My quarterly blood test results are in, and the results continue to be great.
My blood sugar remains normal (even went down some more), cholesterol is fantastic, blood pressure is great, and I continue to (slowly) lose weight.
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 November post: November 28, 2019 – quarterly test results | Doug Reports
But basically I eat lots of veggies, including starches, and have fruits 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 1540 net calories per day (food calories minus exercise calories).
Today is my MyFitnessPal Streak Day 2,923. 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.
I’ve lost a total of 53.6 kg = 118 lb, currently weigh 75.4 kg = 166 lb and am now at a normal BMI. I’m at the lowest weight I’ve been in my entire adult life.
My stomach still sticks out a bit though, so I will continue doing what I’ve been doing. And my doctor said I need to add more muscles.
Blood test results
Here are the latest and previous results. Normal ranges are in parentheses.
Total cholesterol (120-219)
2020: May 21 – 124; Feb 20 – 120
2019: Nov 28 – 118; Aug 29 – 116; Jun 8 – 136; Mar 19 – 133
This remains low, which I think is fine.
HDL good cholesterol (35-80)
2020: May 21 – 43; Feb 20 – 40
2019: Nov 28 – 46; Aug 29 – 40; Jun 8 – 34; Mar 19 – 38
LDL bad cholesterol (70-139)
2020: May 21 – 56; Feb 20 – 54
2019: Nov 28 – 55; Aug 29 – 56; Jun 8 – 73; Mar 19 – 72
Quite low! But that’s supposed to be great for your heart.
Triglycerides (30-150)
2020: May 21 – 93; Feb 20 – 107
2019: Nov 28 – 62; Aug 29 – 79; Jun 8 – 129; Mar 19 – 114
Went down a bit and well within normal range.
Blood Sugar HbA1c (4.7-6.2)
2020: 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
The doctor was very pleased with this. This was after my doctor 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. You can see it’s a great improvement over time (it had been dangerously high), and has been in the normal range since March, 2019.
My blood pressure was a nice 119/67.
The nutritionist was also very pleased, as long as I promised her I was eating tofu to get enough protein.
The “E” Word
Exercise…
Last quarter, and the quarter before that, and probably the quarter before that I said I was going to start some upper body resistance training to build up some arm strength and maybe add some muscles, for my health. And also to increase my metabolism to help with final weight loss. And the doctor said I needed to add more muscles. But I haven’t started that yet though.
I have been taking my puppy, Pao, who will be 6 months old in a week, for walks along the river, so that helps.
Anyway, onward…
