Health and Fitness, September, 2015

[Sunny]

Harmony, yes, dmom did take cholesterol meds. She was on Lipitor, but I don't think she had any side effects from it. Her test #s seemed to be ok. Dh also took it and had the loss of muscle strength.

Wheat germ.....our dAuntPearly put it on her cereal every morning. I think dAuntH did also. I tried it for a while in my teen years.

Ddaddy...well what can I say! He smoked and worked in a chemical factory. His dbro and dsis had heart problems....that was hereditary.

[Nancy]

Did my ex. In segments today, A. M. walked tem min. Finished up tonight with 20 min. On the gazelle bc I ran out of daylight.

[helia]

I can't chime in much with the lipids and cholesterol discussion, although I definitely remember NaCl being table salt from chem classes, either hs or Univ. I think other kinds of salt (+ water) can result from other reactions of an acid + base. Useful info to remember, I know. . . . . Anyhow, dh takes meds for high cholesterol, and one would never ever guess it to look at him. Yes, he eats pretty healthy, although he doesn't really eat breakfast and often can't take time for lunch b/c he's working straight through. He is also obsessed with running and keeping his weight down, although he's never been overweight since I've known him, and he weighs around 138 right now. (He is 5'6" so that is an appropriate weight for him.) His life is probably fairly stressful, compared to some others', but he has a good personality for dealing with everything. Still, when he told me several years ago that he needed to be on meds for high cholesterol, I was shocked. He does not take Lipitor. He takes a different one.

My jog Wednesday afternoon was the best in a long time: 2.3 miles in 30 minutes. I should have gone on to make it 2.5 miles, but I didn't feel like pushing myself.

I bet my weight is up after all the eating out I've done (Wed. dinner, yesterday lunch and dinner). I hope to jog later today.

[Kathryn-in-Canada]

My dh had a high cholesterol reading about 6 years ago and was told to try diet and be retested in 3 months. When he asked what sort of diet, the doctor said there was lots of information on the internet! (This was the family doctor I, 1) didn't like and 2) was sued for malpractice and 3) was booted from the family practice.)

Anyway, I did some reading, put him on 16 almonds a day and two cans of V8 (regular with the insane amounts of sodium) because he never had veggies except frozen corn and potatoes. He went back 3 months later and his levels were insanely low so the doctor ask, "What did you do?" and dh said he changed his diet a little, and she said, "No, WHAT DID YOU DO?!!!" because she had never seen such results.

We learned later that caviar raises one's cholesterol and dh had had caviar for 16 days straight about 2 weeks before the blood test (we had been on a cruise.) The lesson we took away from that is to not go to the doctor for one's annual physical right after a cruise!

In the meantime, the V8 stayed in the diet but he's dropped the nuts and only has them occasionally. Never had an issue with cholesterol again.

Like Helia's dh he is relatively low in weight (same height, less than 10 lbs more than her dh but is not as lean so has a paunch.) Doesn't eat lunch (that's when he has the V8.) Has, get this, 3 servings of cheerios/frosted flakes for breakfast in the summer and 2 servings of prepackaged, highly sweetened oatmeal in the winter. If we are traveling he'll have the cereal and bacon & eggs (but with a yogurt to make it healthy!) Limits himself to 3 glasses of milk a day unless he thinks I'm not looking. Gets concerned when we only have a gallon of milk left in the apartment and will make a special trip to the store - I figure that's his addiction.

Harmony: since you can't have the nuts, I'm at a loss to know what to suggest. I figure they really did help reset his cholesterol. You could probably have the V8 though since sodium isn't an issue for you! (ducking and running...)

[Kathryn-in-Canada]

I, apparently, have taken my birthday month off. The weight was inching up and so I did the irresponsible thing and stopped weighing myself. Am worried now.

Step count is inching upwards, my stretches are less painful when I do them and the hiking uphill is going well so there's progress.

