Bishop Zoo: December 2013

I've been doing this for a few years. On Christmas Eve, late at night after getting all the gifts set up, I block off the stairway for the kids to come upstairs and leave them with a note. Here's this year's:

Gotta get something out of them; and what a great motivator Christmas presents are! This is the stairway blocked with wrapping paper.

On Christmas Eve, the kids all on their own decided they were going to act out the Nativity. It was pretty cute. Sam was a very reluctant baby Jesus and ran off.

Christmas Eve, in the afternoon, Steve and I went and saw Ballet West's The Nutcracker! That was so fun for me! I have actually only seen The Nutcracker live once before. Every other time I was in it. They did a great job! I am a big fan of the show Breaking Pointe, which is a reality show about Ballet West. So it made it even more interesting for me to know some about the personal lives of the dancers.

Janice and her kids came over for dinner and a Christmas talent show the night before Christmas Eve. They were their own little orchestra and played us some good music.

Yesterday I got all my results back from my doctor and from the Ybefit office. There were a lot of results to go through and took some time to do. I had 12 different blood tests run that were a repeat of the original 12 blood tests taken before I started the experiment. I also had a repeat of all the fitness testing as well as the Bod Pod test, which is the most accurate body fat percentage test available. I had a repeat of my VO2 max as well.

I thought about reporting all these results on here, but decided it was just too much information to post. I will say that all of my tests showed that either I stayed close to the previous results, or there was an improvement. For instance, my protein and iron levels were either the same or higher after 6 months of being vegan. I decided to post the most interesting results though, because some of these results really shocked me and I thought they would be interesting to others as well.

My only apprehension with sharing these results, is I will be sharing some personal information that I wasn't all that comfortable sharing with the world. But with such improvements, I am happy to share this information now.

So without further ado, here are the results!

First off, a before and after photo. This one was the most embarrassing! The "before" photo was taken 6 months ago. I was out of shape! I had had knee surgery a couple of months prior and my diet and fitness level were not ideal. I had gotten kind of chubby! Yuck! I weighed 135 lbs precisely in this photo. (My height is 5'6.5") The photo on the right was 6 months later. I did not want to do one of those "after" photos you see of people where they are sucking in their stomach giving a false side by side of the old photo, so I didn't. But I can still see a decent difference. I weighed 126.5 in this photo. (8.5 lb. difference.) What is cool about this to me is that I was not restricting my calorie intake in order to lose weight, which I have always needed to do in the past. Normally I need to stay around 1200 calories to lose weight. This time I ate whenever I was hungry and didn't allow myself to be hungry these past 6 months. I mentioned in my previous post that I averaged 2300 calories per day. That is almost twice as many calories! For me, to see such a loss with that amount of calories each day is remarkable.

Here are some other results.

1st- hsCRP for CV Risk. This high-sensitivity CRP blood test is promoted as a test for determining a person's risk level for Cardiovascular Disease, heart attacks, and strokes. A normal result is defined as anything from 0.0-2.5. My original result 6 months ago was a shocking >15! This result was shocking to me and my doctor because I was a fairly healthy person with absolutely nothing in my lifestyle to indicate that there was a problem. My cardiovascular system was nowhere the health we had both thought it was. It was kind of a scary thing to see. My new result at the 6 month mark was 0.8. GIANT improvement!

2nd- Blood Pressure and Heart Rate. This is another problem I had been dealing with for years. My blood pressure was a bit high. I was taking medications to bring it down. But the medication caused some problems, so I went off of it. My heart rate was very strangely high as well. I have been a pretty active person all my life, so it made little sense why I had blood pressure and heart rate issues.

A normal blood pressure reading would be 120/80. My original blood pressure, which was normal for me at the time was 131/97. My new and normal blood pressure 6 months later was 118/85. A normal heart rate would be 60-80. My original heart rate was 170! My new normal heart rate 6 months later- 59! Pretty amazing.

3rd- Cholesterol. A normal total cholesterol number would be between 140-199. My original cholesterol reading was 227. Being young, at a normal weight, vegetarian, and never smoked, my doctor was confused why in the world I would have high cholesterol levels. My cholesterol reading 6 months later - 155.

