Ever since my blood work came back with a bad cholesterol reading of 6.5, I am now even more resolute to cut out red meat from my diet. As I have genetic high cholesterol aka Familial Hypercholesterolaemia (FH for short), it will be quite impossible for my cholesterol level to go down even with a strict diet. It went down to a reading of 4.9 when I drank 2-3 packets of Izumio hydrogen water daily - that was about 4 years ago. But Izumio is too costly and I now only drink it when I feel under the weather.
I now try to include more raw veggies in my diet. I used to eat quite a bit of raw veggies and sprouts but the darn pandemic and prolonged home quarantine threw my healthy regimen out of the window. The prolonged lockdown almost threw my sanity out of my my head too.
My yearly blood test is in January or February each year. But because of the lockdown and my fear of knowing the truth, I delayed going to my doctor's office until recently (late September).
Good news is my blood sugar is still good at a reading of 5.0. I thought that it would protest and go up too as I had not been eating as clean as I should have been throughout the lockdown.
Bad news is my cholesterol reading has gone up from 6.4 (last year) to 6.5. And the little good news amid the bad is that my HDL (good cholesterol) went up and my total cholesterol/HDL ratio is only 2.8 (< 5.0). It must be my diet that's high in nuts and fish oil.
My doctor is not pressing me to go on Statin, albeit he did say that I could try taking Lipitor. But I'm not taking Statin just yet. I have my reasons. I may also want to consult our family friend who's a cardiologist at SJMC to seek his advice. He's currently out of country.
So hopefully by adding more veggies and rawsome goodness into my diet and eating lesser red meat, my cholesterol reading will go down. I know it's going to be hard with a mutated gene, but eating more veggies will also benefit other aspects of my health.
I use the Lui Cha paste as dipping for raw bell pepper slices. |
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