I’d like to point out the biggest lesson from Mr. W’s recent experience.

People are consistently shocked that HE of all people had the heart attack episode, and I’ve been hearing lots of comments about, “Tell him to eat a burger and fries, cuz clean livin’ didn’t make a difference at all.” I think what people are not realizing here is that the clean living and gymming was something I made him do and he’d only started this 2 years ago. The first year of our relationship was his fighting me with comments like, “Healthy food? Yech. Organic? Sounds like bland and tasteless to me. Salt IS a flavor! Give me more salt!” But now, after laying off the crap for awhile, he realizes how much better he feels without chemicals in his body and his tongue is finally able to distinguish all the great actual flavors between ingredients. That’s the immediate advantage of cleaning up your food intake. (I’m still working on reduction of his espresso intake and alcoholic beverages, but at least he stopped the crazy energy drinks!)

In his situation, everyone in his family (both parents, all brothers) has a genetic predisposition for high cholesterol, hypertension. They’re on many prescription drugs to handle this. Some people’s livers just don’t handle cholesterol intake well — can’t filter it out, keeps producing more of it. Mr. W was determined to not get on meds, so he relied on maintaining his weight. You guys know he’s in great physical shape, which is NOT indicative of what’s flowing in his arteries. A 95% blockage in his main heart artery, plus 40-50% blocks in many different places in his body according to the operating cardiologist, means plaque build-up starting from his early 20s. If he wanted to rely on diet/exercise alone, he would’ve had to start way back then, not just two years ago.

Most health problems in people’s 40s and 50s start developing in the late teens, which is something I realized in college, so rather than count on the advent of a time machine in the future, I decided to take matters into my own hands early and do the preventative thing. I haven’t had fast food in years, and I can’t remember the last time I had a soda. I did eat at In-N-Out this month (my only exception to fast food because it’s fresher and less processed), but I only got the burger and skipped the fries and soda. I’m assuming most people don’t have the dramatic genetic predispositions of Mr. W’s family, so maybe you don’t quite have to go back SO FAR in time to make a difference. I’m gonna say, DO IT NOW.

Don’t have a future day of, “If I only knew then what I know now.” You KNOW. Do it.