My quarterly blood test results are in, and they continue to be great. 

My blood sugar remains normal, without medication. It even dropped some more. My cholesterol is fantastic, blood pressure is great, and I continue to (very very very slowly) lose weight.

The doctor said I shouldn’t worry about losing any more weight. Also, from now on instead of quarterly blood tests he said I only need biannual blood tests. 

The rest of this post are details, if people are interested in numbers and more!

What I eat and don’t eat

I follow WFPB (whole food plant based) eating: mostly vegan, no oil, very limited nuts, and limited sugar and salt. No intermittent fasting, no keto, lots of carbs including potatoes and fruits. I stick to low calorie density foods to help with weight loss. For example potatoes are surprisingly low calorie and bread is very high calorie. 

For lots more details on the things I eat and the people in the field I follow take a look at my post from last November: November 28, 2019 – quarterly test results | Doug Reports

Basically I eat lots of veggies, including starches, and have fruit every day. In other words, I eat lots of carbs. Carbs do not impact negatively on blood sugar or weight. 

Logging with MyFitnessPal

I log my food and exercise calories in MyFitnessPal, and keep within 1500 net calories per day (food calories minus exercise calories). 

Today is my MyFitnessPal Streak Day 3,105. Daily logging in MFP has been a great sanity check and prevented me from having a complete rebound when I fell off the wagon in the past. 

My weight has fluctuated the past month between 72 kg and 73 kg. At 72 kg = 158.7 lb my total weight loss is 57 kg = 125.7 lb. This means I have lost 44% of my original weight, and am at a normal BMI of 23.8. I’m at the lowest weight I’ve been in my entire adult life. My weight loss has slowed to a crawl, but losing slowly is better than a rebound. I’d sort of like to get into the 60s just for the fun of it. But at this rate it could take 6 months or more.

As I mentioned last time, my stomach still sticks out a bit (less than last time), and in Japan my shirt size is LL (maybe M or L in the U.S.). So I will continue healthy eating and doing as much exercise as I can.  I’ll continue eating this way for life. It’s healthy, and I enjoy what I eat. There is no feeling of deprivation at all.

More on the “E” Word

Exercise… 

I have also been taking my puppy, Pao, who will be one year old in a week, for walks along the river, so that helps. He’s gotten quite large. Last December his weight was 1.3 kg = 2.8 lb and I could weigh him on my food scale. Now he’s 23.65 kg = 52 lb! So the Doug/Pao ratio is currently 3.04. His weight is steady. More on that next week when I announce the winner of the “Pao One Year Weight Contest.”

Except for sit-ups I haven’t added any exercise to the walks.  I really do want to start more upper body exercises, but keep putting it off.  Or maybe do swimming. There is a public sports center near here. I even walk over there with Pao on dog walks. I’m not sure what they are doing during the pandemic though.

Blood test results

Here are the latest and previous results. Normal ranges are in parentheses. 

Total cholesterol (120-219)

2020: Nov 19 – 123; Aug 20 – 108; May 21 – 124; Feb 20 – 120

2019: Nov 28 – 118; Aug 29 – 116; Jun 8 – 136; Mar 19 – 133

Holding steady in the low-but-normal range. Low is supposed to be heart healthy. 

HDL good cholesterol (35-80)

2020: Nov 19 – 53; Aug 20 – 39; May 21 – 43; Feb 20 – 40

2019: Nov 28 – 46; Aug 29 – 40; Jun 8 – 34; Mar 19 – 38

Normal range. 

LDL bad cholesterol (70-139)

2020: Nov 19 – 47; Aug 20 – 46; May 21 – 56; Feb 20 – 54

2019: Nov 28 – 55; Aug 29 – 56; Jun 8 – 73; Mar 19 – 72

This remains very low.  Almost the lowest for me ever. And lower than normal range.  But, again, that’s supposed to be great for your heart. 

Triglycerides (30-150)  

2020: Nov 19 – 56; Aug 20 – 69; May 21 – 93; Feb 20 – 107

2019: Nov 28 – 62; Aug 29 – 79; Jun 8 – 129; Mar 19 – 114

This went down even more – my lowest ever – but well within normal range. 

Blood Sugar HbA1c (4.7-6.2)

2020: Nov 19 – 5.5; Aug 20 – 5.6; May 21 – 5.8; Feb 20 – 6.1

2019: Nov 28 – 5.9; Aug 29 – 6.1; Jun 8 – 5.5; Mar 19 – 5.9

2018: Dec 20 – 6.5; Sep – 8.2; June – 10.8

This dropped some more again. The doctor said I have my blood sugar under control and there was nothing more to do about it. Remember, he finally decided to drop all blood sugar medication last November.

This value does not fluctuate much over the short term. It’s a 2-3 month average. It’s a great improvement over time (it had been dangerously high), and has been in the normal range since March, 2019. 

In fact he said all my blood values were fine and I just should concentrate on being active and moving about. 

My blood pressure was a great 108/60. 

The nutritionist was also very pleased, as long as I promised her I was eating tofu and using soy milk to get enough protein. Honestly though, there is protein in everything I eat. I don’t know why people worry about vegans not getting enough protein. Anyway, I mention soy and she’s happy. She will check in on my exercise next time.

And onward…