Woe is me to work on me…

My annual physical turned up some interesting results. My numbers were mostly good but there were a few causes for concern. Blood sugar was great – my sugar cut is working. T levels and prostrate all good. Blood pressure is around 130/80 which is about my norm. Resting heart rate 48. Slow and low…

Cholesterol in total dropped from 265 – 215. Bad dropped from 180 – 130 while the good rose from mid 60’s to mid 70’s. However, this year they were able to do the particle size test on the bad cholesterol. Turns out my particle size test was bad news. My particle score was 1600 and they want you under 1000. Translation – my particle size means my bad cholesterol is sticking to my artery walls. Plaque is building. Dr. Long asked me to get a heart scan to verify what’s going on. My plauque score two years ago was an 11. A score of 400 means you’ve got a heart event coming soon – not the kind you want. I’m far from that. My recent scan validated the particle test, however, as my number grew from 11 – 44. Still a long way from 400, but Dr. Long is concerned to stop the buildup and wants me to go on Crestor asap. 

This happened last friday – saturday and I immediately felt depressed and angry at the same time. I went all victimhood about my genes and how unfair life is. I mean, come on man, I work out like a banchee and eat food – real food. I stopped the McDonalds runs years ago, the sugar highs, and the processed stuff too. I am eating well and taking care of myself. How can my body betray me like this, I kept thinking.  After a few hours of this I decided I needed to change my mind. I began to write. I slowed myself down and challenged myself to look at what was under my control. I challenged myself to get out of victimhood and change my relationship to cholesterol and hopefully to my plaque. I became critical of my behaviors. This wasn’t fun. I wasn’t feeling particularly positive as I waded into this process. My brain kept fighting me with prideful thoughts – like I shouldn’t have this kinda thing happen to someone being as good as me. Yikes, my pride problem keeps raising it’s ugly head.

I kept writing.

Eventually I saw some integrity gaps in my healthy/physical disciplines. I have gotten lazy and cheated on a few healthy habits around my eating. After doing a little research, I decided to make a few changes. I’m modifying my primal eating pattern a bit. In hindsight, I should have done this years ago. It was just easier to follow anothers recipe for healthy living, so, I took the shortcut. Damn. I gotta stop talking to myself like this. Moving on.

Effective immediately I’m cutting out the grain fed beef and replacing it with grass fed. No excuses. This is part of the primal blueprint, I’ve just cut corners and enjoyed the fatty corn fed stuff. Afterall, it’s more available and I’m being so good in other areas 🙂 I’ve been eating a lot of fish and am going to eat more wild. I’m gonna swallow a little cod liver oil and fish oil for good measure. And, I’m experimenting with gluten free oats as my morning meal. I’m cutting out my habit of a high protein toast and bacon and eggs 3-4 times/week. My primal diet told me the bacon and eggs were good. My plaque is giving me different feedback. I’m listening. And, I’ve allowed my coffee consumption to rise to 3-4 cups a day. The new discipline is 1 a day. I am going to experiment with these new disciplines and play around with a few others as we go. 

I called Dr. Long on Monday to tell him my plan. He was a bit shocked and, again, tried to talk me into taking my medicine, so to speak. He was kind and complimentary and a bit incredulous at the same time. He simply believes I cannot change my blood chemistry without the help of a statin prescription. He may be right. I reminded him of the big changes we made in my healthy habits back in 2010 and how much they’ve helped and agreed to re-evaluate in six months with another blood draw and see what happens. I asked him if I’m taking a health risk in so doing. He convinced me, I’m not. He simply thinks I’m delaying the inevitable…

He’s right. 

I am – delaying the inevitable, that is. I am attempting to live a healthy/physical life and my attempt will surely end in failure. I am gonna die. I’m not going to live forever. I’m simply trying to control what I can control. I’m trying to do my best with what I’ve been given. I’m trying to not mindlessly medicate. I am trying to take responsibility for my healthy/physical life and own my recipe for dealing with my body. I hope to write about another successful attempt at staving off the inevitable in about six months time. I could be right. I could be wrong. Either way, I’ll be a bit more disciplined, a little stronger, and become a little smarter along the way. 

If you want, you can extrapolate my rant to you and your sense of victimhood/responsibility. You and I get stronger as we take the latter, face the former, and get after building a great life as best we can. I hope this helps. Either way, thanks for listening. I feel better just TALKing this out with you. I guess I’m moving from woe is me to work on me. Woe is me to work on me. “Woe is me” tends to make me bitter. Funny, “working on me” actually makes me feel better. Funny, huh..