Thursday, March 31, 2022

penultimate numbers

Here are some numbers before I head off to the hospital in about an hour:

Blood sugar: 70 (way down from last night's 92)
Weight: 107.9 (goal was 107 kg; can't quite call that a win)
Blood pressure: 128/80
Pulse: 68
BMI: 31.5
Muscle mass: 73.9 kg
Water: 49.5% (I still don't understand this stat)
Body fat: 26.5%

At the hospital, I will give blood and urine samples, and I'll get a BP, weight, and height reading. I'm not even worried about my BP at the hospital: based on past experience, I know it's going to be ridiculously high, and I'll have to do the usual song and dance to the doc about how hospitals stress me out. I also won't care about the weight measurement because I'll be wearing clothes, so that number, too, will be off by a kilo or two (you'd be surprised by how much your clothes weigh). 

The numbers I want from the hospital are: (1) my fasting glucose, (2) my HbA1c (3-month average glucose), and (3) my triglycerides. I suspect my A1c is going to be over 7, but if it's over 8, I'll be very worried. An A1c over 8 will mean that I've been a very, very bad boy over the past three months. I also suspect my triglyceride number* is going to be pretty ugly; these things are all linked. Nothing to do but diet and exercise harder, I guess. Or fast a hell of a lot more, although you and I both know that a life of starvation just isn't sustainable. Best solution is probably to stick with foods that aren't calorie-dense, like chicken breast and keto-friendly vegetables. All signs point back to Newcastle, not merely as a way to lose a lot of weight in three months, but as a sort-of lifestyle.

More numbers, then, later today.

__________

*In September last year, my triglyceride number was 131, which rates as normal. In December, it had gone up to 171, which is borderline high (150 is the max for normal). I suspect I could be over 200 right now, but we'll see in a few hours.



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