Nutrition and Fitness: Know Your Numbers!

"Ms. Allen?"
"Yes."
"I have the results of your recent blood work. All is normal."
"Normal?"
"Yes. Have a nice day."

"WAIT! I need to know what those numbers are."
"Would you understand what those numbers meant, if I told you?"
"Yes! See, I've been working really hard for a long time and want to know if it paid off."
"Your total Cholesterol is 177 and your TSH is 1.96."
"HOLY COW! HOLY COW!"

When you've struggled with with lousy, high cholesterol all of your adult life...
When 1/3 of your momma's heart doesn't work due to a major heart attack...
When the average weight for everyone on the maternal-side of your family is at 200+ lbs...
When you're genetically predisposed to high cholesterol...
When your grandmother and bio-dad died of heart disease...

...you want to know your numbers!

Let's Break Down the Numbers

Cholesterol is a fatty substance manufactured by our liver. Lipoproteins are fat and protein vehicles that transport Cholesterol. There are several kinds of vehicles, but we'll keep to the 2 major types everybody talks about, LDL and HDL.

LDL (low-density Lipoprotein) - the wheelbarrow transporting cholesterol to the vessels and arteries.
HDL (high-density Lipoprotein) - the Amtrak transporting cholesterol out of the body

An easy way to remember which is which:
LDL = "Lousy"-density Lipoprotein (eL-evating the risk for heart attack)
HDL = "Healthy"-density Lipoprotein (hauling-out the risk for heart attack)

The average healthy person should have an LDL of <200, even better to have <130. For those who have risk factors (genetics, heart disease, obesity, smoking, hypothyroidism, fatty diet and an inactive lifestyle), the good doctors desire to push the LDL numbers down below 100. This is really a hard feat without the help of meds, nutrition and fitness working together.

The target HDL of an average healthy person is >60. If the HDL number is lower, this increases the risk for heart attack. 

My Experience with the Numbers

My total Cholesterol has been over 260 since my early twenties when it was tested. I am genetically predisposed for high cholesterol, but helped to keep it high with my poor nutritional choices. And, at some point, my thyroid decided to stop functioning efficiently. The thyroid aids in ushering out the LDL. Mine wasn't doing it's job. So, three years ago I started taking Levothyroxine (Synthroid) to keep my thyroid active and hoping to bring both thyroid and LDL numbers down. Still, the numbers remained unhealthily high.

When the doctor decided to ward off the potential for a heart attack, he prescribed Atorvastatin (Lipitor) and I cried like a baby. I felt like a failure and a geriatric. I, now, refer to my meds as "vitamins." Again, there was little change in the LDL numbers, even while being semi-active.

December 1, 2012, through prayer I felt like God was encouraging me to go on a partial fast eating only fruits, veggies, nuts and whole grains while avoiding animal proteins and sugar. Not easy for a couple of weeks. Then, on December 18, my husband suffered a heart attack...about the time of the arrival of my Forks Over Knives cookbook. I watched the documentary by the same name in the Critical Care Unit at Vanderbilt Hospital as Terry slept.

The church where we attend is focusing on a 40-Day Prayer Challenge. One of my prayer "seeds" is to receive healing from this lifelong battle with lousy, high LDL...even if God has me work for it! 

Jan 2010: Total Cholesterol 336, LDL 250, TSH 11.45
Mar 2010: Total Cholesterol 313, LDL 225, TSH 6.18
May 2011: Total Cholesterol 339, LDL 256, TSH 3.47
Sep 2011: Total Cholesterol 250, LDL 173, TSH 6.12
Feb 2012: Total Cholesterol 207, LDL 130, TSH .92
Mar 2013: Total Cholesterol 177, LDL 98,  TSH 1.96

So, what brought my numbers down?

I am convinced that without spiritual intervention, my numbers wouldn't have changed so dramatically. I continue to pursue healthy, nutritional choices with plant-based foods on a daily basis and consuming meat only once-per-month. Consistently, my fitness includes 2-3 hours of cardio (including Zumba), each week, and recently adding light weight training. And, I still take my "vitamins." It is my prayer to be taken off the cholesterol drug although my age (50 in June) and the odds are against it. I believe in God's odds as my prayers are being answered and my 
numbers finally reflect a change!

I'm jazzed when someone contacts me quietly...in an email. I'm super stoked when someone leaves a comment on the blog! Please let me know if this was a helpful post either below or in an email. Thanks!

#impACTforLife ACTion Challenge - Week 4

If you started with us early in January and are still hanging in there for the final week, <ding, ding, ding> YOU WIN THE PRIZE! There really isn't a prize. Unless -- you've started seeing a change (how your jeans fit) or changed the way you view fitness and nutrition!

The word diet makes me mad. A once perfectly fine word that has too much negativity and restriction associated with it. I'm sure that when the word was first used, it was used to describe a positive, healthy foods, lifestyle. Not anymore. At least, not to me. Please indulge me. 

"No, I can't have that. I'm on a diet."

"I've gotta lose 35 lbs before my class reunion by Tuesday, so I'm on the ________ diet."

"I've been on 17 diets and none of them work!"

The decision was made in my daily vocabulary to edit the word to a more palatable term:  Nutrition.

In November, 2012, when in my personal devotion (praying, reading the Bible, etc.), I felt like God was asking me to do a fast from December 1 to 24. Assuming He wanted me to abstain from all food, I whined, "But, God, that's the holidays." After Thanksgiving I planned to focus my mind, body and spirit on a fresh pursuit of God valuing Him more than what I threw down my throat. I chose to eat only whole grains, fruits and veggies until celebrating with family on Christmas Eve.

