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A weight-loss success story photo by Jim Craven After losing 90 pounds on Omega Diet, Eagle Point man will be featured in a video by its creator By BILL KETTLER Mail Tribune Sometimes Greg Mc Une still doesn't recognize the guy in the mirror. "My face is longer and narrower, instead of just round," he said, showing a visitor a tent-sized shirt that shrouded his torso when he weighed 307 pounds. "I was always fat," said Mc Une, a 1979 graduate of Medford High School who now lives near Eagle Point. "I always wished I wasn't. I tried different diets. They just never worked." Mc Une finally found the right diet after a heart attack 15 months ago at the tender age of 39. If you go Dr. Artemis Simopolous, author of "The Omega Diet," will speak about the relationship between diet and health Thursday at Rogue Valley Medical Center. Simopolous will discuss how the "Mediterranean" diet she describes in the book can reduce the risk of heart disease, diabetes and other illnesses. The diet also can be used as a weight-loss tool. She will speak at the Smullin Center, 2825 Barnett Road. There is no fee to hear her presentation. For more information, call 608-4466. "My cardiologist said I had two choices," he recalled. "I could make some lifestyle changes, or I could see him again in a few years - if I survived the second heart attack." Mc Une's physician told him he needed to start exercising and change his diet. The doctor suggested following the plan set out in "The Omega Diet," a 1998 book that recommends eating more fruits, vegetables, fish and low-fat meats, and fewer animal fats, fried foods and packaged snacks. Mc Une and his wife, Connie, cleaned out their cupboard and restocked it with foods such as olive oil, dried beans, pasta, nuts and plenty of savory herbs and spices. "I just started eating different and exercising, and the weight started coming off," Mc Une said. "It was the first time in my life I ever saw some results." Mc Une was so excited about losing 90 pounds that he wrote to Dr. Artemis Simopoulos, the Washington, D.C., physician who wrote "The Omega Diet." Simopoulos was sufficiently impressed by his achievement that she decided to include his story in a video documentary she is making on the beneficial health effects of the diet. "It was probably the best letter I ever read from a patient," Simopoulos said in a recent telephone interview. "He included vary vivid descriptions of the changes that came about from using the Omega Diet." Simopoulos and a video crew are scheduled to work with Mc Une today. She will speak about the health benefits of the Omega Diet at 11 a.m. Thursday at Rogue Valley Medical Center. Simopoulos said her book largely describes the traditional diet of the people of Crete, a Mediterranean island near Greece. Cretans eat lots of fresh vegetables, fruit, olive oil and fish and have some of the lowest rates of heart disease in the world. Unlike other "heart-healthy" diets, the Cretan diet includes plenty of calories from certain kinds of fats. Simopoulos discovered olive oil, fish and dark green vegetables tend to have large amounts of a particular kind of fatty acid scientists call omega-3. Those omega-3 fatty acids form the core of the Omega Diet, Simopoulos said. Fatty acids are found in every cell in the body, and they play an important role in regulating metabolism within cells and cell-to-cell communication. Simopoulos said a growing body of scientific research suggests omega-3 fatty acids may be a critical element for optimum health, and many diseases may be linked to shortages of this nutrient. She said people would be healthier in general if they ate more like ancient hunter-gatherers, who consumed far more omega-3 fatty acids than most modern Americans eat today. That doesn't mean digging up roots for dinner, but it does mean eating more fish, olive oil and substances such as flax seed that are rich in omega-3 fatty acids. "It's easy to cook on this diet," she said. "There are lots of salads, lots of lightly saut�ed foods. The cooking is simple. The simpler the cooking, the healthier the diet." Mc Une used the heart-friendly recipes in Simopoulos' book to shrink his waist from 44 inches to 36 over about a year. Daily one-mile walks and three trips a week to the cardiac rehabilitation room at Rogue Valley Medical Center brought his resting pulse down to 65 beats per minute from 80. Eventually he hopes to get his weight down still more. "I want to see two-zero-zero on the scale," he said, "and I know how to get there. "All I've got to do now is cut back on the calories and increase the exercise." Reach reporter Bill Kettler at 776-4492, or e-mail [email protected] Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.