Again with the health

I finished the 12 week health 4 life program at Google 2 weeks ago..... My goals were to get under 200lbs (down from 214) and lower my cholesterol and fasting blood sugar. Well it turns out I didn't mean my goal of getting below 200 but I am at 201 which is pretty darn good. I also lowered my cholesterol by over 60 points and my fasting blood sugar by 10 points. So booya! I am a healthy mofo now!

What did it take? I logged my food for the first 2 weeks and Valerie (my nutritionist) showed me the distribution of food types I was eating and then showed me where I should be. This made it very clear to me that I was eating too much meat and starch and not enough leafy greens. The amazing thing is that this simple step made it very easy for me to add more veggies to my diet. The next step was to study the basic nutritional facts for many different food types and the one thing that stuck out in my mind is that red meat has more cholesterol and less protein that chicken. Now there are people who say eating beef is bad for the world but my main concern was my body so I gave up red meat and haven't had it for over 3 months now (hence the reduction in my cholesterol).

Now for the real trick to this whole thing... portion control. While what you eat matters, the portions that you are very very important (Obviously!) but it isn't just how much you eat but the combinations of food that you take in together. A big bowl of ice cream is not that good for you but if you have it after a meal that has protein, fat, and fiber your body actually absorbs the ice cream differently (in a good way).

Oh and don't forget exercise. I was already working out 2-3 times a week so I tried to increase that to 4-5 times a week. For a while I was good about the exercise but then I hurt my knee and took a little break from the gym. This slowed down my weight loss and if it wasn't for that I am sure I would be under 200lbs today.

The reason I am writing this post is because last night I was at my friend Eiman's place when I saw that he had a pullup bar. For whatever reason I started doing pullups and was able to do 10 full pullups. I have never in my entire life been able to do 10 pullups! I was pretty proud :-)

Diets don't work, it is only through small conscious decisions that health goals can be achieved.