WTAJ News Healthcast Reporter Charlotte Ames shares a story of a man who used to eat up to 6 Whopper sandwiches a day, until heart troubles set in.
From Charlotte's Story on wearecentralpa.com : Last week, a man known as a spokesman for the "Heart Attack Grill" in Las Vegas, died of a heart attack at the age of 52. One of the restaurant's specialties is the Quadruple Bypass Burger, which weighs more than three pounds and contains nearly 10,000 calories. A local man who followed the same kind of menu plan until he got a wake-up call a few years ago.
Whole grain cereal, vegetables, fruits, boneless, skinless chicken breasts--you'll find very little food that's not good for you at the home of Dale and Sandra Shaw in Duncansville. Dale loves the taste of veggies, chicken and fish, grilled in a little olive oil. A few years back, he wouldn't have said that.
Having his own business, working full time, helping to raise three boys, and coaching their sports, he ate a lot of fast food on the run.
He explains, "I'd eat a couple Whoppers for lunch and a large fry and obviously a Diet Coke and then I'd have supper which concisted of 2 Whoppers, a large fry, and the traditional Diet Coke." He'd order the same things for a late-night snack.
Add the fries and the combo totals more than 8,000 calories a day and nearly 300 grams of fat. Dale did lift weights and run, but all those burgers and fries caught up with him anyway. He had his first angioplasty at the age of 39.
According to Dr. George Jabbour, a cardiologist at Blair Medical Associates, "unfortunately, nowadays, there's no such thing as a young age for heart disease." He calls Dale a perfect example of people not taking care of themselves.
Dr. Jabbour explains, "a lot of people have that false assurance that nothing's going to happen to me I'm in my mid 30's, I'm 40 years old I feel good." But he says, at least half the time, the first sign of heart problems is a heart attack.
Dale who's now 57, hasn't had a heart attack, but he's had recurrent problems with clogged arteries. He admits he didn't change his eating habits, until doctors implanted five stents in two days, in 2006. Now he has a total of ten.
He and Dr. Jabbour agree, even if you exercise you can't eat six Whoppers a day. The doctor says, "you can't just do one thing to protect yourself and do something else in the wrong way."
Dale says he may have eaten fast food twelve times in the past decade. He admits, he still gets a craving for a Whopper and fries, now and then, but he calls his wife and she talks him away from the drive-through.
