I’ve written a lot about “Good Energy” in the past year. When I wrote about the book, I wrote about cleaning up my act and revisiting every aspect of my lifestyle – from diet to movement .
All of this came from conviction in her recommended approach.
Conviction is useful. But the sign of conviction in the right things is when we have evidence.
The first bit of evidence came from a close friend who shared that he’d gone from being pre-diabetic to normal in a matter of 3 months by making these lifestyle changes. That was great to hear and validating.
However, there was one wish I had.
Over the past 15 years, every time I’ve gone in for routine bloodwork, I’ve emerged with a key ratio looking off – the ratio of Triglycerides to HDL or High density Lipoprotein (commonly called good cholesterol).
My ratio has consistently hovered between 3-4. The optimal is 1-1.5 and 2 is considered normal. I’ve had rare moments (after a set of smaller lifestyle changes) when the ratio has been closer to 3. But it’s never sustained and typically hovers around 3.5.
I’ve been off on both of these numbers by quite a bit. The ideal HDL for men is in the 60-80 range (I barely touched 40) and the ideal Triglycerides number is 40-60 (I’ve typically hovered around 130).
Going into this set of lifestyle changes 8 months ago, I hoped I’d see an improvement in these numbers. But, admittedly, it felt like one of those half-hearted hopes where I didn’t have confidence in myself and expected to be disappointed.
I’m pleased to report that my latest numbers show a 63 mg/dL HDL and 43 mg/dL triglycerides. I’ve swung from “at risk” to optimal in one go – a ~6x improvement in that ratio.
4 reflections –
(1) I think the process of building confidence in ourselves is when we know we have the ability to follow through with action. I’ve gained confidence over the years that I’ll be able to follow through on what I say I’ll do. I just didn’t have any strategy to improve these specific metrics. And I’m grateful to Dr Casey Means for the strategy.
(2) Speaking of strategy, this is the biggest gripe I have with Dr Peter Attia’s Outlive. His immediate solution to this ratio being off was to recommend statins. For all his focus on medicine 3.0, it felt like a medicine 2.0 quick fix solution. Dr. Means’ approach of fixing lifestyle first resonated tremendously.
(3) I’ve written about the lifestyle changes I’ve made in a combination of other posts. But I’d like to share a summary in case you find it useful –
I’m not regimented about all of this. I’ve had to take breaks when traveling and definitely skip Saturdays. I have a sweet tooth – so I’ve binged on plenty of white chocolate and Indian sweets along the way. But I’ve attempted to be consistent more often than not in the past 6 months. I just didn’t know if it would all show up in the results.
(4) That brings me to the final note. I’ve felt better than ever since making these changes. Unless the blood work showed a worse situation, I’d have continued doing these anyway.
But it is always heartening when we keep getting evidence that good results do follow good process.
