My biannual blood test results were done this week, and things continue to be great. I was slightly worried about my HbA1c blood sugar results, because the last few months I’ve been eating more fruits every day, and also sometimes some 100% honey hard candies (honey is not vegan, but OK with Dr. McDougall, though Dr. Greger thinks honey is only slightly better than sugar, and Chef AJ frowns upon it).

Updated 4/27/2022 – I have since given up on the honey drops as a non-WFPB waste of calories which were just playing to my snacking urges and not providing satiating, healthy nutrition.

For fruits I sometimes eat a couple a day. For example, Fuji apples (my favorite apples), but sometimes frozen melon, or fresh watermelon.

Anyway, I’ve been eating more sweet things like fruit lately and… my blood sugar actually went down since my last blood tests!

On top of that, I’ve been completely off blood sugar meds for a full two years now.

So eating WFPB seems to have reset my body. My doctor said I have absolutely no more blood sugar worries, and I should just concentrate on building upper body strength. I get plenty of cardio exercise with my dog walks, but I do need some resistance training.

The doctor also repeated that I don’t need to lose more weight. I am trying to maintain. I’m at my lowest weight in my adult life right now: 143 lb (65 kg) and have lost about 141 lb (64 kg). That’s down about 8 lb since my last biannual blood tests in May.

Side note: While I’m not trying to lose more weight, I can’t help but notice that if I lose just 1 more pound I will have lost exactly 50% of my original weight.

You can read more in detail about what I eat in my blog post, Oh Boy! Doug Food Again! But to sum up quickly, 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 maintaining weight loss. For example potatoes are surprisingly low calorie and bread is very high calorie. 

And here’s a recent before-and-after photo.

I also log my food and exercise calories in MyFitnessPal, and keep within 1600 net calories per day (food calories minus exercise calories). I recently upped that a bit. Today is MFP streak day 3,448. 

Anyway, my blood sugar remains normal, without medication (HbA1c is 5.3, normal range 4.7-6.2). My cholesterol is fantastic (total 130, normal range 120-219; bad cholesterol LDL 56, normal range 70-139; good cholesterol HDL 46, normal range 35-80), triglycerides are fine (96, normal range 30-150), and blood pressure is great (106/59 with heart rate 60 bpm). If you are interested you can check my last biannual results to see the historic values and how they have improved over time.

I do recommend WFPB eating for both health and weight loss. Unless you’re 95 and healthy anyway and enjoy what you eat (Yes, I’m talking about you, Muttle. Enjoy.)