I just finished reading The Engine 2 Diet: The Texas Firefighter's 28-Day Save-Your-Life Plan that Lowers Cholesterol and Burns Away the Pounds. It's written by a tri-athlete (Rip Esselstyn) turned firefighter who changed how his fellow firefighters eat to turn them into lean, mean, low cholesterol, fire fighting machines.
Rip promotes a plant based way of eating and says that if you follow this diet, your cholesterol will most like be in great shape after 4 weeks. By great shape, he means under 150.
Most doctors are fine with a cholesterol level under 200 but Rip states that 35% of heart problems occur in people within that 150 to 200 range. It's better to get under 150 if you really want to protect your heart.
My cholesterol has always been right around 200 every time that I have had it checked so I'm going to give The E2 diet a try and see what happens.
I tried going raw not too long ago and I felt great but made a great tactical error. I didn't research any recipes so I got bored rather quickly. That and my bodybuilding-trained mind couldn't get over the fact that I wasn't eating sides of beef while training.
This time I'm going to compensate for those short comings.
First, my goal right now is to get lean and quick. I want to pick up my running pace. This is a great time to drop the extra protein and pick up the extra plants. My running was nearly instantly transformed when I went raw (which kind of sounds like I was running naked and *that* would definitely transform my running experience).
Second, I've started looking for recipes online and will probably purchase a couple of cookbooks. The E2 Diet comes with over 100 recipes too so that's where I'm trying to start. A lot of it looks very foreign to me. I haven't been much of a vegetable and legume kind of guy but I'm willing to give it a try.
If you want a quick rundown on the benefits and instructions for a plant based diet, I can recommend this book. It's a quick read since half of it is recipes. Rip makes his points quickly and moves on and even made me laugh in a couple of places. There are little stories that go along with many of the recipes, which is kind of fun. I think this is a great gateway book into a new way of eating.
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