<p>Yeah me! Got new bloodwork done this week:</p>
<p>a) On the thyroid front, my readings are now perfectly normal, so it looks like the first guess at dosage was right on the money.</p>
<p>b) On the cholesterol front, my HDL remains very good: 83 mg/Dl. Triglycerides are still insanely low: 43 mg/dL.</p>
<p>My calculated LDL has fallen from 217 in May and 218 in July to 155 now. In actuality, it’s probably a bit lower than that as the direct LDL test in July was 190 (the calculated values overestimate LDL when Triglycerides are very, very low). The threshold for “lifestyle” treatment in my category (0 to 1 risk factors) is 160 mg/dL. The threshold for cholesterol medication is 190 mg/dL. So my doc won’t be waving a Lipitor prescription in my face – which is good, because I would probably refuse it. And, he doesn’t even know that I also had the LDL pattern checked in July and I have the large, fluffy, good kind.</p>
<p>I don’t know if getting the thyroid fixed lowered the LDL. That’s what my doc thought would likely happen. But, I had been on the thyroid for 90 days in July and that hadn’t made much difference. The other possibility, I guess, is that I’ve stopped losing weight and am no longer dumping stored fat into my bloodstream. I don’t know if that impacts cholesterol or not, but it seems possible that it would. In any case, this is the first bloodwork I’ve had done in a state of equilibrium (both weight and thyroid).</p>
<p>My diet hasn’t changed at all in the last year, except that average daily calories have probably drifted up marginally – still under 2000 calories a day. I now have pretty much the classic lower carb/higher fat cholesterol profile. Great HDL. Great triglycerides. Marginal LDL, but the good kind.</p>
<p>One other change I’ve seen recently is that my average blood pressure seems to have dropped a bit.</p>
<p>I should schedule tests - I’ve never had any of these bloodwork tests and it would be interesting to see where I am right now. Unfortunately I have a lot of pressure at work in the near term and I need to get glasses updated (I need a pair for night driving; was considering trifocals).</p>
<p>Good to hear that your numbers look very good.</p>
<p>Congrats on the numbers, iDad. </p>
<p>Not sure you need to take the treadmill up to 1% to simulate outside. Latest intelligence on that seems to say unless you are running sub 6 minute miles you aren’t getting much benefit from the lack of wind resistance. I used to go to 1% but now I leave it flat.</p>
<p>New Rules of Lifting for Abs workout for me this afternoon. Another punch-the-clock, workmanlike session. I tried to go up 5 pounds on the overhead squat, but I couldn’t keep my back from arching, so I dropped back to 42 pounds for the second and third sets. That’s really a core stability exercise, not a big weight thing.</p>
<p>Single leg single arm deadlifts were really good. Alternating DB overhead press were fine. Assisted chinups were OK.</p>
<p>Nothing today so far. I brought my stuff in for a run but there was too much pressure at the office and I had to run to Home Depot to get some supplies for bathroom repairs. I will try to get a video in though.</p>
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<p>Somehow, I don’t think it’s going to end well for the author who has always wanted to run, but never been able to because of leg pain and who is now, apparently, starting out with barefoot footware.</p>
<p>NMINN:</p>
<p>Great to have you back with tales of your epic workouts!</p>
<p>Two sets of tennis: lost 6-7 (2), 4-6. Took two hours to play and it was fairly humid. We played inside and the ball was a little faster than what I’m used to so I will have to tighten up the reflexes. I may also take off a little lead tape so that I can get the racquet around a little faster. I was hitting a lot of balls out by just a little which was pretty frustrating. The guy that I was playing was making far fewer errors and he was playing more aggressively (more serve and volley). It was, overall, a good workout.</p>
<p>OK, we are back! I went running last night… My left knee felt somewhat uncomfortable! Ick… Did I swim too much breaststroke last week? I’m going to watch it carefully and ramp the running up slowly. Grrrr… Reading the internets makes me think that I might have pulled the knee cap slightly out of its normal spot. It is a good thing that my next race is months away 
Meanwile, lots of glute and quad exercises for me.</p>
<p>You might try a knee sleeve temporarily until the other stuff gets fixed.</p>
<p>I’ve got a question regarding calories. </p>
<p>My weight has stabilized but generally I am ± 4 lbs from 142. So I can at anytime be from 138 to 146. Track all calories. Generally keep it at net 1400 calories. Maybe couple days under. Maybe 1 day may splurge. I’ll try and do some intense running/ biking the next day. Baffled by the wide swings?</p>
