Dr. Michele Yasson is a veterinarian and whose business practice and personal passion for triathlons ultimately had a common factor ”“ nutrition ”“ that surprised and benefited her and in a measurable way.
Her veterinarian practice combines conventional and homeopathic therapies to treat ailing animals, specializing in treating those with such difficult conditions as cancer and diabetes. A large part of her treatment involves improving diet.
Her passion is for fitness. She is an Iron Man triathlete, having completed two of the grueling Lake Placid contests combining a two mile swim, a 112-mile bike ride and a 26.2-mile marathon, all on the same day. And she credits a recent change in her own diet to a remarkable improvement in her performance in the Iron Man challenge.Â
“I wanted to be a veterinarian since before I could pronounce it,” said Yasson, who is 48. In 1987, she founded the Kingston-based HolVet holistic veterinary practices, making it one of the oldest holistic veterinary practices in the country.
“I always thought I would be working with horses in conventional practice and I got involved in holistic medicine from a skeptical perspective,” Yasson said. But she said she went from viewing it as animal quackery to becoming an adherent because the combination of holistic and conventional medicines was more effective than either approach alone. “I have been doing this for 21 years as alternative practice; I am one of the elders in the field now and as such, my practiced has evolved,” Yasson said. “I like to say my job is to get to the point where you don”™t need me anymore.”
As an example, she cited diabetes in large dogs, a condition she said can be treated and even to some extent “cured” through common sense application of dietary reality. “Despite everything you may have hard about pets, internally they are like any wild wolf or wild lion, they are carnivores,” Yasson said. She said most pets “get way too many carbs in their diet. The closer you come to getting them raw prey the better they do.”
For herself, Yasson said she has always been interested in physical fitness and working out with weights. “I have always tried to stay fit.” she said. Then, while using her motorcycle to serve as marshal separating traffic from competitors in a triathlon and “I naively thought this doesn”™t look to hard,” Yasson said. “So I thought I”™d try it and it evolved from there.”
Yasson started about a decade ago with short races, such as a half-mile swim, a twelve-mile bike ride and three-mile run. She worked her way up the fitness ladder to the point where this summer, for the second time, she completed the Lake Placid Iron Man competition in July. The two-mile swim, 100-mile-plus bike ride and full marathon is no walk in the park. It commences at 7 a.m. and competitors are allowed till midnight to complete it.
In her first Iron Man at Lake Placid, last summer, Yasson chuckles and said, “I made it with half an hour to spare,” in 16 hours and 30 minutes.
This summer, however, she completed the grueling event in 14 hours and 40 minutes.   Â
Asked to explain the improvement in one year, Yasson credited, “Lots and lots of training.” But she also cited her change in diet. “A big factor for me, my whole chemistry is changing because I have become a raw foodist. I try to eat about 80 percent or more of my diet as raw food and that has made a huge difference in my health.”
She said raw fruits and vegetables, nuts and seeds are the food items the human body evolved to use as fuel. She said she made the connection after a friend pointed out the dichotomy between her advice for proper diet for healthy pets and the way most humans eat, a diet at odds with our mostly vegetarian raw food evolution.
“I always try to practice what I preach, so I tried it,” said Yasson. “I didn”™t expect the diet to have such a huge affect. I didn”™t expect to have what feels to me like the body of a 30 year old again.”     Â
