Saturday, June 21, 2008

Paleo Diet - Day 231

This time, I'm up and at it a little later in the day (2:00pm), so I expect that has some slight bearing on my measures, particularly my blood pressure.

My weight is at 164 lbs, so I've lost one pound from last week, which drops my BMI (Body Mass Index) to 22.2, still well within the "normal weight" range.

As for my body fat percentage, I may have used slightly different areas in taking my measures this time, though in the same general sites (chest, abs and thigh), because my bodyfat last time was at 13.6%, whereas, this time I got a measure of 15.8%. Given the margin for error, I'm skeptical that this really represents an increase in body fat percentage. So, I checked again, this time using the opposite side of my body to get the chest, thigh and ab measures, all of which turned out to be smaller on my left side than on my right, which is proof that we humans are not as symmetrical as we suppose. I have hair on the back of my head that grows faster on the left side than it does on the right side, for example. So, with the measures from the left side of my body, the bodyfat percentage comes out to 12.7%, which is markedly different. I'll take that! Actually, my left side is what I measured last week, so, I'm not "cheating." Also, this would be consistent with the loss of one pound of weight since last week.

Meanwhile, my blood sugar remains normal at 95 dcl/ml this afternoon, in spite of the usual late night/early morning snack before bed. Looks like "normal" is here to stay, then. I've even been eating more fruit, lately, and the increase in glycemic intake hasn't seemed to affect me. Excellent!

As for my blood pressure, my systolic remains in the same neighborhood it's been in for about a month, now, at 114 this afternoon, while my diastolic is slightly higher than it has been during that time, at 80 - so, 114/80. This is still getting close to a trend, though, especially on the systolic side. I think the increase on my diastolic component may have to do with the fact my measure was taken at 2:00pm instead of in the morning, as it usually is. As I alluded to above, time of day does have an effect, and that's why I normally like to check everything at approximately the same time of day. Given that blood pressure rises slightly during the afternoon, I think I can safely say this diastolic measure reflects that. In other words, had I checked my blood pressure at the usual time of day, I would have probably got a lower reading, one more consistent with last week's. We'll see when I do it again next time.