Every six months, I have been taking blood tests to monitor my vitamin levels, cholesterol LDL/HDL, blood sugar and so forth. Since July 2016, I wanted to do a three month test to see what happens if I slowly start to incorporate carbs but also some meats. Having lost a lot of weight, I wanted to test a few theories. a) Would I gain back weight b) I did eliminate eggs from my daily/weekly routine – my doctor wanted to see if that spiked my LDL levels c) Also how would vitamin levels and blood sugar levels do.
While I have lived for the nearly an entire year eliminating wheat, pasta, flour. It has been interesting because I have met many people also following their own lifestyle change or temporary weight loss by doing paleo or keto.
And I know some friends have tried to cajole me from trying what they were doing. The thing is what works for some people, but I’m hardcore about the blood tests after a change in health and eating habits in making sure what I’m doing is healthy.
It goes beyond just the slimming of my waist size, shirt size and what I see on my weigh-ins. The lab results really play a big factor in what I do and for since February 2016, my primary goal was trying to find ways to continue to increase my HDL, lower my LDL, making sure my blood sugar is low but also slowly incorporating carbs to see how things affect me.
So, here are the results…
My blood sugar has decreased from 102 to 96. August 2015 at my heaviest – I was 214. So, I’m glad that I have maintained my blood sugar levels. But I did have another test for this, this is in regards to my eyesight. I was noticing that on certain mornings, my eyesight would be wacked and thought my eyesight was getting worse overnight. I learned from my optometrist that on days where I have low blood sugar, I would need to incorporate some sugar. My main supply of sugar is primarily all fruit-based. So, I started to incorporate fruit bars, clif bars, etc. to my morning routine. My hemoglobin levels are low, so below pre-diabetic and diabetic level.
Cholesterol: Back in February 2016, I was at 36 mg/dL, HDL spiked up to 38 mg/dL and LDL spiked to 165 and my Systolic Blood Pressure was 120mm/HG. Because my LDL spiked, my doctor said two things a) He believes it could be hereditary as it’s in my family b) Or the amount of eggs and dairy I’m eating. He wanted to see if I can lower my LDL in six months by cutting down the eggs and dairy but also trying to keep my HDL up. HDL I dropped by one point (which was a little disappointing) but the big difference was I lowered my LDL by 20 points down to 145. And so, it was proven that the eggs were responsible for my cholesterol increase and by eliminating eggs, I was able to drop it down.
Vitamin Levels: I have managed to increase my potassium, vitamin D levels, in February 2016, I was at 28.3 and managed to increase my vitamin D levels to 33.0. Unfortunately, I will have to do a more pricier test to get my Vitamin B12 level. At Sept. 2015, I was at *591 and since I have increased my B12 intake since then, hope to see things better in the next lab results and see an increase like my other vitamin levels.
As for the introduction of carbs, the three month test was done because I was starting to feel lethargic as I have increased the amount miles I was running and cycling. But in June, after a long ride, I nearly collapsed. And I realized, I needed to change things up especially before a major workout and increase my carb intake before very lengthy workouts.
But what I was warned about others, I found myself trapped. As slowly I started to introduce carbs, I found myself wanting to all of a sudden eat more carbs. At first, I was focusing on once a week but I found myself getting into bad habits. But because I wanted to see how this has affected my health, I stuck with it until I was able to get my lab results. So, in the process of eating carbs again, while I have not increased in pant size and can still fit into my 33’s, I did gain back 15 pounds. But a lot of it I have focused more on muscle building, as I have started to incorporate more weight training to work on my chest, arms and still cycling and running (albeit not for the last few weeks since a toe injury). [I’m on Strava, so you can follow my daily workout]
So, it will be interesting to see what my next lab results will be in March 2017.
