I'm eating what I want within reason (yeppers the Christmas cookies keep calling my name right now) and I've gained about 5 pounds back but my cholesterol is still low, HDL, LDL, VDL, and Triglycerides are very good; better than when I was sticking to a more heart healthy diet.
The point being -- that these diets that are suggested for our health, at least for me, are a crock of crappola.
When the Good Lord calls you home, he's going to call you home regardless of how well you adhered food wise to the suggested medical guidelines.
ALL those diets are generic "one size fits all" food plans,and we are NOT all "the same people",with the same tolerances and intolerance's.
It is the accident of genetics that controls what happens and makes it ok for some people to eat and drink without worry,and forces others to watch every bite they eat and every drink they take.
There IS no such critter as a "balanced diet" that "fits" everybody. I think we all knew men in their 70's and 80's that ate and drank anything they wanted to eat and drink,and who seemed to have never even heard the word "moderation".
We have all also known people that were "dancing on the edge" even when they were children and forced to "eat right and get plenty of sleep and exercise". Yet they spent their whole lives dealing with health issues. And there wasn't and isn't a single damn thing they can do to create positive changes to their health. The only thing that is really in their control is the ability to make things worse.
The young man I grew up calling my brother (no actual relation to me) came down with the most serious form of Diabetes when he was 12. So serious he was hospitalized and the docs didn't know if they could save him or not.
He was dead by the time he was 26 years old,and spent the last few years of his life in a hospital as a bed-ridden blind man,where his legs were amputated a few inches at a time,starting with the toes and working their way up. He ended up being a terminal in-patient,just laying back in the bed as a blind man waiting to die. I visited him a few times in the hospital before he died by hitchhiking to Durham from Ft.Bragg. Not hard to catch a ride back in the mid-60's if you were wearing a uniform. Probably could have visited him more often,but seeing him like that and knowing what was happening was too much for me to bear,so I "punked out". We have all heard the expression "That is no way to live",but what is even worse is living a "That is no way to die" life,laying blind and helpless and just waiting to die.
His sister,who I THINK was his twin (OBVIOUSLY not identical twin) was raised by one of my father's nieces that lived in another state,and AFAIK,she had no health issues and lived a normal life.
BTW,both their mother and their father were killed in a car accident. Their deaths had nothing to do with any diseases.
And my "brother" really worked hard at "eating right" when he was younger. The only thing he did that had a negative impact was he was a weekend drinker as a teen,and started drinking heavily after his wife left him after a year of marriage and moved in with another man. BTW,her younger brother was born blind and "spastic",so she had more than a vague idea of what he was facing,and I can't really fault her for not wanting to turn from a wife into a nurse. She was young,and wanted children and a "regular" life.
Given the fact that they were both young and the effects diabetes has on a man's sex live as well as his entire emotional life,I can't honestly say that I blame her. I did back then,but I was really too young to understand the stresses brought upon them both by his diabetes and insulin intake,added to his alcohol intake.
Life ain't fair,and sometimes it's just plain brutal.
