November 8, 2012
Last month when I posted to this blog, my weight was 160.0
pounds. As you can see in the sidebar to
the right, my weight as of Monday was 163.2 pounds.
When I weighed myself this past Monday and found my weight
to be up a pound from last week and 3 pounds higher than a month ago, I thought
I could feel the extra 3 pounds. I started
thinking about how I perceive my body weight which I believe falls into the
category of body image. It seems odd to
me that now at 163 pounds I feel that I need to lose weight and a year ago at a
little over 180 pounds I thought my weight was pretty good.
I believe that part of the reason is that since my job ended
in September I have not been getting my weight workouts. I think the regular
weight lifting helps me feel strong and not focus on the extra "stuff" for lack
of a better word, around my middle. I plan to get back to lifting weights as
soon as possible.
In my post last month I indicated that I was taking Rip
Esselstyn’s 28 day challenge and would be making an attempt to eat a gluten free, vegan with no oil diet over
the next month. I had blood drawn at the
end of September to check levels of blood cholesterol and sugar which would be
compared to similar tests done at the beginning of November. I also stated that
I would be recording my food consumption in my Calorie King diary so I would
know how many times I strayed from my food plan.
First off, since my weight was in my goal range I quickly
abandoned recording my food consumption in Calorie King. My feel for my diet
during this time period is that I stayed pretty close. I know there were a
couple poor food decisions during the month and several other times that I
either intentionally or unintentionally had a small amount of a food item I was
trying to avoid.
|
|
5/24/2012
|
9/29/2012
|
11/5/2012
|
|
Total Cholesterol
|
161
|
161
|
149
|
|
LDL
|
90
|
77
|
73
|
|
Triglyceride
|
53
|
34
|
39
|
|
HDL
|
61
|
77
|
68
|
|
Glucose
|
|
88
|
87
|
So in the end, total cholesterol and LDL both went down and are
in the range that Rip states makes one heart attack proof. However,
Triglyceride went up and HDL went down which is the wrong direction for both of
these markers to be moving. I will say
that I felt better eating primarily plant foods and that on the 2 occasions
during the month that knowingly had a meal of animal foods, I felt worse and my
digestion was much more sluggish. While
I don’t think I will become a zealot anytime soon and have no intention of
giving up my wool socks like some vegans, I do intend to continue with
primarily a plant based diet.
I do want to share that I found a product during the past
month that I think is wonderful and I have been using in place of salad
dressing. I had been using regular balsamic vinegar on my salads and alone, it
has a fairly strong flavor. This past month I switched to white balsamic
vinegar. The flavor is milder and it is just fine alone with no oil.
So here we are through with Halloween but looking that big
fat turkey straight in the eye. My
weight is now the highest it has been since August 27th and the
holiday eating season looms large. Plus, to kick off the holiday eating season,
I will be on a cruise ship for 7 days the week of Thanksgiving. Clearly my
challenge now is to get to 2013 within my goal range. Stay tuned, I will post an update about a
month from now.
