Sano como un Caballo

Last Thursday I made a visit to the doctor’s office for a routine physical, my first in17yrs(half my life ago). I wanted to get my cholesterol checked as well as blood sugar and homocysteine levels looked at. Cholesterol is obvious. Are my arteries clogged? Is my heart going to explode? The blood sugar test would tell me if I’m at risk for diabetes. That would suck. Homocysteine is an amino acid in the blood which, if levels are high, can lead to coronary disease or stroke. Both of which also would suck.

First thing I did was stop eating the night before the visit. Fasting. That sucked. I don’t get home from work until 8:15. I couldn’t eat after 9pm. So I crammed down my usual post work snack goodies quick and drank a bunch of water after 9. I couldn’t eat breakfast the next morning either. So I get to the office and the doc wants to weigh and measure my height. 147lbs and 5’7”. You read that right. Five feet, seven inches! Insert smart-ass remarks at your leisure.

Then the doc sits me down and asks me why I’m there. Huh? I was a bit confused but she explained that men my age don’t just walk into the doc’s office unless something is wrong. Otherwise, they just don’t come in. Made sense. Afterall, without the nagging of my beautiful wife, Erin, I wouldn’t have been there. Once my intentions were clear Doc took my pulse, listened to my heart, poked and prodded a bit and that was that. She split, the nurse came in and took my blood and I was out the door. 30 minute ordeal. Easy stuff.

Today I got the results from the tests in the mail. Seems as though all is well. A chart to make sense of all these numbers http://wellness.byu.edu/screenings/cholesterol.php . Total cholesterol is 166. Over 200 is bad. Under 150 is supergood. HDL was 55. Below 45 is bad. Above 60 is phenomenal. LDL is 88. Above 130 is bad. Under 100 is mucho grande. I aced the LDL’s. Triglycerides was 113. Above 150 is bad. Below 100 is fantastic. Blood sugar was 75. Normal range is 70 to 100. Over 100 is considered prediabetic. Over 125 and you are diabetic. Looks like I aced this one too. Last but not least. Homocysteine was 6.9. Over 10 is not good. Over 12 is bad. Sweet. Looks like no worries.
I eat pretty well. Usually a couple bowls of Total in the AM. Red or green tea when I get to work. A yogurt. Sometimes an apple. Always a banana with kiwi and mango all diced up in the afternoon. The guys at work are probably sick of my daily fruit rituals. A little later I’ll have a Hershey’s chocolate bar and a handful of cashews. Love cashews. Chocolate makes ‘em taste even better. Usually dinner(lunch?) is a veggie burger and a can of baked beans. Somedays I’ll get sick of eating this suff all the time but for now all this stuff tastes so good. I can’t stop eating it. I eat like crap when I get home but I’ve eaten so well up to that point that I reward myself with pretzels or chips/salsa and sometimes cookies & cream sneaks in there. Italian ice. Aaaahh. Now it’s Erin’s turn to get her blood tested. My turn to nag. Speaking of which. Erin is up to 739 miles for the year on her road sled. We rode together Sunday for 30 miles and I must say I was impressed. She’s definitely getting faster.