Tonight I did the treadmill to make my weekly average 8K/day. It was easier than it was before I went away. Back then, I couldn't handle 3 mph without hanging on for balance but tonight I managed that for quite a while (I had to walk 2 miles.) So, there's more progress to report.

[Harmony]

Kathryn, I will try the almonds a few at a time to see if they cause problems. The nuts that really cause me problems are walnuts. I avoid them like the plague. Anything tomato stirs up my acid reflux. Perhaps it wasn't the v8 that helped him specifically, just that he was getting more vegetables.

Eating really low fat for a couple days had me feeling just awful. I don't think it was the mental "can't have my carbs / fats" thing, I really did feel awful. Added in a couple fats that shouldn't be allowed and I instantly felt better. If I don't get enough fat & protein along with veggies and carbs, I get lower blood sugars and feel bingey. Oh, I've never even tasted caviar!

[Kathryn-in-Canada]

Harmony: I've never tasted caviar either! It just seems like an icky thing to eat (unless one is absolutely starving and needs to get every bit of food out of a fish in order to survive.)

I may be remembering this incorrectly, but I think the lypocine (?) from the tomatoes were a benefit to lowering cholesterol. I know it is linked to prostate health but by this time in dh's life, that was no longer an issue, the cancer had come and been removed.

He really doesn't eat veggies but is willing to chug (literally) back two 12 oz cans a day to get me off his case about it. When we are in the US we can buy the low sodium version in that size (not available here and the 6 oz ones are only sold in 4 packs, he'd drink 4 per day so the cost would be prohibitive.)

I know V8 makes a fruit flavoured version, using fruit juices to cover up the taste of the veggies; is it possible that one is tomato free?

Although, really, your idea of eating more veggies is the most sound of them all. Figure out ways to get them into your life (omelets, stir fries.)

As for limiting fats, I've lived low-fat for so long that I seldom get near the recommendation (30% of calories) for fats. I refuse to believe in 'good' and 'bad' fats since the science has changed so many times on that. We do use olive oil for cooking, though, and I limit my butter on things, but don't substitute margarine. For baking I use butter except for occasionally when I'll use vegetable shortening (and I don't bake much.) I'm trying to eat more nuts so get some 'good' fat there and I ignore the fat in protein (but always choose lean meats), and have added cheese in very small quantities (.5 ounce a serving) into my diet to go along with my eggs. I have to keep reminding myself that my normal diet is under 20% fat so upping it to 25 - 28% is not a bad thing, I'm still not at the recommendations.

The key for me with the weight loss is to increase protein and most times, the carbs get lowered because I'm snacking less. I find I'll have a couple of 'carb' snacks a day (popcorn or a serving controlled 100 calorie bag of baked cheetos, plus a Kelloggs Vector Protein bar) and my very high carb breakfast (whole grain cereal, milk and berries.) The rest of the day, I focus on avoiding obvious carbs (soda, crackers) and ignoring the ones in veggies like carrots and peppers or watermelon. Most fruit, except for my berries in the morning, is gone from my diet, though. I refuse to drop the veggies I love from my diet just because they have carbs although I note my micronutrient percentages are much better on the days I have almost no fruits and veggies (another reason to ignore that since I believe the veggies are really important for my health.) I'm still having a minimum of 150 carbs a day but my only goal is to keep that around 45 - 50% of my calories and my main goal is to up protein to 25% all while keeping my calorie intake under 1600 calories a day except on days when I'm insanely active.

I don't meet that goal most days, btw. Things will be better when dh is gone since he would like pizza once a week (store bought) and while I can fit that into my calories on a very active day, it makes for an extreme carb day and my protein is way too low. I also quickly tired of Subway salads and while my chili from Tim Horton's is fine, the bread that comes with it (and makes the meal special to me) is not and I can't manage to just have half of the bread.

Impulse issues still exist for me, the worst of which is soda. It doesn't matter how long I've gone without it, I still crave it so the best I can do is limit it to once or twice a week and preferably from a can as opposed to fountain drink.

