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Finding (and Sharing) the Fountain of Youth with Doug Schmidt: PYP 185

doug-schmidtDoug Schmidt is an enrichment teacher and health and wellness coordinator for his upstate New York school district. Now, health and wellness coordinators generally focus on stress reduction in the workplace, smoking cessation, and getting teachers to increase their physical activity by taking the stairs and parking farther away from the front entrance.

All laudable and noble goals, to be sure, but far from what we in the plant-based community know is possible and powerful.

When Doug suffered a heart attack in his backyard on Memorial Day 2008, at the age of 49, all the stress reduction, abstinence from cigarettes and daily steps could not have overcome the effects of half a century of the standard American diet.

He and his wife were active – a month before the heart attack, they were hiking across the peaks of the Adirondacks. And while he was carrying an extra 6o pounds, that hardly categorized him as high risk.

His penchant for loose-fitting clothing hid his girth, and frankly, he wasn't nearly as big as a lot of others in his life.

Despite an active lifestyle and a fat-camouflaging wardrobe, Doug received a stent in his left anterior descending artery, was incredible grateful to be alive, and decided then and there that he didn't want to spend the rest of his life on medications.

While Googling alternatives to a life of statins and beta blockers, Doug stumbled across Caldwell Esselstyn's Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease, as well as evidence from the extremely low-fat Ornish program. He dabbled in clean eating, but found the diet too extreme and restrictive.

Until some blockages a year later scared him away from moderation.

In our conversation, Doug and I discussed:

  • why Esselstyn's approach made sense to him
  • on being a chicken (“I didn't want to get cut open again”)
  • the nasty (and entirely predictable) side effects of totally unnecessary statins
  • dropping the oil and white flour (“it all came down to me”)
  • on being at his high school weight in his 50s
  • having his wife on the journey from the get-go
  • sourcing tasty recipes from everywhere (Pinterest, cookbooks, websites)
  • starting a 10-day PlantPure Jumpstart at his school district
  • how to play politics and get your way
  • emphasizing the medical soundness of the diet (“not a fad”)
  • working with health insurance administrators
  • communication strategies that worked during the Jumpstart
  • the incredible biometric before and after stories
  • the really stupid government regulations on school lunches
  • why we're serving class 1 carcinogens to our children
  • spreading the message to children
  • taking up running in his late 50s
  • and much more…

Enjoy, add your voice to the conversation via the comment box below, and please share – that's how we spread our message and spread our roots.

Links

Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease – by Caldwell Esselstyn, MD

Community Health article on Doug's Plant-based Challenge

PlantPure Pods

Dr Howie Jacobson

This podcast is a labor of love and a way to give back to the world that has given me so much. That's why there aren't any sponsors (except me :).

My day job is helping leaders and their teams master their mindsets to remove all obstacles to heart-centered high performance.

Here are three gigs that I do:

1. Executive and Senior Leadership Mentoring and Facilitation

I work with high performing executive teams in organizations — and executive teams that need to become high  performing. My focus is mindset mastery, because it’s our mindsets that either support high performance or get in the way.

At this level, everyone’s got the skills and experience to excel and contribute at the highest level. What holds people back is mindset stuff: specifically the triggers that get them out of creative engagement and into fight-or-flight defensiveness.

My practice is all about teaching people to respond differently to those triggers by updating old maps — essentially removing the glitches that the triggers grab onto.

2. Executive Coaching: Quick Wins for High Performance

I work with individual executives and leaders, one on one. The program is called Quick Wins for High Performance, and what we do is, we work strategically on one or two areas that are holding you back and keeping you from performing at your best.

We reverse engineer the presenting problems — too much work and not enough time, underperforming employees and teams, maddening organizational inefficiencies, etc — and identify and rewire the suboptimal mindsets that are behind those problems.

The work is all about updating your mental maps so your actions and responses are always appropriate, proportionate, and strategic.

