Head over Heart
I was 18 when my father had his first heart attack; he was trying to help a deer trapped on the ice.
It was a big one (the heart attack, not the deer). He was told that he would never work again. He was 45 years old.
Heart disease wasn’t new to my family; three out of four grandparents had already experienced at least one cardiac event at that point, but my father’s heart attack made me feel like my DNA was coded for disaster. I became a vegetarian shortly thereafter. Between that and the fact that I walked or rode my bike everywhere, I lost 16 pounds instead of gaining the proverbial freshman 15. The choices my father and I made during those years and the impact they had on our health have made me look at heart health a little differently.
My father is one of the most strong-willed people I’ve ever met. From his doctor’s standpoint, he did pretty much everything wrong. He checked himself out of the hospital early and against doctor’s orders, he returned to work despite being encouraged to take disability… and he continued to work in the job he loved for another fifteen years. I really think it was this purpose that kept him going. About a year after his retirement, he had a second heart attack and needed a 5-way bypass. Again, he was told he would never work again. Again he proved them wrong. He became a security officer for a few years before then becoming a town Sheriff back up North.
If my father had followed his doctor’s directives, taken all the meds, taken disability, and followed the recommended diet and exercise regime, to the letter I do not believe that he would be alive today.
He will be 70 years old this summer. He’s doing the work that he loves best in the part of the world that he loves best. Doctors can’t really explain how he’s still alive, let alone how he is thriving.
My choices, on the other hand, led to me being 14 pounds underweight by the end of my freshman year with a myriad of health problems. I was doing it by the books and eating as much soy-based protein and veggies as I could get in a college dining hall, but despite my best efforts, my body wasn’t getting what it needed. My path back to health wasn’t always straightforward, but I eventually learned to listen to my body and found the balance that I needed.
I am not a doctor, nor do I play one on TV. I am not saying that you shouldn’t listen to doctors or that the prevailing advice of following certain diets and exercise levels for heart health doesn’t have merit.
I am saying that I do not think it is that simple. I think we’re just scratching the surface of how heart health works. I’m also saying that I don’t believe it is one size fits all.
We’ve been looking at the heart’s impact on the brain for a few decades now. Science is just beginning to really dig into how the brain impacts the heart. I’m having a little too much fun with the research, and as soon as I said I was going to do weekly posts around this topic, work started flooding in, but I will do my absolute best to share some of my findings soon.
In the meantime, keep moving, eat well, and do what makes you happy.