PhoneBoy Says

I'm two years into my health journey that began with adopting Intermittent Fasting along with a low carb diet to manage Type 2 Diabetes and Hypertension. Since, I've adopted a more "no sugar no grains no seed oils" approach, trending mostly carnivore (I.e. eating mostly animal-based products).

While I think it's safe to say my Diabetes is in remission with an A1C at or below 5.6% for more than a year now, weight down over 110 pounds/50 kilos, and a coronary artery calcium score of zero, I'm not quite out of the woods yet.

Mild hypertension is still an issue for me. Granted it is much better than it was several years ago, but now I know my aorta is "dilated" (i.e. bigger than it should be), and higher blood pressure is not particularly good for that. I'm sure it will come up when I go in for a physical.

Meanwhile, I've made one other important change: I'm exercising. More specifically, I'm trying to keep my heart rate in Zone 2, known to provide improvements in endurance. I've seen a few methods to calculate this, but I'm going with the Vinnie Tortorich method: 180 minus your age, which means about 134 plus or minus 5 beats.

The exercise I've chosen? Running, or walking when my heart rate goes above the Zone 2 range, which happens pretty quickly still. I have a treadmill at home, most hotels I stay in also have a treadmill, and the weather is improving at home. Basically zero excuses not to do this.

At first, I started out using a Mi Band 3 to track my heart rate during workouts and sleep, which worked ok for a bit. Unfortunately, after a recent software update, it sporadically stops syncing with my phone. This eventually lead me to buy something I've been wanting for a while now: an Apple Watch. It works a whole lot better:

As I started going longer and further than before (from a couple miles over half an hour to over four miles over an hour and change), I saw a significant decrease in my blood glucose. It got to a point where I asked my doctor if I should continue to take Metformin.

My doctor said I no longer needed to take Metformin, but I should continue to monitor. Which, of course I am doing. My blood glucose has gone back up, but it's staying in a fairly normal range (averaging about 90 mg/dL) without taking medication.

The exercise really isn't so much about the physical fitness, though I know that's improving as well. It's the emotional fitness. I'm not quite sure how to describe it, but I just feel better after I've spent some time sweating with just me, my feet, and whatever podcasts I'm listening to. Which, during my workouts, tend to be health-related podcasts.

I do also find myself thinking lately, when stressed, I should go out for a run. I never in my life thought I'd be saying that, but here we are.

A couple weeks ago, I posted I was going in for a CT Angiogram to get a Coronary Artery Calcium (CAC) Score. The CAC score, which is a measure of how much calcium has built up in your heart, can be anything from a zero to over 1000. Generally speaking, the higher your CAC score, the higher the risk that you'll have a heart attack.

When combined with something like the MESA Risk Calculator, which only takes into account things the kinds of things a doctor can assess in their office, the CAC score is significantly associated with the occurrence of major cardiovascular events, which includes all-cause mortality, cardiac mortality, and nonfatal myocardial infraction.

Knowing your score, as Ivor Cummins says, really helps you understand your risk of cardiovascular events. He covers this quite succinctly on a recent episode of his podcast. While he publishes his podcast in audio form, I highly recommend watching Episode 12 which includes all the graphs.

I finally got the results of the test today. The result: a CAC score of zero. Based on that score alone, my risk of a cardiovascular event over the next couple years is less than 2%. I still have elevated blood pressure, and technically a diabetic, so my risk is a little higher according to the MESA Calculator--about 3%. Which is still pretty low in the grand scheme of things.

More importantly, it means I don't need to take a statin, which my doctor has been trying to get me to take again in light of my higher than normal cholesterol. With my risk profile and a CAC score of zero, statin use is not warranted.