Two weeks have flown by since I got the great news that my lo-co lifestyle changes are working to drive my cholesterol down. But instead of motivating me to stay on track, I’ve gone haywire.
Here’s what’s happened since I got the results:
I have only cooked ONE lo-co dinner.
We’ve eaten take-out Pizza, Chinese Food and Indian Food nearly every night.
I have not made (or even ordered out) a single salad for lunch or dinner.
Consuming Phish Food ice cream while prone on the sofa watching The Biggest Loser or some other TV show is still a nightly treat (though in truth,
In a cruel twist, the day after I received my directionally-positive cholesterol news, the 9 boxes of girls scout cookies we ordered arrived.
Yes, nine. Yes, that’s embarrassing (though in my defense, we like to support the neighborhood girls. And yes, I realize we could have given them the money and donated the cookies. Somehow, though, that’s not what happened.)
Sadly for my lo-co goal, only 1 was a box of “Tagalongs” – the peanut butter cookies I despise. All the rest were Thin Mints and Samoas – which to me are the very definition of irresistible.
The results are in! The results are in! Three months of lo-co lifestyle changes and the results are…..(wait for it!)…. Mixed.
Mixed. Can you see my eyes rolling?
OK, so here’s the great news:
My total cholesterol dropped from 267 to 227. Still not at/below the 200 target, but a significant improvement. And a return to my ‘normal’ cholesterol level.
LDL (bad) cholesterol also dropped from 167 to 139. This is close to the <130 goal, and again, a more ‘normal’ result for me.
Breakfast offers a surprising opportunity to easily add several cholesterol-lowering foods to your daily diet. Simply changing to oatmeal with a few key mix-ins is a lo-co triple threat.
After a lot of trial and error, here’s the breakfast I now have nearly every morning: A cup of whole-grain oatmeal (read, steel cut oats, not instant – recipe attached), with a bit of sugar, a lot of cinnamon, and the following mixed in:
A handful of almonds – dry roasted and unsalted. I cut mine in half. As I do not like almonds, I thought I would hate this,
I bit the yoga bullet this week, fully expecting to quickly feel the benefits of all that balancing and stretching on my over-tight achilles, calves and hamstrings.
Instead, downward dog bit me.
Let me start by saying how embarrassing it is to get hurt doing yoga. Especially since I’m a good athlete…and I’ve done yoga before. I mean, I’m no pro or anything and it’s been years since I’ve ‘graced’ any yoga studio with my presence, but I do know the basics. And it’s not inherently dangerous like tennis (last week a friend got hit in the face with the ball.) So while my legs felt great after the yoga class,
