If you have had a snoop around this website, you will know that Steve is my partner. We met later in life – seven years ago now. And one of the things that is often front and centre of our thinking, is how we want to stay as healthy as possible, for as long as possible. We don’t want age to get in the way of us having a vibrant, long relationship with each other!

We have always enjoyed getting outside and exercising together

When I started on my Whole Food Plant Based (WFPB) journey, Steve was open, but didn’t think it was for him. He grew up on a dairy farm, so the idea of being vegan didn’t sit that naturally with him. Also, we had been living under the impression (like a lot of people), that a diet rich in animal protein was good for our health. I would say we both appeared healthy enough, except for my increasing blood pressure, and his high cholesterol. He took statins to keep his cholesterol under control, which didn’t seem to cause him any issues, so all seemed well enough. Right?

But we didn’t know what we didn’t know!

I’m the main cook in our relationship. Mostly because I LOVE cooking, and I tend to crowd Steve out of the kitchen! When I became WFPB, here’s how we tackled meals:

  • I would cook joint evening meals, following WFPB principals. This meant: Yes to vegetables, fruit, whole grains, legumes, nuts & seeds. No to animal products, including meat, fish, eggs and dairy; and processed foods, including white flour, refined sugar and oil.
  • We did our own thing for lunch: I would take packed salads to work. Steve would raid the fridge. We no longer bought meat, so it was mostly plant based.
  • We did our own thing for breakfast: More often than not I would do a smoothie, and Steve had the scrambled eggs he had been eating for years.
  • When we went out for a meal, Steve would still have chicken or fish based meals.

In essence, Steve half heartedly following a WFPB diet. The next thing that happened amazed even me, who was convinced about the benefits of WFPB eating.

His cholesterol fell through the floor!

That’s right, his cholesterol went down significantly, as a result of half heartedly changing his diet! This blew us both away, as Steve had always been told that his high cholesterol was genetic.

Before I made the change in our food, his cholesterol, while taking statins, was at the high end of normal. Then by a year later, it had dropped significantly, just from eating as above. We both started to seriously believe that he could manage his cholesterol via his diet! At that time, I had just bought and read The China Study. He read it too, and after that he was all into WFPB eating with me.

Eating WFPB does not mean depriving yourself of food either, as Steve can attest. Here we are having a sushi feast.

Normal cholesterol levels without medication

Today, Steve still has cholesterol at the high end of normal. But after 15 years of statin use, he is now totally medication free. He staged his reductions over a year, with the oversight of his doctor. He knows he could be more vigilant about his fat intake, and possibly get it down more. But he and his doctor have decided that, seeing as his LDL cholesterol (“bad cholesterol”) is in the correct range, he is safe and healthy where he is.

From a scientific point of view, Dr Gregor published a video this month about the True Benefits vs Side Effects of Statins. Have a watch for yourself, and see what you think of the effectiveness of statins for improving health. And when you are there, you might want to investigate what some of the other research says about statins.

My outtake is this:

Statins clearly reduce cholesterol levels in the blood of someone who is eating a high cholesterol diet. But there is a huge expense in producing them, then prescribing them to large segments of the population. Imagine if all that resource could be rechanneled into helping people improve the way they eat? They wouldn’t even need to “eat perfectly” to see beneficial results, just as we saw with Steve.

For me, I am glad we have found this way of ensuring our ongoing vitality. In a nutshell, we have swapped high fat animal foods for low fat vegetable foods, and are feeling so much better for it, medication free.