I know ALL my levels are high right now – that’s to be expected in the beginning of a healthy changeover. As you read in segment eight , I revealed my weight after I realized my blood pressure was pretty high. Since blood pressure is a measure of a good diet, I knew even though I was trying to eat healthy with what little I had, it wasn’t a great diet. When I saw the blood pressure machine tell me I was off the charts, it was nothing short of a slap in the face with a high voltage metal paddle. I was honestly shocked to the core. I stripped down the kitchen of all sources of sodium and gave my friend eleven bags of food. Nothing was held back – even my comfort foods went on the chopping block.

Vitamins are not a problem for me, but I must confess, I get tired of taking them. I’d rather take vitamins now than be put on some medication later and have my medical record show it. I want to give the Peace Corps absolutely no reason to request additional tests that will cost me a ton of money later, so vitamins are a good short-term investment. Working off this premise and using my knowledge of vitamins, I started to create a program that would help me in losing weight and bring the assorted blood levels down to acceptable levels.

I know essential fatty acids are important to the body when you start dieting, or else your mood goes through the floor and your brain sails into a fog bank. There are such things as “good” and “bad” fats, and essential fatty acids are well known for residing under the “good” category. There has been long standing research that garlic is important for cholesterol control, so that’s in my daily routine. Of course it’s important to take vitamin C during the winter season to help boost your immunity, and when taken in conjunction with vitamin E, they work like little “brooms”, sweeping up as antioxidants. I’m also ingesting lecithin and milk thistle because they work on the liver, and if your liver isn’t functioning effectively, it’s being overworked and under performing. There is much research to show a sluggish liver will “hoard” fat around the mid-section, increasing your risk of fatty liver and ultimately, Non- Alcoholic Steatorrhoeic Hepatosis. You can guess that wouldn’t look good on a medical report and if I have it, which is sounds like most obese people do, it’s reversible (liver cells can regenerate).

Here’s a little tip that I just picked up today in my Internet travels: do not take vitamin E with garlic capsules. Both have the ability to thin the blood, and you don’t want to take two blood thinners at the same time! So there’s another adjustment to my health regimen and a few dollars saved in my pocket.

The reason I mention this is because the liver can process cholesterol and fats if it’s functioning normally, but you’re not going to bring down the blood levels if your liver is overtaxed. Of course there’s always more to the story than just a quick overview. Lecithin keeps cholesterol and fats liquid so they won’t stick to the arterial walls, but you need a way to transport the harmful elements out. We take it for granted with extra water, we can urinate the poisons out. That’s not exactly the case, but it is a big part of it. The liver produces bile, which helps to process the cholesterol and fats being sent in, but your body needs ample fiber as well in order to transport it out. Fiber acts like a sponge and gives the “bad” fats something to cling to. So it’s water and fiber that help to rid the body of its toxins when it comes to cholesterol.

Of course exercise helps to lower bad cholesterol and increase good cholesterol, but I think everyone has heard that from the doctor in one form or another. “Quick smoking, eat a healthy diet, and lose some weight”, and then you notice they’re not a weight loss motivator. The ashtray on their desk also doesn’t lend credence to their recommendations. We naturally do not like the “do as I say and not as I do” approach to a healthy lifestyle from the man who’s got bacon crumbs in his moustache and Marlboros in his pocket.

Taking into consideration of the scientific basics, I suddenly realized I didn’t know what the recommended daily allowance for cholesterol was. Unless you’ve had a heart attack, you generally do not go through your day and ponder the mysteries of life and the limits of good cholesterol health! I did some searching online and discovered the amount was 300 mg per day. I thought that seemed low, so I started to look at the food I was consuming. My fish contained 35 mg, so I was ok there. I looked inside the egg carton, and saw 270 mg, much to my horror. Yes, I’ve always known eggs were high in cholesterol, but I didn’t realize one little egg and fish fillet “ate” up my entire daily allowance!

This was another sobering reality because I normally eat two eggs a day and a piece of fish. The one good thing I’ve learned is to eat the egg first and then chase it with a half a cup of oatmeal and a lecithin capsule so the fat doesn’t “stick” to the arterial walls and has a way out of the body.

I’ve always looked at eggs as a “clean” or “efficient” protein source because I’ve always been told that. Let’s compare here for a minute to get a reality check:

Eggs are clearly not the “clean” source with this side-by-side comparison, especially when you keep in mind the rule of staying under 300 mg of cholesterol on a daily basis. Two eggs and a piece of fish equal 575 mg of cholesterol, and that’s way too much. I know the cholesterol is concentrated in the yoke, and there are times when I’ll use only a half a yoke, but that doesn’t work with a hard boiled egg – my preferred method. I love the yokes in that case, but I guess I’m going to have to swear them off. To me, an egg is NOT an egg without the yoke.

One could argue the value of the egg as being the lower sodium content, but remember the trick I wrote about in a previous segment ? If you soak the fillet, you can remove a lot of added salt during the production of the product. It’s a small price I’m willing to pay considering I hate finding fish bones in the back of my throat. Of course your body needs some salt, so whatever occurs naturally in food and what little is left over after soaking is probably not enough to worry about.

I was chatting with a friend last night about diet and exercise issues, and although he exists somewhere between sedentary and work related bursts of movement and regular spring through fall juicing, his smoking and otherwise dietary habits are somewhat to be desired. For the moment, I am lighter than he is in terms of scale weight, but if we did an accurate comparison between the both of us, he might win out today.

The reason I mention him at this point is because he said to me, “you’re becoming compulsive with this diet thing”. I told him I wasn’t compulsive, but I was being stringent because I’m having to face facts I might not be in good enough shape in three months to go for a physical and lab work; I might have to readjust my expectations and shoot for four or five months. Granted, that means I’ll be looking at March or April for a doctor’s visit, and I’m shooting to have all medical and dental issues resolved and perfectly clean by June.

Thankfully the rest of my diet consists of lots of carrot and celery sticks, tomatoes, flax and sesame seeds, frozen mixed vegetables, and a little powered fiber that I add into my oatmeal for a little extra cholesterol grabbing power. I do drink a lot of water with lemon, but I’ve got a stern warning about drinking too much, based on personal experience. Just a word of advice: keep a bottle of Gatoraide handy in case you drink too much water – it might save your life!

If you don’t like trying to find all the segments of this series, you can locate the links to them here and they will return you the exact spot on the socyberty.com site.

quazen.com articles by this writer can be found here

socyberty.com articles can be located here

relijournal.com articles are here

picable.com photographic images are here