calebbrown.id.au

Well it's been a month since my last coffee and I don't think I'll go back to any sort of regular intake.

I'm actually quite surprised at the difference it has made. My mind feels clearer even when I'm not 100%. My tiredness levels are no worse, and best of all I no longer suffer from the buzzy heights and groggy depths of the caffeine roller-coaster - my alertness now follows a much smoother gradient.

That being said though, I will still happily enjoy the odd cup every now and then, just never again in the regular quantities I did in the past.

and in just under 4 months my cholesterol has lowered to an acceptably healthy level. I can now enjoy a cheese and Thai again.

The doctor seemed impressed that I had dropped 1.8mmol/L (from 6.6 to 4.8) in that period of time. I don't know if that's good or not, but I don't think I'll be dying of a heart attack anytime soon (hopefully there are no sudden ironic twists now I've written that).

Since I am now past the 3 month mark since the start of my cholesterol induced diet I decided I'd visit the doctor and get my blood tested again.

When he does these tests he always checks everything so he got me to stand on the scales to take my weight. I got a big surprise (so to speak). My weight was 78kg, with my shoes still on, a fat wallet still in my pocket and the scales reporting just above zero with nothing on them.

I thought I was still around 82kg (having lost about 4 or 5 before that) and 3 months ago I was 84kg. I think what makes it a bigger deal is that I hadn't done much exercise through January, and I haven't been as strict on what I was eating.

I don't think I've been below 80 since the start of university. My reckoning is that by the end of this year, with all the travelling and what not going on, I'll be in the low 70's. Sweet.

So after getting a blood test back I discover I have rather high cholesterol levels, which means for the next 3 months I can no longer eat dairy - especially cheese, or pork or fatty stuff in general.

So much for my regular diet of ham and cheese sandwiches. Now what am I going to eat?

I just had one of those incredibly surreal experiences. The story starts yesterday evening when I received a phone call. It was from a guy at Fitness First. Turns out Ben Z had just joined at Rockdale and given them my name. One of those programs where each successful referral saves you $5 a month.

Having thought about doing something to drop the excess fat I've been picking up over the last 5 years I was slightly interested, but wanted to think it over, so I gave the interested, but not that interested response and that was that.

About 15 minutes later my flat mate came in and announced he had just signed up for Fitness First also. He also told us that he had put our names down as referrals. What a coincidence.