My father's father died of a heart attack and as you know, my father just had bypass surgery. He's gotten healthier in the last couple of years exercising and eating right which is why he survived and why he recovered so well in the days immediately following the surgery.
In fact, he's home today.
Seeing my dad lying there hooked up to tubes made me think about my life. The doctor may have opened my father's heart, but the surgery opened my mind. I need to get healthy.
If I'm not mistaken, heart disease is still the leading killer of women. That's scary, especially knowing that it runs in my family. I'm too fat and too sedentary and though I walk more than I have in years I don't do as much as I can. I don't eat enough green veggies on a regular basis and I don't plan meals well enough. I've tried and failed at losing weigh so many times, mainly because of my willpower and money.
It's time to change that.
My goal is to eat mostly chicken and fish, stick to a low-fat, high fiber diet and eat lots of green veggies. I'm also introducing soy into my diet in the form of tofu and edamame (which I've loved for years anyway). It's said that soy is good for lowering cholesterol and may help prevent heart disease. In moderation, I think it's a good idea to try it out.
The dilemma came when I was researching soy milk. There were so many contradicting reports about whether or not it is good or bad that I decided pretty much that I'm not interested in it. I did want to get some sort of milk in my diet though which lead me to alternatives. Rice milk and almond milk were the two milks that were recommended most, but I didn't like what I read about rice milk (and heard it was gross) and almond milk isn't sold in the store nearest me. Then I remembered my friend Chrissy from work talking to me about a product she uses in her cereal because she has trouble with milk and doesn't like soy. It's called
Kefir.
The health benifits of Kefir are plenty: calms the digestive system, provides calcium, protein, vitamin B, is said to reduce cholesterol and in ancient times was used to cure cancer. (A 2007 Japanese study suggested the drink may do the same in humans: 19 adults who drank kefir daily for three weeks had unusually active natural killer cells.)
Last night after shopping I had my first try. It's GOOD. It's a little thicker than milk and thinner than yogurt but it tastes more like yogurt than milk. I put it in a bowl with some high fiber cereal and blueberries and it was super yummy! I'm going to love this for sure. It'll make a nice breakfast. I'm also planning on using it to make some smoothies for breakfast now and then.
The reason I had Kefir for dinner last night was because my first tofu expedition didn't work out so well. Though I followed a recipe, the tofu turned out way too salty. This is, I'm sure, because of the soy sauce used to marinate the tofu. Tomorrow I'm going to try something different and will come back to that recipe when I have a lower sodium soy sauce.
So-do you have any heart healthy suggestions? Do you eat tofu and do you have recipes? Do you do the soy milk thing? If you have tried and don't like it, I highly recommend Kefir.
PS. For lunch today I have a chickpea salad sandwich which ROCKS. It's chickpeas, sour cream and a tiny bit of mayo with garlic powder and pepper. I also added a little celery for crunch and put it on a whole wheat pita. SO GOOD. Of course, you have to love chick peas as much as I do. :)
