Health snapshot

Yesterday at work I participated in a health screening program.  They checked our height & weight, blood pressure, and drew blood to measure cholesterol and glucose.  The results?  Completely stellar.

Total Cholesterol: 149 (desirable - less than 180)
HDL "Good" Cholesterol: 69 (desirable - greater than 55)
Total/HDL Ratio: 2.2 (desirable - less than 4.0)
Glucose: 72 non-fasting (normal - less than 140)
Blood Pressure: 104/70 (normal - less than 120/80)

Fabulous, right?  I've never had my cholesterol checked before and am pretty proud of how healthy I am in that area.  My blood pressure has also gone down recently (although it was never above normal range) and I'm happy to see that my glucose is far from any diabetic concern (sometimes I wonder if it's too low toward the hypoglycemia spectrum, but I digress).  The basic result is that my inner workings are healthy, happy, and efficient.  Yay!  Really good feedback in an area I don't usually examine.

I've debated back & forth on writing about the last measurement they took - weight.  That's the tricky one.  Kaiser has developed a new version of the BMI chart - instead of the heinous previous categories of "normal" "overweight" and "obese" they've now established "good weight for most people" "may lead to health problems for some" and "increasing risk of developing health problems."  I fall into the "overweight" category with traditional BMI, and my goal weight lies at the top of the "normal/healthy" range.  I figured I would fall into the middle category on this one too, but was shocked to find that I'm sitting right on the border of "may develop problems" and "increased risk."  Say what?  Did we not just establish that I'm healthy?

I'm annoyed that this one factor can get in my head and take up so much space.  I know that I'm a healthy person (and just got some new fabulous confirmation of that) but when I step on the scale it screams "unhealthy" at me.  It's just a number I know, but it's one that carries so much weight (couldn't resist).  There's so much emotion tied up in that number.  Unfortunately, it's been one of the hardest numbers to change.  I've changed the number of days & minutes I exercise for, the number of calories I ingest, the number of servings of fruits & veggies, water, etc that I eat, but this final number, the one on the scale, is so resistant to change.  Unless, of course, I get off track for a week or two.  It's perfectly happy to change then, just not in the direction I'm looking for.


I also feel compelled to throw in that it's not just the weight measurement that gets to me.  I would be perfectly happy weighing what I do now if I was solid muscle.  I really want to lower my body fat percentage (and find a reliable way to measure that) as well as my waist measurement and clothing size.  The scale just seems to be the most comprehensive way of charting progress.  Or, lately, lack of progress >:[