Paleo Dan

I went in for my semiannual blood work about a week and a half ago. Know that I’m not terribly concerned with my lipid panel results, but it is very interesting to track the changes over time in response to following a paleo/primal diet plan. So, without further adieu, here are my latest results:

• Glucose, Serum (mg/dL) – 89 (+9.88%)
• Cholesterol, Total (mg/dL) – 209 (-11.06%)
• Triglycerides (mg/dL) – 71 (-13.41%)
• HDL Cholesterol (mg/dL) – 70 (+37.25%)
• VLDL Cholesterol Calc (mg/dL) – 14 (-12.50%)
• LDL Cholesterol Calc – “Friedewald” (mg/dL) – 124.80 (-25.54%)
• LDL Cholesterol Calc – “Iranian” (mg/dL) – 111.36 (-28.74%)
• HDL/LDL Ratio – “Friedewald” – 0.561 (+84.54%)
• HDL/LDL Ratio – “Iranian” – 0.629 (+92.94%)
• Triglycerides/HDL Ratio – 1.014 (-36.94%)

 
You can see these and previous results on my Blood Work page.

I used to take regular progress images and post them here every two months. Well, it’s quite apparent that I haven’t posted the last two or three months worth of images for some reason…

That reason has been an apparent lack of progress to document! From January 16th through this week, I’ve lost maybe five or six pounds. That’s it! So what would I have documented in those progress images?

Apparently as it turns out, quite a bit!!! I wasn’t seeing a difference, but all of a sudden (or so it seems) my size 38″ shorts are too big for me. I tried on my size 36″ shorts of the same style and they fit perfectly. This is slightly confusing to me considering that the last time I fit into 36s, I was 20 – 30 pounds lighter than I am now.

So, I went back to the body measurements I took at about the same time that I took my last progress images. My chest, upper arm, and thigh measurements have all gone down by about an inch. The amazing change, though, was that I lost 3″ from my waist. 3″ without losing very much weight! Crazy!

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not hung up on the scale reading. I don’t freak out if it goes up or stays the same… heck, that should be clear since I’ve been sticking with my nutrition and fitness program for the past six months despite the apparent lack of progress. I’m just very surprised to see these changes in body composition and measurements considering that the scale hasn’t budged.

I’ll take some new images in the next week or so to compare against my January images: