight; as a senior in high school, in my mid-30s, and in my mid-50s.  I tried virtually every diet known; Atkins, low-fat, low-protein, Weight Watchers, all with the same result; lose weight and then gain it all back again, plus more.  After each diet, I weighed even more than when I started. Dieting made me gain weight!

I also had a congenital prolapsed mitral valve heart murmur that was getting larger, and in 2010 was diagnosed with Atrial Fibrillation, at which point, my health began to rapidly deteriorate.  My heart enlarged, I had high blood pressure, swollen legs (edema), shortness of breath, chronic back pain, overall fatigue, and insomnia.  I was taking 11 different prescription medications to manage all these health issues.  To make matters ever worse, I was morbidly obese. I weighed 266 pounds with a BMI of 40.4 and a 51-inch waist.

All my cardiologist wanted to do was wait, watch me and just keep giving me more prescriptions for my ever-growing symptoms.  So, in the spring of 2014, I decided to get a second opinion from a new cardiologist who said, “we can keep giving you poisons, in the name of prescriptions, to mask your symptoms. But it won’t matter because you’ll be dead in less than 10 years anyway!”  He then wrote down Dr. Fuhrman’s book, The End of Dieting.  He told me to read it if I was serious about changing my life and becoming healthy.

His words hit me like a two-by-four. I read the book and that was the beginning of my transformation. Unfortunately, in 2014, my journey was interrupted as the leak in my heart valve had gotten so much worse that the only alternative was open-heart surgery to repair the mitral valve.  As I went through the long recovery and cardiac rehabilitation, I felt like I was given a second chance, but could I take it? 

I realized that the answer was right in front of me in Dr. Fuhrman’s book.  I re-read The End of Dieting and totally committed myself to the Nutritarian lifestyle. I learned diets don’t work, that the goal is being healthy vs. losing weight (a necessary, but not sufficient, step in the process). I bought the Eat To Live Cookbook and enjoyed many of the delicious recipes. Having a huge salad with Dr. Fuhrman’s wonderful bottled salad dressings is our key meal of the day. We enjoy cooking the many wonderful dishes that are available on the website. 

The key for me was to set short-term goals that I could succeed at and also set more challenging long-term stretch goals. Here are my results to date, two years after my surgery: I’m 68 years old, I do not take any medications at all. I have a normal heart rhythm and blood pressure. No edema, no breathing issues, no back pain, no fatigue, lots of energy, and I sleep well.  My weight is 146 pounds. I lost 120 pounds!) My BMI is 22.2, my waist is 33 inches— the same as when I was a freshman in college 50 years ago. I exercise for 100 minutes per day, 7 days per week. I do 15 minutes stretching followed by 70 minutes on the treadmill at a 15 percent elevation at 4.0 MPH and then 15 minutes with 10 to15 pound weights, and I look forward to it every single day.

Dr. Fuhrman and my new cardiologist helped me to save my life. I am forever grateful to both of them. But in the end, it required me to make a complete change in my lifestyle.

Because I want to live a full and happy life, I am dedicated to maintaining my health. It requires me to be personally accountable and totally consistent in my behavior every single day, without exception. I control my destiny. I’m now focused on maximizing my health and longevity, being with my family and friends, having fun, and sharing what I’ve learned to help those who really want to dramatically improve their health by permanently changing their lifestyle.