So I have some good news and some bad news. I’ll start with the bad so that I can end with a little redemption.
A few days ago I had gone to my doctor’s office for a blood test to see how my hormone levels were. Since I suffer from PCOS my doctor wanted to know if they needed to send me to an endocrinologist for further analysis. It took five minutes, I walked in walked out and was good.
Yesterday I was driving home from dropping Bridget off at school and got a phone call from a number I didn’t recognize. When I answered it was Maria, my doctor. We had met doing crossfit together, there’s a bonding that forms during those WODs so we’re on first name basis. (I’m sure you understand.)
Maria is never the one to call me. Usually it’s another person in the office.
Immediately she started off with, “Nina, I’m calling to talk to you about your high cholesterol levels…” I don’t remember what else she said immediately after that.
While she was talking my brain was talking to me at the same time. “Cholesterol levels? What the heck is she talking about? She must have grabbed the wrong chart and accidentally called the wrong person.”
I wasn’t prepared to hear any of this information so I didn’t absorb as much as I wish I had looking back. I caught a number in the 240′s and some other numbers. She said that the level was so high that they would normally recommend putting me on medication but since I’m a young woman (32) they try not to do that in case I were to get pregnant.
At this point I said something like, “Whoa, whoa, whoa… this is too weird! I’ve been eating as healthy as possible and working out whenever I can. I’ve dropped thirty pounds since Christmas. This doesn’t make any sense.”
That’s when she delved into the fact that it could just be hereditary. She asked me if it was. The truth is I only know half of my genetics. My dad isn’t my biological dad. He met and married my mom when I was really young and took over from there. I’ve been told that I’ve inherited his smile but that had nothing to do with genetics. As far as my biological dad is concerned I know… well, nothing.
Maria told me that she would send me some literature on what I can do diet and exercise wise and that we would schedule an appointment three months down the road to check it again.
I got off the phone with a blank face, totally confused by what had transpired.
I shared the news with Brent when I got home and he reassured me while simultaneously googling ways to lower cholesterol. The only thing I could possibly do differently was eat less meat. If I have ground beef I eat only the leanest I can find and for the most part I eat chicken.
If I had received this news at the very beginning of my weight loss journey I wouldn’t have found it to be such a shock. At this point I don’t really know what else to do.
You know that saying “It only matters what’s on the inside”? Well apparently my insides belong to that of a middle-aged man with a prominent beer belly.
I did some research and found that women who suffer from PCOS are at a risk for developing high cholesterol among other things that turn you into a troll (no offense).
I’ve been working on going from this…
Back to this…
So I did what every respectable daddy’s girl does… I called my dad.
He told me that when he refused to take medicine for high cholesterol his doctor recommended a few supplements… Niacin and Red Yeast Rice.
I immediately went to Whole Foods and found a combination of the two with CoQ10 a strong antioxidant that is supposed to support lowering your cholesterol.
I felt so much better after talking to my dad and having something that might be able to help solve the problem. We’ll see how it goes. Until then keep your fingers crossed for me.
In other news, I’ve turned into quite the hottie over the past few days.
Have you ever noticed my subtitle, “An Attempt At Keeping My Thighs From Eating My Shorts”? Well, I wasn’t kidding.
However, these days my gams are looking quite nice if I do say so myself. Nice enough to buy a new pair of shorts to hold me over until I hit 187. That’s when I’ve earned another trip to Lululemon.
Please don’t judge the smudges in my mirror this was an impromptu pic (at least I’m not doing the duck face).
This picture was actually taken right after I had jumped on the scale to find that I weigh 192.4. That’s such a great number considering my most frequent form of exercise has been walking to Starbuck’s for iced coffee due to my back injury hiatus.
This high cholesterol business sucks but the silver lining is that I’ve got more than my vanity to worry about at this point. If I keep fighting the good fight then I’m certain that things will eventually fall into place.
Enough about me… how was your week?
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