Toasted: Health Report
A few weeks ago I switched my standard weekday breakfast from cereal to toast. The reason was actually pretty mundane. I found that if I ate cereal, I would sometimes have two or three bowls (each far larger than the recommend serving size), whereas if I have toast I have two slices of toast, period. I figured this was an easy way to reduce my caloric intake. I'm not actually terribly concerned about my weight (although it would be nice to reduce the pressure on my bad knee), but my last several rounds of blood tests have consistently shown that my fasting triglyceride level is way too damn high. Since I spent 2011 at the gym (150+ visits over the course of the year, and I was on vacation for several weeks), it was clear that some amount of dietary change was necessary.
On the plus side, my other numbers have improved. Total cholesterol and bad cholesterol are now right where they need to be and dropping, which given how little meat and junk food I eat isn't really a huge surprise. The fasting blood sugar level has dropped quite a bit, although it's still a bit high. Only the good cholesterol number is really off by a lot, and that at least has improved significantly since the first test.
Anyway, so I switched to toast to reduce calorie count and found that all of a sudden my breakfast was much more productive. My ridiculous new toaster oven (courtesy of the annual holiday gift from my employer) has a digital countdown on it, so I know exactly how long it will take my toast to finish. I typically spend that time doing productive things like putting away dishes, packing my lunch for work, going through my mail and the like. That was an unexpected side benefit.
The other main dietary changes I'm making are pretty basic. The most difficult is forgoing the daily cup of free M&Ms I've eaten every day at work for the last several years, which is certainly not helping the blood sugar or triglycerides. And yes, the irony of my employer, which invests heavily in employee wellness programs, offering essentially unlimited free candy does not escape me. I only had M&Ms once this week, which is much better than the five times a week that was the previous norm. The mental breakthrough was the realization that my company has had free soda since the day I started, and I have a glass maybe once a month at absolute most. If I could control that, why not do the same for the M&Ms? I just have to reform the habit, which obviously isn't easy, but it's just sugar, not nicotine or something.
An easier change is adding even more vegetables to my diet. I've been bringing a spinach salad to work for lunch every day for years (along with the leftovers du jour), and I use vegetables as ingredients when preparing dinner, but I wasn't really making vegetable-centric side dishes for dinner. So the last few weeks I've been buying more vegetables for dinner; this week I had broccoli, peas, spinach and Brussels Sprouts on the four nights I cooked. When you throw in the 5+ pieces of fruit I routinely have in a day, I'm in danger of turning green :-)
The last thing I did was alter my cardio-centric workout to something centered around throwing large pieces of metal around. I'd been avoiding squat presses for years because of my knee, but I finally said screw it and went all in on that exercise. So far both my knee and my back haven't complained a bit about that or the other exercises. It's weird. Heavy cardio makes me feel tired (in a good way, but still tired) but the testosterone buzz from serious weight lifting makes my brain kick into hyperdrive. Anyway, weight lifting is supposed to decrease blood sugar levels by making your metabolism burn sugar faster, so hopefully that'll help too. It's kind of funny, but when I said I needed a health goal to motivate me to work out, it never occurred to me that improving test numbers would cut it. How about that?
On the plus side, my other numbers have improved. Total cholesterol and bad cholesterol are now right where they need to be and dropping, which given how little meat and junk food I eat isn't really a huge surprise. The fasting blood sugar level has dropped quite a bit, although it's still a bit high. Only the good cholesterol number is really off by a lot, and that at least has improved significantly since the first test.
Anyway, so I switched to toast to reduce calorie count and found that all of a sudden my breakfast was much more productive. My ridiculous new toaster oven (courtesy of the annual holiday gift from my employer) has a digital countdown on it, so I know exactly how long it will take my toast to finish. I typically spend that time doing productive things like putting away dishes, packing my lunch for work, going through my mail and the like. That was an unexpected side benefit.
The other main dietary changes I'm making are pretty basic. The most difficult is forgoing the daily cup of free M&Ms I've eaten every day at work for the last several years, which is certainly not helping the blood sugar or triglycerides. And yes, the irony of my employer, which invests heavily in employee wellness programs, offering essentially unlimited free candy does not escape me. I only had M&Ms once this week, which is much better than the five times a week that was the previous norm. The mental breakthrough was the realization that my company has had free soda since the day I started, and I have a glass maybe once a month at absolute most. If I could control that, why not do the same for the M&Ms? I just have to reform the habit, which obviously isn't easy, but it's just sugar, not nicotine or something.
An easier change is adding even more vegetables to my diet. I've been bringing a spinach salad to work for lunch every day for years (along with the leftovers du jour), and I use vegetables as ingredients when preparing dinner, but I wasn't really making vegetable-centric side dishes for dinner. So the last few weeks I've been buying more vegetables for dinner; this week I had broccoli, peas, spinach and Brussels Sprouts on the four nights I cooked. When you throw in the 5+ pieces of fruit I routinely have in a day, I'm in danger of turning green :-)
The last thing I did was alter my cardio-centric workout to something centered around throwing large pieces of metal around. I'd been avoiding squat presses for years because of my knee, but I finally said screw it and went all in on that exercise. So far both my knee and my back haven't complained a bit about that or the other exercises. It's weird. Heavy cardio makes me feel tired (in a good way, but still tired) but the testosterone buzz from serious weight lifting makes my brain kick into hyperdrive. Anyway, weight lifting is supposed to decrease blood sugar levels by making your metabolism burn sugar faster, so hopefully that'll help too. It's kind of funny, but when I said I needed a health goal to motivate me to work out, it never occurred to me that improving test numbers would cut it. How about that?