Sunday, August 31, 2008

Paleo Diet - Day 302

I'm doing this entry a day later this week, since I was out of town part of yesterday. This Sunday morning, my weight has dropped by one pound to 161. Actually, the scale reads 161.8, but I'm not splitting hairs. This lowers my BMI (Body Mass Index) to 21.8. Meanwhile, my body fat percentage has remained stable 12.7% again.

Oddly enough, my blood sugar has risen to the highest I've recorded since July 26th. It's at 103 ml/dcl at the moment, probably owing to two factors: first, while I was away yesterday, I was in a situation in which I had to eat a meal composed very non-paleolithic food, and no doubt that played a little temporary havoc with my blood sugar yesterday, which probably has lingered into this morning. On top of that, my last meal was less than an hour before going to bed last night, and, as I've experienced before, that tends to result in higher blood sugar upon waking in the morning. But, at 103, it's still within normal bounds and will return to its usual low level in a matter of hours, most likely.

Meanwhile, my blood pressure is at an excellent 115/73, lower than last week's reading.

Now, the results of my lab work were mailed to me the other day, and, it was no surprise that my blood sugar, triglycerides and total cholesterol were all within normal bounds. So were the test results for my thyroid, liver, kidney and muscle enzyme, as well as my blood count.

What was surprising, however, was that, although my total cholesterol was 188 (normal = 120-200, according to my doctor), my HDL was at a paltry 42 (normal = 40-70) and my LDL was at 129 (normal = 60-100). Not what I would have expected to see after nine months on the paleolithic diet, however, I have an explanation: my lack of exercise over much of the summer, due to the heat, as well as time constrainsts caused by Daylight Savings time. So, my rationale is that, by simply increasing my exercise to normal again, by the time I test again, in February, I should be completely normal. Apparently, exercise plays a larger role in success with the paleo diet than I had realized. Since my LDL is only 29 points above normal and my HDL has plenty of room for improvement, and both will readjust positively with more frequent exercise, that's probably all I need, then.