My Journey With Health And Fitness – Apparently I Am Really Healthy

This was not the blog I had intended to write today but I decided I need to celebrate when things are good. Today I had my annual diabetes check up with my doctor. I am diligent about doing this every year and ensuring that I get all the appropriate tests done. This includes things like eyes, mammogram, blood work and this year just for the fun of it the tests included a PAP and a FIT. The problem I have is I obsess over the test results and seriously I analyze every single detail especially if anything is out of line. Fortunately my doctor is well aware of how neurotic I can be about this stuff and knows how to manage my craziness.

There was actually only one test result that was out of whack which is not a bad thing. The doctor told me that my glucose levels are absolutely normal. We talked about my cholesterol level which is in normal range and she said with most diabetics she likes it to be lower but since I am so healthy she is fine with keeping it where it is. I told her I had just submitted my FIT on Friday but she checked and even that came back negative (FIT is a stool screening test that I do to avoid a colonoscopy) so all is good.

The one test that was not quite right was my potassium which came back as slightly higher than normal. Of course I had to research all about this because I just couldn’t understand how you can have high potassium when you follow a low potassium diet. And, usually you see high potassium with kidney disease and my kidney GFR test came back normal. Turns out there are several things that could impact this including the fact that they had to take blood from both arms due to my super skinny veins. The doctor agreed it was highly unlikely that I have high potassium though she felt because of my intense workouts it could be reading high due to dehydration (note to self, more water needs to be incorporated into my diet). She recommended redoing the test but this time through the lab at the hospital which she feels is more reliable.

It was then on to checking my height and weight. I explained to her that I had given up on the goal of returning to 120lbs. I justified it in that when I was previously that weight I was not as muscular as I am now and that my whole body composition has changed. She asked what I thought was a realistic goal for me and I said I would be happy to just keep myself below 130lbs which has me in the middle range for a normal BMI. I then looked down at the scale and saw I actually weigh 122lbs so once again I have underestimated the impact of all my hard work. Pretty sure I can lose those last 2lbs before I head to Mexico in 5 weeks.

Who knew when I started this journey nearly 4 years ago that this would be the result. I have gone from being diabetic, having high blood pressure and taking more medication for cholesterol to being the healthiest ever in my life time. I figure not too bad for an old broad.