Undo It! Quotes

“Our genes are a predisposition, but our genes are not our fate,” I wrote to him. “If they were, then you’d be a victim, but you’re not—you’re one of the most powerful people on the planet.”
― Dean Ornish, Undo It!: How Simple Lifestyle Changes Can Reverse Most Chronic Diseases

“Each of the program’s four components—eat well, move more, stress less, and love more—has profound and dynamic beneficial effects on all of these shared mechanisms that cause us to get sick and enable us to heal. Because of this,”
― Dean Ornish, Undo It!: How Simple Lifestyle Changes Can Reverse Most Chronic Diseases

“For example, the latest studies are showing that lifestyle changes are often actually better than drugs and surgery in treating and even reversing many of the most prevalent chronic diseases, including stable coronary heart disease and early-stage prostate cancer.”
― Dean Ornish, Undo It!: How Simple Lifestyle Changes Can Reverse Most Chronic Diseases

“But for many people, an even more motivating example than increasing blood flow to your brain and your heart can be found in The Game Changers, a powerful new documentary film produced by legendary filmmaker James Cameron”
― Dean Ornish, Undo It!: How Simple Lifestyle Changes Can Reverse Most Chronic Diseases

“Besides regulating your blood sugar level, insulin plays an important role in fat metabolism. Because insulin increases the secretion of lipoprotein lipase, an enzyme that increases the uptake of fat from your bloodstream into fat in your body’s cells, when your body produces more insulin, you are more likely to convert dietary calories into body fat. When you try to lose weight”
― Dean Ornish, Undo It!: How Simple Lifestyle Changes Can Reverse Most Chronic Diseases

“Group is about connection, not correction. We do not need to be fixed. We need to feel loved. We each deserve to be seen, heard, and accepted. Another program participant, Julie, describes her experience”
― Dean Ornish, Undo It!: How Simple Lifestyle Changes Can Reverse Most Chronic Diseases

“The best things in life make you sweaty. —Anonymous”
― Dean Ornish, Undo It!: How Simple Lifestyle Changes Can Reverse Most Chronic Diseases

“As Benjamin Franklin is thought to have wisely advised, “Never ruin an apology with an excuse.”
― Dean Ornish, Undo It!: How Simple Lifestyle Changes Can Reverse Most Chronic Diseases

“Our feelings connect us in powerful ways. As Maya Angelou once wrote, “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
― Dean Ornish, Undo It!: How Simple Lifestyle Changes Can Reverse Most Chronic Diseases

“Science makes progress funeral by funeral: the old are never converted by the new doctrines, they simply are replaced by a new generation. —Max Planck”
― Dean Ornish, Undo It!: How Simple Lifestyle Changes Can Reverse Most Chronic Diseases

“men who have erectile dysfunction are at much higher risk of having heart disease, memory loss, dementia, or stroke as their arteries are often clogged throughout their body.”
― Dean Ornish, Undo It!: How Simple Lifestyle Changes Can Reverse Most Chronic Diseases

“Here’s the bottom line: the only diet that has been scientifically proven to reverse heart disease, to slow, stop, or reverse early-stage prostate cancer, and to reverse aging by lengthening telomeres (among other benefits) is a whole-foods plant-based diet low in both fat and refined carbohydrates. No one has ever done a randomized trial proving that a high-fat, low-carb diet can reverse heart disease. It actually makes it worse.”
― Dean Ornish, Undo It!: How Simple Lifestyle Changes Can Reverse Most Chronic Diseases

“In contrast, when a coronary artery in your heart is only 30–40 percent blocked, it is more unstable because it’s not calcified, and it has not had time to grow a protective network of collaterals. This is why these are called “vulnerable plaques”—because they are more likely to rupture and cause a sudden total obstruction, known as “catastrophic progression,” which is as bad as it sounds.”
― Dean Ornish, Undo It!: How Simple Lifestyle Changes Can Reverse Most Chronic Diseases

“Like all revolutionary new ideas, the subject has had to pass through three stages, which may be summed up by these reactions: (1) “It’s crazy—don’t waste my time.” (2) “It’s possible, but it’s not worth doing.” (3) “I always said it was a good idea.” —Arthur C. Clarke”
― Dean Ornish, Undo It!: How Simple Lifestyle Changes Can Reverse Most Chronic Diseases

“Love, social support, and intimacy. People who feel lonely, depressed, and isolated are three to ten times more likely to get sick and die prematurely from virtually all causes when compared to those who have strong feelings of love, connection and community. Chapter 7 describes how we can transform isolation into healing.”
― Dean Ornish, Undo It!: How Simple Lifestyle Changes Can Reverse Most Chronic Diseases

“Our peace of mind isn’t something we get from outside ourselves; rather, it is there all the time until we disturb it.”
― Anne Ornish, Undo It!: How Simple Lifestyle Changes Can Reverse Most Chronic Diseases

“What are you, a Hindu?” he replied, “No, I’m an Undo” (another reason we chose this book’s title). “Peace comes not from doing, but from undoing; not from getting, but from letting go. It’s there already until you disturb it. The purpose of all spiritual practices is to stop disturbing what you already have.”
― Dean Ornish, Undo It!: How Simple Lifestyle Changes Can Reverse Most Chronic Diseases

“In short, these are the rules of engagement, whether in a group or one-on-one: Identify what you’re feeling. Express what you’re feeling. Listen empathically to what others are feeling. Our group support sessions allow you to witness how to use your wounds as catalysts for transforming your pain—allowing your suffering to subside, your wounds to begin healing, and your heart to begin feeling safe enough to open a little wider.”
― Dean Ornish, Undo It!: How Simple Lifestyle Changes Can Reverse Most Chronic Diseases

“In 2018, scientists learned that Antarctica’s ice sheet is melting far faster than previously thought, with more than 200 billion tons of ice flooding into oceans annually, according to new research published in the prestigious science journal Nature.”
― Dean Ornish, Undo It!: How Simple Lifestyle Changes Can Reverse Most Chronic Diseases

“Over half of the American population has type 2 diabetes or pre-diabetes, at an annual cost of over $322 billion. Yet these conditions are completely preventable in most people today by following the lifestyle medicine program described in this book.”
― Dean Ornish, Undo It!: How Simple Lifestyle Changes Can Reverse Most Chronic Diseases

“Hundreds of oncogenes that promote prostate cancer, breast cancer, colon cancer, and other conditions were switched off in only three months. We published this research with Dr. J. Craig Venter (the first person to sequence a human genome) in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.”
― Dean Ornish, Undo It!: How Simple Lifestyle Changes Can Reverse Most Chronic Diseases