The Vegan Gets His Cholesterol Checked
On my recent trip to the doctor, I ended up getting a full physical, and the doctor wanted me to get a lipoprotein profile so that we have a baseline reading. At the time of my blood work, I had been a vegan for roughly nine months, had been running for 10 weeks, and was losing weight at a rate of roughly 0.7 kg/weekâthough, with a body-mass index (BMI) of around 37.5, I was still in the “very obese” category. Nonetheless, I wasn’t too concerned about the results.
I just got my results back on Thursday evening in the mail, and I found out that these results:
- Total Cholesterol: 142 mg/dL
- LDL (Bad) Cholesterol: 94 mg/dL
- HDL (Good) Cholesterol: 33 mg/dL
- Triglycerides: 88 mg/dL
Other than the HDL number being a bit low, these numbers are extraordinary. As I progress toward a healthy BMI and increase my aerobic fitness through running, that HDL number will naturally go up to an equally awesome level.
Now, I have no baseline readings prior to going vegan, so these numbers are essentially meaningless without a comparison. But I’m willing to bet they were much higher a year or two ago. Statistically speaking, that’s just pretty darn likely.
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