<p>My question is this–when do the extra calories show up as weight gain? Immediately? 1 or 2 days after? Take last week. I succumbed to eating 7 pieces of pizza. Thought that it would show up the next morning as I was probably a good 1500 calories over. Yet next morning I was same weight as the morning before?</p>
<p>Your body holds varying amounts of water and varying amounts of food being processed so you weight can be all over the place unless you can control the intermediate weight effects of food processing.</p>
<p>In general, I’d just keep track and not worry too much about fluctuations. The thing to worry about is a trend north.</p>
<p>Unscheduled rest day for me. Had a legal seminar to attend and didn’t manage to get up at 5:30 to run since I’ve gotten unused to that! Opted for coffee (well, I don’t drink coffee so vanilla steamed milk for me) with former co-workers. Sort of depressing, but a little nice to hear how everyone misses me. Will need to run a little more tomorrow than planned since Sat and Sun are the stupid biking days.</p>
<p>Nervous about the 40 degree low both mornings. I HATE being cold on the bike. Wnder if I would look stupid in my big NorthFace.</p>
<p>BB: Ouch. I think a knee cap is something I would always want to be right where it’s supposed to be!</p>
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<p>MOWC: Day off for me, too. I’m trying to scale way back this week. Probably do a NROL4A workout tomorrow.</p>
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<p>I got a call from the doctor’s office today that started, “The doctor wanted me to call about your EKG…” Gulp. That’s not the call you want. Turns out that they screwed it up and didn’t get any reading and needed me to go back in and do it again. I have no idea why they are even doing one, except US medical philosopy seems to be to do every test an insurance company will pay for.</p>
<p>BB- I hope your knee resolves quickly. Breaststroke really can mess up knees, though.</p>
<p>IDad- glad the call wasn’t anything serious.</p>
<p>ohiopublic:</p>
<p>If you figure out these weight swings in maintenance, let me know! </p>
<p>Since I’ve bottomed out, my running seven-day average weight has tracked right at 160 pounds, plus or minus 1 pound, every day for three solid months. But, I see daily fluctuations that don’t correlate with anything. Definitely no correlation with what I ate yesterday – although I suppose it’s possible that a particularly high salt or high carb meal could result in water weight.</p>
<p>The weight fluctuations could be triggered by just about anything, not necessarily food. For example, weight lifting can cause fluid retention which pushes the scale up for a few days before pushing it down. My hunch is that the food we eat impacts our weight over weeks, not days. There’s no way to eat enough to explain it when one pound is, theoretically, equal to 3500 extra calories. I can pig out with the best of 'em, and even I would have trouble choking down an extra 3500 calories.</p>
<p>I just keep doing my thing from an exercise standpoint and recording what I eat as I try to learn about this whole maintenance thing.</p>
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<p>You and me, both. I suspect that the doctor would really want to do some tests if he had any idea how hard I push my heart rate on a regular basis. 
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<p>It’s been pretty amazing to see my heart rate recovery from max effort improve and, especially, to see how far my resting heart rate has fallen. I may not have big biceps, but I’ve definitely been building up the heart muscle with all the intervals that I do.</p>
<p>Idad, you should just send the doc a picture of one of your AirDyne workouts. Tell him the heart is just fine ;)</p>
<p>Do you have someone to take a picture of you at the race?</p>
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<p>Good lord, I hope not! I imagine I’m quite the sight jogging. What’s they old joke: You don’t sweat too bad, for an ol’ (formerly) fat guy…</p>
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<p>I know, right? How many patients could hand him a heart rate graph for five or six workouts a week for the last six months? But, that didn’t get me anywhere with blood pressure. I have one of the fancy Omron blood pressure machines that takes three readings, averages them, and then saves them to the computer. So I have given him a month’s worth of readings, which he ignores because the one reading he takes on the exam table is 137/80. So, he’s got me officially diagnosed with high blood pressure, which is probably why he wanted the EKG.</p>
<p>My bloodpressure right now, average of three readings, is 115/71.</p>