Fitness By The Numbers
July 18th, 2008. Filed under: Finance & Fitness Fridays.I had a doctor visit last week. You know the one. The first of the week you go have fasting lab work drawn. The end of the week you go find out the numbers. In between you have most of the week to fret about the numbers. Will they be too high? Will they be high enough? Will they be better or worse than last year’s numbers?
My day of reckoning was last Friday. Dr. G came into the exam room, a little chit chat and then he started looking through my lab results. “Your triglycerides are a little high.” Before he went any further, I asked him what last year’s numbers were compared to this year. After checking that out, he decided I was doing just fine. Last year they were 312. This year 214. Essentially 100 points difference. He wanted to start me on a statin drug last year, but I told him I would prefer to just work with diet and lifestyle changes. The man is happy already. Now on to the cholesterol. Last year my HDL was 36. This year it’s up into the preferred range at 41. The LDL also did what it was supposed to do. It dropped from 150 to 95. My fasting blood sugar was high at 116, but I’m a diabetic so that really isn’t high for me. The one number which made me the happiest was my A1c. This test is an indicator of what a person’s average blood sugar is over a period of three months. I have that done every three months during my regular checkup. When I was first diagnosed a little over a year ago, it was 7.9. The last time it was at 6.3. This time it was 5.8. I’m getting closer to normal. This was definitely a good day at the doctor’s office.
This year rather than wanting to start me on a medication with risky side effects, Dr. G told me to just keep on doing what I’m doing. Only I plan on doing a bit more. I need to increase my exercise and keep an eye on portion control. I still have hopes of someday being able to control this with just diet and no medication.