Managing my health in 2026
In my post earlier this week I listed health as my number one priority for the year. I made some changes this morning that will help with my approach to a healthy year.
First - some numbers. As I said my doctor told me my cholesterol is high; looking at my blood test results, this is what I see for cholesterol:
LDL Cholesterol (LDL-C): 4.63 mmol/L
According to the test this is an increase from my previous numbers, which were 3.49 mmol/L. An ideal level would be ~ 2.6, but for now the plan is to at least bring the number back down.
My current weight is 250.7 lbs, and my goal weight is 245 lbs. This has been my goal weight for a long time - including all of last year. I came close but 2 and a half months of neglecting calorie counting undid all of that hard work.
The plan
I used ChatGPT for some help with the target numbers. Don't @ me.
I decided I would pay for Cronometer's Gold plan; I had a 30% discount available for the first year, so now was a good time to jump on it. Not only does this let me do useful things like import recipes from a URL, but it allows me to set specific targets. Additionally the dashboard becomes much more useful and detailed so I can more accurately track numbers and make appropriate changes.
Since my secondary goal to weight loss is to lower my LDL-C, I need to change more than just my overall protein-carbs-fat percentages (set at 30-35-35). Apparently, to lower my LDL-C with diet change, these are my ideal targets:
- Fiber: Daily target: 35g
- Saturated fat: Daily target 10g, Max threshold 12g
- Cholesterol: daily target 200mg, max threshold 300mg
For the rest of this week and all of next week, I'm not making any changes to my diet. These two weeks will serve as a baseline for future adjustments.
Springing for the Gold membership has already been useful. I can see that I am way over my saturated fat target today, but I also get a breakdown where all of that is coming from:
Not a pretty picture, and I'm tempted to make some immediate adjustments - but I'm going to stay the course as planned. Starting the week of January 19th I'll take that baseline data and pick more sensible foods.
That's the diet plan; we just went to the gym last night for some additional cardio other than the work we do with our personal trainer (weight training) so I hope we can keep that up! Even though winter walking isn't always the most pleasant, I should get my dog out for longer walks. For various reasons I haven't been taking her out in the mornings so my walks are cut to 10+ minutes a day (instead of 20+ minutes).
Wish me luck!