by AussieDavid » Thu Apr 09, 2009 5:07 pm
Thanks Melinda & Carroll,
Carroll, My family and I started following the McDougall way just over 14 years ago with all the expected health benefits that followed. Although we did not find Dr McDougall's plan at first, the entire health issue stemmed from a few areas. Firstly, our oldest son Danny had Otitis Media, which is in very simple terms, a 'self inflicted' or on our case, parent inflicted problem (as we did not know better) when one has high fat dairy causing the child to lose his/her hearing. That is what happened and he had to have some silly grommets inserted into his ears at age 3 1/2, which was traumatising for him. No swimming, no head dunking in the bath etc. This silly 'fix' did not work and at the same time I was reading a few books. One from Susan Powter. The fat/calorie issue finally made sense with and the fat calorie formula was at the forefront. Another book stated that dairy was a major cause to many people's ill health including Otitis Media.
At age 4, Danny was scheduled for a second grommet op and it was at this time we said no, dropped dairy from his diet and after a few weeks his hearing returned to normal. Our youngest son Ben was also feeling the ills of dairy by vomiting pretty much after consuming dairy. Lose the dairy, lose the vomiting. Ben as not even 2 years old when we made the decision to drop dairy from our diets.
Further research quickly followed, which was invaluable. I came across Dr McDougall's website as I did with Dr Barnard, Nathan Pritikin, Dean Ornish and many others. After reading and re reading the answers I would report back to my wife that red meat was not suitable to eat. (Danny hated all meats anyway). Then chicken, then fish, then eggs then oils etc.
The decision to lose all of those supposed foods from our diets was very easy, especially if you can understand first hand what they do to you. We all benefited from the change. I dropped from 85kg+ to my current steady weight of 68 - 70kgs. My high cholesterol of around 8mmol dropped to 2.7mmol and I started my gym routine back then as well.
Both boys have thrived BIG TIME on the McDougall eating plan and have grown into very big boys indeed. Danny is solid build and stands at over 6' tall. Ben is not as solid but is just under 6' tall. Both boys are in perfect health.
Funny story, Danny did see the doctor for a mild issue, nothing more than a cold so he could give a medical certificate in to his school. The doctor took his blood pressure THREE TIMES!!!!! He was amazed at how wonderfully low and super healthy Danny's readings came out to be. At first the doctor thought he made a mistake and took it twice more. Nonchalantly my wife asks the doctor "anything wrong" (knowing exactly what the answer was) "on the contrary" he said and was so pleased to find a young teenager with such a great blood pressure reading. Sadly, the doctor could not understand why the reading was so good.
We all take a B12 supplement and have never looked back at our life saving change. I can tell you lots of inspiring experiences we have had on our way from not too healthy to very healthy, but one needs to follow the eating lifestyle at every meal to make the change work.
Best wishes to everyone.