I am off from work this week and got Covid lol - Womp Womp.

I don’t usually make resolutions but I guess I’ll tell the story of my end of year and the changes I have made so far. About 10 years ago I was falling apart. I went to the doctor for something unrelated and they diagnosed me as pre-diabetic and suggested I started to take metformin. First I learned about keto diet and this made no sense to me so I kept looking and found Forks Over Knives and the Whole Food Plant Based Diet. Around that time I had moved in with my partner who was a vegetarian and was became one as well so I decided to make the plunge to fully vegan style diet. Following the plant based doctors I lost a lot of weight (270 to ~160 lbs) and reversed the pre-diabetes diagnosis. Once the meat goggles were full off I went all the way hard core animal rights vegan.

This year though I crossed into my mid 40s and towards the end of the summer I started to have headaches, I wasn’t sleeping well and I generally was having a hard time paying attention. In October I decided to do something about it. I’ve been a pretty heavy cannabis smoker for most of my life and I switched to dry herb vapes about 10 years ago. This was the first thing I stopped doing. Anecdotally I really don’t think cannabis is addictive because if I were drinking as much as I was smoking I would have gone into the DTs and had to go to the hospital, I was grumpy for a few days then didn’t smoke since, after daily smoking for 25+ years.

I don’t really like or trust doctors either so I didn’t believe that going to one would really help me with vague symptoms. So I downloaded medical textbooks from Annas archive and started to perform a physical on myself. I purchased some medical equipment on ali express all under 15 dollars, a blood pressure monitor, a blood oxygen sensor, and a thermometer. I started working through the family medicine examination process on myself.

I learned I had first stage hyper tension/high blood pressure between 121/81 - 135/90. I started to revisit my diet and made some tweaks to it. White rice crept in, I was eating processed food more often, I wasn’t really being very careful about added sugar any more. I also haven’t really been exercising since I moved from a big city to a more suburban place. I ordered my own blood work (I can do that where I live, I don’t need to go to a doctor to do this, I called a lab) and I got my blood work back. It actually came back pretty good except my triglycerides were high (200 and good is < 150) although my cholesterol was good. My A1C was good which is a metric of diabetes, I am still non diabetic. I am more anemic than I have been in the past, but I knew that and it is non-reversible in my case because of a blood disease called beta thalassemia.

So I got to work on correcting the blood work and the hyper tension, I got an exercise bike which I use almost every day and started going for hour long walks most days. I bought 5, 8 and 10 lb weights and started doing a routine I found on Youtube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNsKEG3hIzI). I switched out white rice for brown rice and started eating salads every day along with steamed greens with lemon juice (turnip greens, collard greens, kale, spinach) because where I live I can get bundles of them for a dollar within walking distance. I am following this rough plan although I add tofu and tempeh to my dinners too https://www.doctorklaper.com/hsep.

Anyway it has been working well, I have been sleeping much better, I stopped snoring. I got my blood work done again and all my numbers have gone to normal dropping 50 points of triglycerides in a few weeks which according to the internet is rare to do without taking medicines and have been in a much better mood. My blood pressure has gone down to an average of 110/60 over the past few weeks now without any more days of over 120 or over 80. So for the new year I intend on keeping on this path for a while and feeling better for my late 40s and 50s. I am really thankful I found veganism and healthy plant based eating when I did in my life and didn’t end up like my grandma who had amputations from diabetes and died in her 60s. I want to have a healthspan that goes way longer than that.

Happy New Year everyone!