Weight Los Advice

A little over 2 years ago... I was "kind of a fat guy", as my Doctor told me. At the time I tipped the scales at about 238 which according to the Body Mass Index,for a 6 feet 1 inch male, put me, not overweight, but obese. The Doctor told me I needed to drop about 15 pounds to get my BMI number under 30. I told him I would prefer to gain a few more inches instead. He did not find that nearly as funny as I did. So anyway, I started on this so call "diet and exercise" program and by "diet and exercise" I mean I walked the dog around the block when I got home from work and stopped eating a bag of chips as a snack between lunch and dinner. Within about 6 months I had dropped 15 pounds. I did other common sense things also such as walk the 3 blocks to the post office or to the bank instead of driving. The one other thing I did was substantially reduce the amount of TV I watch. Put me in front of the TV with a can of Pringles in the house and there is only one possible outcome. When someone asks me what was my secret, I tell then to stay busy, go do something. Work in the garden, hit a bucket of balls at the range, take the kid to a park, help the neighbor build a fence or lay sod in his backyard. Something other than sitting around the house waiting for lunch.

So anyway I had a follow up with the Doctor a month or so ago, now down 40+ pounds, current weight, 196, ultimate goal, 188, and the Doctor told me what I had achieved was nothing short of amazing. It is the kind of results they tell people are possible but never actually see short of a strictly supervised diet and exercise program. My total cholesterol went from slightly over 200 to 155. My LDL cholesterol is 83, HDL is 47 and Triglycerides is 127. I am told all of these numbers are good. Actually I am told the HDL could be a little better. The funny thing is I looked up ways to improve your HDL and it says to have 1 or 2 alcoholic beverages per day. I have never had 2 alcoholic beverages in a week so I do not see that happening anytime soon.

The sad part of all of this was how I did not think I did anything special and yet the Doctor is saying almost nobody is capable of doing this. Are we that pathetic? I think it is a sign of society that we need to see instant results or we give up. We jump from the latest fad diet, all protein, low carb, do not eat white bread after 8pm, whatever. Forget all of that stuff, eat less, exercise more. Trust me, it works.