I end up eating out at least 6x per week, 3 - 4 dinners if dh has his way and then lunches when we are out over a lunch time, which doesn't bother dh since he doesn't eat lunch. I need to eat something because of blood sugar dropping and quick food choices seem to be highest in carbs. If we are out running errands, stopping for a proper meal isn't time-efficient since dh just wants to get home as quickly as possible yet we are too far away from home to come back for the meal. On Sundays and hiking day, I pack healthy snacks and then search for a high protein menu item if we are out. Other days and many dinners out, it is a real challenge, if not to lower carbs, then portion control as well as no idea how much oil, etc was used in the prep of the meal. Many restaurant websites show that the chicken or fish options are higher in calories and fat than the beef portion so steak is becoming my go-to when a simple roasted chicken breast or grilled fish isn't on the menu.

Judging from what I read in PWYC, your dh also requires you to be out much more often than you'd like and his requirements make it almost impossible for you to get into a good meals routine. Lucylee is another one with this issue. If I ever come up with a solution (aside from divorce!) I'll let you know.

[LadyMaverick]

So, what would you do if your cholesterol #'s were bad and they wanted to medicate...the only thing I know to do is look at my diet. What else is there? I already take supplements supposed to help this and they aren't helping. If wearing my shoes on the opposite feet would help, I would do that...but...

I was in this same situation for several years. My cholesterol was 240ish but the other cholesterol count was really good so each year there were discussions about it. Each year I was able to convince my family doctor that it would come down with planned diet changes. II tried several changes but none of them made a long term change to the cholesterol #. This year when I thought I was having heart problems, I finally agreed to start taking prescription = Lipator (I take the generic version). I haven't been retested yet to see the difference this med is making on Cholesterol. The med doesn't have any side effect on me that I can tell. Just a tiny little yellow pill taken each morning. Time will tell.....

[Nancy]

Chol. Around #180 I take a very sm dose of chol. Med. 20 mg. No side effedts mine is prevenative bs of the diab . I think oatmeal is supposed to help. V-8 comes in a low sodium version.

I am counting ladder work painting for some of my exercise today.

[Harriet]

Last week workouts were marginal. All told about an hour and 10 minutes of actual formal exercise, and an additional 50 minutes of the seminar. So, I learned. This is a good thing. But I was kinda down that I didn't make up the workout time.

This morning was 20 minutes of floor work.

Fats - read this week that a sirloin steak has 7 percent fat. 2 percent is saturated (or "bad") fat and the other 5 percent is unsaturated. So, there is a question there, about just how bad can it really be to have that particular ratio of saturated to unsaturated fat - perhaps it is not really a big concern to accept the 2 percent to get to the 5 percent, no matter how worried about saturated fats. (Of course, this is not the same simple equation for someone like HRH who has multiple reasons for avoiding too much animal protein. )

The only low fat we were ever prescribed was when HRH was considering the gall bladder surgery and they thought it would postpone it, but it didn't. I think he ended up feeling down. He is careful to limit animal protein, that's the thing to help him - fats are fine in the veggie/animal ratio he usually keeps up.

I will try to get in avocado/nuts/coconut oil/fish etc. often, but can see that when I have a meat entree, that has a positive impact, too. Dbil the organic butcher would want me to qualify that as grass-fed beef and free-range chicken, etc.

Harmony, the homemade almond milk I used to make would seem like a great way for you to get in some raw almonds (or other nuts) if you were only concerned about the nuts not being broken down enough (see, I am dumb about this - really don't know). Plenty of recipes and tutorials on the net and nowadays they even sell nut milk straining bags for convenience (used to use cheesecloth). I originally found almond milk in the Fit For Life books, and Vitamix had similar recipes to those. Of course this was back when there was no nut milk in stores and now there is a choice of unsweetened almond, cashew and coconut. However, I suspect they don't contain as much real nuts as what you'd make yourself.