3. High Stakes Conversations for Fast Growing Small Business Teams

I help small business teams have high stakes conversations with skill, humor, and grace. When people feel safe, they can do their best, most creative, most collaborative work.

So that's what I do. If you'd like any of those results, drop me a line and tell me about yourself.

You CAN Change Other People!

Well, that's what Peter Bregman and I claim in our provocative book of that title.

What we really mean is, you can bring out the best in the people around you. If you think you're powerless to help people change, it's because you've been going about it the wrong way.

Discover our straightforward, replicable process here: You Can Change Other People.

 

Music

The Plant Yourself Podcast theme music, “Dance of Peace (Sabali Don),” is generously provided by Will Ridenour, a kora player from North Carolina who has trained with top Senegalese musicians.

It can be found on his first CD, titled Will Ridenour.

You can learn about Will, listen to more tracks, and buy music on his website, WillRidenour.com.

Gratitudes

Thanks to Plant Yourself podcast patrons – Kim Harrison – Lynn McLellan – Brittany Porter – Dominic Marro – Barbara Whitney – Tammy Black – Amy Good – Amanda Hatherly – Mary Jane Wheeler – Ellen Kennelly – Melissa Cobb – Rachel Behrens – Tina Scharf – Tina Ahern – Jen Vilkinofsky – David Byczek – Michele X – Elspeth Feldman – Leah Stolar – Allan Kristensen – Colleen Peck – Michele Landry – Jozina – Sara Durkacs – Kelly Cameron – Janet Selby – Claire Adams – Tom Fronczak – Jeannette Benham – Gila Lacerte – David Donohue – Blair Seibert – Doron Avizov – Gio and Carolyn Argentati – Jodi Friesner – Mischa Rosen – Michael Worobiec – AvIvA Lael – Alicia Lemus – Val Linnemann – Nick Harper – Bandana Chawla – Molly Levine – The Inscrutable Harry R – Susan Laverty the Panda Vegan – Craig Covic – Adam Scharf – Karen Bury – Heather Morgan – Nigel Davies – Marian Blum – Teresa Kopel – Julian Watkins – Brid O'Connell – Shannon Herschman – Linda Ayotte – Holm Hedegaard – Isa Tousignant – Connie Haneline – Erin Greer – Alicia Davis – Heather O'Connor – Carollynne Jensen – Sheri Orlekoski of Plant Powered for Health – Karen Smith – Scott Mirani – Karen and Joe Crabtree – Kirby Burton – Theresa Carrell – Kevin Macaulay – Elizabeth Rothschild – Ann Jesse – Sheryl Dwyer – Jenny Hazelton – Peter W Evans – Dennis Bird – Darby Kelly – Lori Fanney – Linnea Lundquist – Emily Iaconelli – Levi Wallach – Rosamonde McAtee – Dan Pokorney – Stephen Leinin – Patty DeMartino – Mike and Donna Kartz – Deanne Bishop – Bilberry Elf – Marjorie Lewis – Tricia Adams – Nancy Sheldon – Lindsey Bashore – Gunn Marit Hagen – Tracey Gulledge – Lara Hedin – Meg from Mamasezz – Stacey Stokes – Ben Savage – Michael K – David Hughes -Coni Rodgers – Claire England – Sally Robertson – Parham Ganchi – Amy Dailey – Brian Tourville – Mark Jeffrey Johnson – Josie Dempsey – Caryn Schmitt – Pamela Hayden – Emily Perryman – Allison Corbett – Richard Stone – Lauren Vaught of Edible Musings – Erin Hastey – Sean Owens – Sagar Naik – Erika Piedra – Danielle Roberts – Michael Leuchten – Sarah Johnson – Katharine Floyd – Meryl Fury – for your generous support of the podcast.

Disclosure

This post may contain amazon affiliate links. I may receive compensation from your actions on such links. It don't cost you a dime, tho.

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