«
»

some good news

no, i’m not talking about a modern english translation of the bible. this post is about my health.

last january my doctor found that my cholesterol was borderline high and my LDL level was quite high. so she gave me a 1-year perscription of Lipitor, asked me to eat less pork and beef (she doesn’t know, but the real culprit was eggs and cheese, i probably eat beef about 1/month) and sent me away.

i told her it was probably high because it was the middle of winter and i (at the time) did all my exercise outside, which amounted to very little in the winter.

so i immediately started:

  • walking more, even in the cold Chicago snow
  • greatly reduced the number of eggs
  • reduced the amount of cheese, beef and yes even less pork (which is one of my favorite foods)
  • started going to the gym occasionally (1 or 2 times a week)
  • taking the lipitor, but not religously

two months in, i realized i had only taken about 50% of the pills. so i set an alarm and left them out on the nightstand. i heard some study found that only about 90% of patients accurately follow their doctors perscriptions – so i am in good company.

later, in the summer IIRC, i started going to the gym more often (2 -4 times a week). that is in addition to cycling, which i do when the weather is good. i never do both more than 4 or 5 times in a week.

now 10 months have gone by and the change is thus:

Jan Nov
202 134 - cholesterol (110-200)
144 069 - LDL (<130)
036 044 - HDL (norm >40, ideal >60)
127 104 - triglyceride (40-160)

much better and very different numbers. maybe i forgot about a chilli dog during my “fast” in january?

anyway, now that i can see the delta is so dramatic, i am driven to keep it up. i wonder what portion of the effect was drug related and what portion was “lifestyle”. of course i want to think that lifestyle dominates, but that is just pride. maybe someday i’ll reduce or stop the statin altogether and find out. but for the next 8 to 10 months i’m just going to keep at it and see if it continues to improve – everything looks good, but my HDL could still be higher to get to the “ideal” range.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 9th, 2009 at 10:11 and is filed under . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

3 Responses to “some good news”

  1. John Depue says:
    November 10, 2009 at 12:14

    That’s great Bill. What do you typically eat everyday? Looking for things to add to my day to day diet that would replace the fattier proteins like beef and pork.

  2. billd says:
    November 10, 2009 at 15:26

    Well, it is not like i eat the same thing every day, but things do repeat a lot.

    For protein i usually eat

    • turkey (i’m with Ben Franklin on this one, it should have been our national bird)
    • nuts – i just have some around and every day, some get consumed
    • cheese
    • beans, mostly soy (tofu wrap for lunch today)
    • about once a week pork or fish
    • about every month or so, I’ll be somewhere with steak and get a piece of beef

    The food changes I made:

    • lowering the frequency of pork and beef (i used to eat pork 3 or 4 times a week and beef 1/week)
    • started drinking that green juice to get more veggies (the stuff that looks like baby shit). I’ve always drank a lot of fruit juice, which it turns out this is mostly fruit.
    • i used to eat a couple eggs with cheese on top, 1-2 times a week. i just stopped doing that.
  3. John Depue says:
    November 10, 2009 at 17:38

    I started receiving a box of locally grown/sustainable/fresh fruits and veggies every week at work. So the only thing I need to figure out now is the proteins. Killing a few birds with one stone. Saving money, eating healthier, not giving money to corporate food processors, supporting the local non-corporate farmers, and maybe help the environment…

    Thanks for the tips Bill!

Leave a Reply