Wellness Screening 2014

Yesterday I got something awesome in the mail.

Those right there are the results of my most recent wellness screening. My employer and our insurance company are good people and offer the service for free annually. In the six years that I've been with my current employer I had only taken advantage of the opportunity one other time. Truth be told, at the time I wasn't focused on my health so I only did it for the Target gift card giveaway. All that I remember is that the results were good.

This time, I destroyed it. Also, a woman destroyed my arm.

That's my arm a day after the screening. I don't think it's supposed to look like that just from having a little blood sucked. I can only make out two in the photo, but there were actually three wounds. I don't claim to know anything about drawing blood, but given that I've got an awesome vein that you can see on the left, I question why the woman had to tear up my arm. Tidbit: When I had blood drawn back in high school, the woman who did it told me that I've got great veins for shooting up. Only in Lorain. Almost two weeks later I'm still bruised.

Anywho, I screwed up the morning of the screening. On my way to school I stopped at Starbucks for a nonfat latte. I arrived at work, did my regular morning stuff, and at 8:00 plopped myself into my office chair. I opened my Franklin Covey Planner to February 28th, took my first swig of latte, and scanned through my tasks.

A1: Wellness screening @ 7:50

Balls!

Two strikes against me (10 minutes late AND I broke my fast that I didn't know I was doing when I took that sip of latte), I hustled down to the wellness screening site. My late arrival was no big deal but the dude who checked me in said that my results might be inaccurate because of the milk in my latte. If anything, I supposed some stuff would be a little elevated.

Here are the highlights:

Blood pressure: 121/85 (Pre-hypertension, eek)

Total cholesterol: 156 (Ideal = less than 200)

LDL: 91 (Ideal = less than 100)

HDL: 58 (Desirable = 40-59)

Triglycerides: 36 (Ideal = less than 150)

Glucose: 92 (Normal = less than 100)

BMI: 21.6 (Normal = 18.5-24.9)

Percent body fat: 23.4

I'm going to work on decreasing my blood pressure. For a couple of years it was actually interfering with my ability to function at work. A handful of times I ended up light-headed and with tunnel vision in the nurse's office, but it hasn't happened this school year. Admittedly, I can get pretty high strung. Seriously, this weekend I had a meltdown because the house wasn't spotless.

I'm pumped about the cholesterol stuff. Joe and I put a lot of effort into eating good food in terms of flavor and nutrition. Of course we induldge a couple of times per week, but we can do that because of the quality of most of our meals. We're good at portion control, we avoid processed foods, and we eat a lot of good produce. Take a peek at our snack stash and ignore the Gu and Clif bars, the latter of which I've replaced with Kind bars before long runs.

Full disclosure: I ate fish and chips and had a beer at trivia last night. BUT! I only did that because 1.) I ran 6.5 miles (of speed work) in the afternoon, 2.) I had lots of granola and Greek yogurt throughout the day, and 3.) I ate less than half of the meal and brought the rest home.

I'm cool with my BMI but I don't care about it too much because it doesn't account for muscle. I'm also good on my percentage of body fat, but it wouldn't upset me if I were to see that number drop. Joe tries to encourage me all the time to do strength training with him in order to tighten up but I just don't feel a passion for it. Maybe one day I'll get an itch just like what happened with running. Or maybe my bout with P90X turned me off. I could be proactive and make it a goal between spring and fall marathons. Hmm...

And that's that; my 2014 wellness screening. I'm feeling good. It's time to work on better results for next year!