My nutrition took on new purpose after reading a theory regarding animal protein, "hot flashes" and night sweats in perimenopausal women. Nutrition will become the pathway to lower my bad or "lousy" cholesterol (LDL). Via nutrition I plan to retrain my brain for healthy choices. Nutrition = Nourish.

Tuesday, December 18, solidified my decision for nutrition when my husband suffered a heart attack resulting from a blockage in his Left Circumflex Artery. A terrible, horrible, really bad day. Driving away from Vanderbilt Hospital just four days, later, with Terry, I explained my nutrition vs diet opinion, as well as, personal health concerns for the future. We aren't vegans nor vegetarians. But, we decided to do this thing, together...for better or for worse, in sickness and in health.

#impActforLife – Week 4 -- The FINAL ACT

Nothing Changes until You ACT!

Monday

Clean the house from top to bottom!

Try some green clean tips.

Turn up the volume to music & water intake & get that heartbeat up!

impACT Blog: Cleaning Schedule

impACT Blog: Green Clean

Tuesday

Pack a healthy snack and pack extra to share with a friend!

Show and tell on our ImpACT for Life facebook wall and twitter and instagram using the #impACTforLife hashtag!

impACT Blog: 7 Healthy Snacks

Wednesday

Do a circuit workout today!

impACT Blog: Blonde Ponytail

Thursday

Throw together an easy plant-based appetizer or late-night munchie!

impACT Blog: Forks Over Knives

Friday

Enjoy a leisurely photo stroll.

With your cell phone or fancy-schmancy camera, view your world from a different perspective. Share your treasures with us on the ImpACT for Life facebook wall and on twitter and instagram using the #impACTforLife hashtag! Set a goal: 30 mins to 1 hr.

Final Weekend

HOORAY! You did it! It’s the final weekend of our #impACTforLife ACTion Challenge! To celebrate make a special healthy dinner for the family with candles and music! Add extra veggies and go easy on the cheese and sauce. Perhaps, you could start a blog chronicling your new journey to great health! Keep making good nutritional choices and keep ACTing!

"Calcutta Village Feeding" in Decaturville, TN!

In 1954, Mark & Huldah Buntain and one year old baby, Bonnie, steamshipped to India, thinking they would give one year of their lives until the real missionaries would show up allowing them to pursue a post in China. Soon after arriving in Calcutta, they discovered the deplorable conditions and severe poverty which forces millions of men, women and children to pick through dumps and slums for their next bite of food. Mark knew he must start a feeding ministry. 

Today, Calcutta Mercy Ministries feeds 25,000 people six days of every week! I have a feeling that number receiving one modest meal of rice and Dal is conservative. 

Last Wednesday, Scottie & Stephanie Adams - Youth Pastors of Trinity AG in Decaturville, Tennessee, hosted a simulated village feeding in their student ministry service! I prepared a huge pot of basic Dahl to be dished out to each student with special instructions to eat using only their right hand. Terry shared stories and videos of Calcutta. At the conclusion, Scottie challenged those 30 students to fast for 1 day while raising $1650 which will feed 25,000 people in Calcutta for 1 day.

For 24 hours starting Wednesday, November 14, at 7pm, the students, their youth pastor and leaders have chosen to refrain from eating and raise $3300 to cover 2 days of feeding 25,000+ adults and children in villages, schools, dumps and clinics! 

Scottie explains why he and the students will fast:

God's word tells us in Isaiah 58:6-7 that a fast that God accepts is one that loosens the yoke of wickedness and shares bread with the hungry. I read in a John Piper book that if you ate 1 meal today and own a car you are one of the richest people on the planet. We eat 3 meals and have 2 cars so we are already blessed beyond measure. God has dealt with my heart to show me that as an American there is not much reason for me to ever ask for more materially, but it is my goal to MAKE MORE GOSPEL in the world with what God has given me. If we love mercy then we will make more of it, and that is what this fast is about. In Calcutta, people are like the slave girl in Acts 16. Her future is lead by other evil people and she is tormented by demons. Our fast can break those bonds through prayer and giving of the money that we all have so much of already. My prayer in life is becoming more and more not that I will be leader of this or executive that (which is where my heart was a few years ago) but that when I die there will be more mercy in the world and less lost people. I get my students on board with this by reminding them of 3 things. 3 reasons why we fast: 1.) Jesus loves Calcutta, and His blood is for them. 2.) Jesus deserves worshippers all over the world. He emptied himself for us (Philippians 2) so the only proper response is that we do it back. The Moravians said as they sold themselves into slavery to reach people "Let the lamb that was slain receive the reward of His suffering". The very lifeblood of the Christian life Jesus! 3.) Jesus suffers to identify with and reach those who suffer. We are like Jesus when we sacrifice to bless others. On the cross, Jesus is in darkness in the middle of the day for 3 hours. This is a powerful way of showing that He enters our darkness, our isolation, our hopelessness to have us. We want the people of Calcutta to find Jesus in a dark place, because those are places where Jesus goes. We know it because of the cross. I don't drive them with condemnation (you spoiled brats!), I pray that they are compelled by grace (look at Jesus!). 

Terry and I believe in you and plan to join your fast!

If this sounds like something you'd like to be part of, please contact me for additional info. Your group could host a village feeding night, too!

~"Sam"