A month ago I went on a physical, just to get myself checked out, see how 'fit' I was and to be certain that I was doing well. Just to get me checked out? No..
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| Hungry... |
What happened before
Actually no.. I wasn't going to the doctor's 'just to get me checked up..'. My dad was taken in to the hospital with a running nose, that wouldn't stop bleeding. They had to infuse him with new blood as he already lost about 2 liters by the time he got to the hospital. The reason was a high blood pressure. Afterwards he had to spend two weeks in the hospital while they found the correct medicines to suit his needs to get the blood pressure under control. Next to that, I was having sudden aches in my chest. Think of a chopstick just pushing its way though your plexus and staying there for a minute. Then, as sudden as the pain came, it was gone again. Those combined, made me visit him.
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| We'll test this.. and this.. |
The verdict
So I went in, and had everything tested. Got some blood tested, my general fitness, weighed, ... and at first the doctor was happy. He said I had a nice pair of lungs (read, I can hold my breath very well :p) I'm a bit overweight (I weigh 94kg, and am 1m88) but nothing that terrible. I had a perfect blood pressure, and was kind of assured I was going to make it till my retirement. That was, until 2 days later when the blood results came back. I was negative for HIV (about some of the only times you're happy to actually fail a test :p) and most of my blood readings were fine/great. All except my cholesterol. That was through the roof. To be correct, my LDL count was too high.
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| So this is cholesterol |
Cholesterol?
Now what is cholesterol? Cholesterol is an essential component in creating new cells and controlling your hormones. It's also one of our biggest resources of vitamin D, so it certainly isn't useless!
Cholesterol is measured in 2 weights. On the one side, you have HDL (High Density Lipoprotein aka good cholesterol) that is know as the 'vacuum'. HDL cleans your arteries and counters the bad cholesterol. LDL, (Low Density Lipoprotein aka the bad cholesterol) actually transports the cholesterol to your tissue and cells so it can do it's function (of cleaning them). How much you should have of both is dependant on age, sex, ... Now why is it bad to have bad readings? The biggest threat is the hardening of your arteries, causing blood cloths. This leads to heart-attacks, or worse, so yea.. it's life threatening.. in my case my LDL should be at a maximum of 200 and I scored a whopping 276 :(
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| This is bad m'kay? |
Now what?
You are what you eat, and I do love my pizza's, spaghetti bolognese, croque monsieur, white bread, panini's, you can see where I'm going with this.. Now I've started to eat less of all the big cholesterol products, cheese, red meats, fast-food (in general), stopped eating white bread, eating more vegetables and exercising more. I go swimming (at least) once a week, where I swim on average 1km (and trying to get it to 1,5km!), I try to avoid the car when going out in the weekends, just to get some extra movement and try to get some fitness in between (though this happens more @home then a real fitness place, which would be better). Genetics can also be a reason of a higher cholesterol, and my mother's side does have an increased cholesterol. But that's just blaiming others..
I'm really hoping all those changes will prove at least worth something. More result in about 2 months so.. thumbs up?
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| EEEEEEVILL |
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