Prelude: Click-bait title? I know. I am writing this during the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic. While the virus has been all the talk these days, the findings of this research are more likely to save people's lives than hoarding any toilet paper. Heart disease​ is the leading cause of deaths worldwide for both men and women, with 49,301 people taken each day. While there are many factors at play when it comes to heart disease and cholesterol, I hope to share some of the clarity I was able to gain through a year long experiment I conducted on my self.

I Thought I Was Healthy

At age 18, I moved to the United States for college. For the longest time ever, I had been invested in maintaining a healthy lifestyle. So much so that I created the SouperBowl on January of my Freshman year, was routinely getting my blood tests each-year and tried to follow everything in the rule book: exercise, eat well, cut out sugar...

A Subtle Problem Creeping In

And so I was. I felt energetic, was working upwards of 16 hours, day and night, to start my company and was in great shape. As such I did not "feel" any problems. Yet, my test results communicated something entirely different. Upon closer analysis, I noticed that my cholesterol level was rising steadily. In 2019 noticed my LDL cholesterol- the BAD cholesterol- had risen from 85 to 99: the borderline of what was deemed as the healthy range.

Who to Trust, Who to Believe?

As I noticed this issue subtly creeping in, I began searching for the reasons rigorously. I first began looking for blogs online, felt underwhelmed with the lack of data and sources presented in the articles. I didn't think there were "top 5 ways" or any "super foods" that was going to cure this problem. I then, began reading books thinking they would have solid research and years of efforts so I could find greater insights. I read upwards of 20 books, this only made me more confused and lost than I had been before I embarked on this research. I found conflicting information all over these sources. The books were biased with monetary incentives from food companies and clouded with judgements based on societal norms. ​

Out of all the ones I have read, my results were the most consistent with those in this book

Designing a Year Long Experiment

Particularly, however, meat seemed to be a large point of debate. Across the 10+ books I read on the topic, many die-hard vegans demonized meat while many seemingly reputable sources included it in their recipes for balanced diets. After reading more on the topic it became increasingly difficult to come to a definitive conclusion so I decided to take matter into my own hands. End of January 2019, within few weeks of receiving the test results I decided to cut out meat completely from my diet. I controlled for red and white meat. I decided to still eat fish as it is a great source of B12, and Omega 3 oils. As for everything else, it was business as usual. 

Process 

Was it difficult for me to give up meat? Honestly, not really. I was already eating the Souperbowl most days and I just stopped adding meat to it. I also had the comfort of UCLA's award winning dining halls for 3 quarters of the year so that made it even easier. In the summer, as I was working at Deloitte Consulting I frequented places such as Veggie Grill (a pescatarian's secret weapon) and found it very exciting to try out all the menu items that would otherwise go unnoticed for me amidst all the meat options. That said, in other cultures and for some people this may be more challenging. Los Angeles, and the US has embraced the plant based movement considerably more than many other parts of the world, making this a lot easier.

Results 

- MAIN RESULT: My LDL cholesterol went down ~20%!
- Other healthy metrics such as protein (as per most people's concern) and alkaline actually went up!
- Other unhealthy measures such as sodium went down!
- Initially I felt noticeably better. More energetic and alert. This, however, only lasted for 2-3 weeks before my body normalized the feeling. 

​More results below:

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Learning Outcome

- I have now proven and gotten some clarity on what meat does to MY body. Moving forward, I will continue on my plant based diet. Granted, this may vary from person to person so I would best recommend you try this experiment yourself. 
- Meat, I have come to find, is more of a social value than any other food item. Turkey for Thanksgiving, celebratory steak dinners, you name it. Even when you are invited to friend's houses for dinners, there is almost always meat. Moving forward I have decided to be more flexible and test out being "flexitarian" for the next 365 days and see how that impacts my metrics- after all its all about balance.
- People have firm beliefs about their diets. Hard core vegans that try to force their ways on others have a bad rep for that very reason. You can not change someone who does not seek that change in themselves, so I can only share my results and hope to inspire at least a few people to try this themselves.
- There is a lot of noise out there. The best way to find out what works for you is to test it yourself (testing conditions permitting).

If you found this valuable, please share it with your friends and lets continue to raise awareness!