4th- VO2 Max Test. This test is done on a treadmill where you are supposed to walk and run while they use gadgets to monitor your cardio health. (The results go from "Very Poor" with any score less than 26.5, to "Poor", to "Below Average", "Average", "Good", "Very Good", and "Excellent" with anything above 40.7) My original score was 29.0 ml/kg/min = POOR. My new score 6 months later - 46.2 ml/kg/min = EXCELLENT.

5th- Thyroid Stimulating Hormone or TSH. A little background on this one: I had a low thryroid problem for quite some time, leaving me feeling cruddy and tired. I was put on Synthroid to elevate that. After getting on Synthroid, I felt a lot better! I had been on Synthroid for quite some time when I started my experiment. My intent was to stay on it during the experiment. But a few months into it, I was beginning to feel sensitive to it and decided to go off. So that makes these test results even more interesting to me. A normal range for this blood test would be .45-4.67. My original result, even while taking Synthroid was .88. My new result 6 months later and being off of Synthroid was 1.95!

I will share a few more interesting things that are quite personal to me, but I feel like sharing because they are certainly interesting in regards to my current experiment. I mentioned I was on some medications prior to starting my experiment. My intent was to remain on all these medications during the experiment. Some of these were the Synthroid for my thyroid, Zoloft for depression, and Ambien for sleep. I had been on Zoloft for years. I have always struggled with depression and although I have been doing well emotionally, I was just too scared to go off it. I was afraid that I would have a terrible emotional crash and just wouldn't be able to cope. So I stayed on it. And I planned to stay on it. I have also been taking Ambien for years too. I have had serious problems for years getting to sleep and also staying asleep. Ambien had been a lifesaver for me.

Well, I noticed after being on this experiment for a few months, that I was beginning to feel a lot better and I was also feeling extra sensitive to medications. Meds that had little effect on me before, now seemed to be much more powerful. The side effects were starting to bother me, so I just went off of everything. And surprisingly, I am doing well.

Another interesting and very very personal thing, which I discussed with just a few people was an incident I had a few months ago. I had had a tubal ligation right after I delivered my last baby 2 years ago. This surgery was done by an expert doctor who actually came up with this particular procedure. He removed a portion of my tubes and cauterized them. Those tubes were sent off to pathology to make sure that they were indeed my reproductive tubes. Pathology came back saying the surgery was successful. I would be having no more babies. Well, a few months ago I was feeling pukey sick and my period was late. I took a test, and surprisingly I was pregnant! In talking with my doctor who has been overseeing me for this experiment actually made the comment that maybe this experiment of mine would suggest that this type of diet could actually reverse (or heal) permanent sterilization. My response was, in that case, nobody would want to eat this way! After getting over the shock of being pregnant and accepting it, I soon miscarried. Miscarriages are not uncommon for me. I for some reason have a difficult time carrying babies to full term. This was my 6th miscarriage. I do not want to go through that again. I saw my Maternal Fetal Medicine doctor who said that at least one of my tubes had miraculously grown back and healed. He suggested that with how fertile I am, if I did not wish to become pregnant again, I should have the surgery done again and have the tubes totally removed. I have this surgery scheduled for this week.

Another interesting thing that has happened with this experiment is in regards to my knee. I injured my knee badly back in February. In April I had surgery to fix my torn ACL. That recovery was tough! In June, I was feeling pretty darn good and took a jazz dance class. Stupid idea. Landing a side split leap, I re-tore my ACL, and tore up my meniscus badly. I had surgery again in August. My surgeon is well known and respected. He is the surgeon for the professional ballet company Ballet West, as well as the professional soccer team Salt Lake Real. He has taken care of many professional athletes. So he is not one of those orthopedic doctors that is for all the old folks out there. He made the comment to me after my August knee surgery how happy he was with my recovery. He was amazed at how quickly and how well I was healing. He gave me the thumbs up to start working out and running early. So that was exciting for me! I attribute my fast healing from my diet.