Keeping Fat Out of Your Fate
Harry D. died of a heart attack at the age of 51. He just fell over into his fettuccine Alfredo while watching Monday Night Football. The death certificate listed natural causes.
What author/lecturer Joe Piscatella can’t figure out is how the stress-filled sedentary lifestyle, fat-ridden diet and nicotine habit that killed the archetypal Harry D. can be considered “natural.â€
“It’s not because of magic. It’s because of the way they live,†that people die from heart attacks, said Piscatella, who will discuss “Who Murdered Harry D.?†Tuesday night at Glendale Memorial Hospital. “We eat too much and we’re sedentary.â€
Piscatella knows. He went through triple-bypass surgery in 1977 at the age of 32.
“I got into this thing the hard way,†Piscatella said of his work in heart disease and nutrition. “I came out of (the bypass) experience and was very confused about what I could and what I couldn’t do. The science was very good, but it didn’t do a lot for anybody when they went one-on-one with the refrigerator.â€
Piscatella’s research led him to write his first book, “Don’t Eat Your Heart Out,†which put information on cholesterol into layman’s terms. His fourth book, “The Fat Tooth Fat Gram Counter,†due in March, discusses how to budget fat, so people can still have their Oreos.
“The craving is not for sugar,†Piscatella said. “The craving is for fat, and when you don’t feed that craving, you end up on pendulum swings,†such as eating the whole bag of Hershey’s Kisses, instead of just a few.
The talk, in the hospital’s Health Center Auditorium, 1420 S. Central Ave., begins at 6:30 p.m. Admission is free.
Don’t have the time?
“A guy tells me that on Monday,†said Piscatella. “On Tuesday, he has a heart attack and Wednesday, he has the time.â€
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