My Journey to Health – The Data

All of my talk about changing my body and making great claims about my health would be meaningless without the data to support what I have stated.

Below I will share the data related to my cholesterol and triglyceride levels, my blood pressure and weight loss trend.

Component Measured	January 17. 2025	April 21, 2025	Change
Cholesterol (Normal range 0-199 mg/dL)	219 mg/dL	163 mg/dL	56 mg/dL -26%
HDL (Normal range 40-59 mg/dL) This is the “good” cholesterol associated with exercise	56 mg/dL	55 mg/dL	1 mg/dL (essentially unchanged)
Triglycerides (Normal Range 0-149 mg/dL)	98 mg/dL	66 mg/dL	32 mg/dL -33%
LDL Cholesterol (Normal Range < 99 mg/dL). This is the “bad” cholesterol	143 mg/dL (High)	95 mg/dL	48 mg/dL -34%

As you can see in the cholesterol, LDL cholesterol and the triglyceride levels, in the 94 days between readings, after I had implemented my new nutritional plan, they all dropped significantly, with the most important one, LDL cholesterol dropping 34%! My doctor told me she hadn’t seen that kind of change without using medication. What that tells me is that what I am doing works and that I have been super disciplined in following my strategy.

*On January 16, 2025, My blood pressure in the clinic was 122/80. My weight was 197 and my pulse was 75.

The above blood pressure readings were all in a medical clinic. It’s important to measure physical things the same way at the same time of day, etcetera to make the data more trustworthy.

Prior to 2025, my typical blood pressure was around 120/80 pretty consistently. It had never dropped significantly.

Date	Weight (pounds)
12/31/2024	197
1/30/2025	193
2/20/2025	191.5
3/31/2025	182
4/30/2025	180.5
5/28/2025	180.8
6/28/2025	175
7/27/2025	174
8/26/2025	171
9/29/2025	170.25
10/27/2025	171
11/14/2025	168

As you can see the weight loss was not dramatic in a very short period of time, but steady over time. I have no idea why it dropped so much in March and February. I used to never weigh myself. I hadn’t weighed myself for years because it never did much for me psychologically. However, tracking it has kept me “honest” somehow and I have enjoyed watching it drop. I have not changed anything much except sticking to my plan. I do not anticipate losing much more weight.

Remember, when I started this journey, my only goal was to lower my LDL cholesterol level. The lower weight and lower blood pressure happened as a byproduct.

So…there is the data. Exercise and nutrition combined. I will get into goal setting, the power of habit and motivation in future posts.