Morning weigh-in: 185.6
Breakfast
- coffee with cream and mct oil
- Atkins coffee protein shake with mct oil
Lunch
- cobb salad
- olives
Supper
- 2 beers (it's Friday and payday)
- sausage with cheese and grilled onions (choripan below without the bread)
- Atkins snack
Lab results
I got my lab results from my annual physical. My cholesterol is higher than in the past. This is to be expected from a high-fat, low-carb diet. However, the results are not entirely telling. As it turns out, there are different types of LDL that get lumped together in the report. And, my HDL is low. Liver enzymes were mixed. AST was normal. ALT was high. I think the latter is the result of a night of drinking I had a couple of weeks back before the blood test.
I had also had a coronary artery calcium score done. But, I wasn't convinced that I had an accurate report. They got me a copy, which confirms a score of zero. If there is any plaque on my arteries, it's less than 5%.
What to do
We agreed that I should go back for more labs in 3 months to monitor my liver enzymes and cholesterol. The nurse practitioner was starting to be a bit insistent that maybe I should take statins to help lower my cholesterol until I told her about the low-carb dieting and pointed out about the LDL lumping together good and bad LDL. She also was more at ease after seeing the coronary artery calcium score.
The actionable item is that I can raise my HDL by exercising, which I have not done. This would improve some cholesterol ratios that put me in danger of heart disease, if left unchecked.
The Big Picture
This keto journey ties in with the overall focus of Travel Write Money in that poor health puts our travel, writing, and finances at risk. We can't live the dream, if our daily experience is a nightmare of health concerns. Health is our top investment to leverage the maximum enjoyment of the other things.