Exercise & Meds are a Good Combo!

A lot has happened in the past few weeks since my last update. The not so good but expected – right before my mother-in-law stayed with us I had regained my weight loss but then lost ground again. We had the snack attacks before Halloween and were entertaining a lot of family before my wife’s mom moved back to Florida.

Needless to say we went all out and even visited the Red Lobster to partake in their endless shrimp (and I had the endless belly to show for it)! I also was trying to impress for some reason and I baked four loves of bread! I love fresh bread but I tend to use it as a snack food for days whenever I bake some bread.

I really went to town in the exercise category before I got sick… I was averaging 10 hours a week. One run I started off just doing the two hills but figured out a way to add a third hill where I jogged up an animal trail for 25 minutes… and as I did not think I had enough… I found 45 minutes of animal trails through the grasses down the other side of the hill at twilight! That run turned from two expected hours to three and a half hours.

I’ll speak about my ideas of how to keep up the exercise in a way that makes sense for me and my lifestyle and also talk about my latest surprising lipid panels. Here is a chart of the past couple of years test results.

I started this latest iteration of trying to get into a shape other than round, in January 2008. As you can see from the HDL and LDL from last year to July, they stayed about the same. You see I had gained most of my weight I lost in 2008 back and was on the losing track again but not really doing the exercising and diet religiously.

After I went back to the doctor at the end 0f June this year, he told me he was not that impressed with my borderline to high blood pressure and subsequently after he saw the lipid panel – he was not impressed with my progress there either.

His solution was to put my on a diuretic pill in the moring and cholesterol pill in the evening. I decided to turn up the heat on my exercise program from a couple of hours a week maybe to over five hours a week! I soon averaged seven or more hours of running, hiking, bag work, jump rope and katas a week!

Well the other day during the week I took off from exercise and was eating like a pig – I went in for a fasting blood test (the lipid panel). I was surprised and the notable difference!!! The ones that are supposed to be low are low and the HDL came up! What I don’t know is how much is due to the medicine and how much is due to the increased exercise?

I’m going to keep up the medicines until March or so because we are changing health plans. The new plan is a high deductible plan so I will be concentrating on keeping myself in the best medical condition I can with diet and exercise. I think 10+ hours a week is too much just like blogging every other day was too much.

I’m going to strive to do the following during the rest of the year:

• Exercise 5 hours a week and  not overdo it
• Stay on the diet except for Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays!
• Keep my stress level down so binge eating should not be an issue

I hope all is well in your neck of the woods!