Jost Health Worx

After about six years, and thousands of kms, it’s new day for my bike. 🚴‍♂️

Ok, so it has been a looooong time since my last post. Much has gone on since, but one thing I would like to share is a bit of a life “hack” that I conducted during Feb/Mar this year.

As a bit of background, I had a blood test measuring a few of the basic things like cholesterol levels and my fasting glucose numbers. This was done on Jan 17, 2018 as a pre-requisite for getting back into the Navy, and you can read my results in the two photos dated “Jan 17.” Let’s call this , my “Before” situation. My Doctor said my numbers were a bit on the high side, but since I didn’t smoke, drink, and got regular physical exercise, then that should be good enough for the military. That was fine with me on a certain level, but deep down, I was not impressed. Having been active all my life, never really engaged in bad food, drink, or smoking, and having always been within the ranges until this test, I was growing increasingly concerned. At 51, essentially, I was a Type-2 Diabetic, and well on the way to heart disease.

Fast forward to my birthday, 14 Feb 2018, and a little email that popped into my inbox from the medical staff at the Recruiting Centre. They wanted me to re-do the blood test, having been happy with how my heart was working. This was not the birthday present I was hoping for, to say the least!

Within about 20 minutes after receiving that email, I made the decision to immediately adopt a Whole Food, Plant-based (WFPB) diet for the next 30 days, then get the identical blood test, plus a few other indicators, tested. This meant no animal food, products, even oils like olive and coconut were off the menu. I would also not take any cholesterol-lowering drugs like Lipitor. This would be a 100% purely food-based experiment.

Let me tell you, those 30 days were not what I expected. They were much, much better than I expected! Because I was eating foods in their original, unprocessed form, they were filling me up in terms of satiety, but not calories. A term I grew to learn was “Nutrient dense, Calorie-poor.” When the body gets into this state of consumption, it says, “OK, time to burn some fat!” What a feeling that is! I had energy to burn and burn some more. I went cycling for a couple hours at a time, did some running, then also went on long walks/hikes to burn off that energy. My waistline decreased quickly as well. I felt great!

Though I thought I would miss the animal products, I did not. Eating became more of an adventure and education, helped largely by Netflix, Youtube videos, and other health sites. If you can, check out “Forks over Knives,” and “What the Health” on Netflix. Another great site for evidence-based nutritional information is Dr. Gregor’s www.nutritionfacts.org

Exactly 30 days later, on Mar 14, 2018, I had my blood test done again. The two photos dated “14 March” show my “After” situation. My Doctor was impressed, and also pleased with my 25lb weight loss, as was the Recruiting Centre, who said, that they had never seen anyone lower their numbers so quickly, and without drugs. They had expected to see me in about 4-6 months, lol.

What I also had measured was my C-reactive Protein levels, which as you can is very low. From my understanding, anything above 2 is when your Doctor gets concerned. With mine being .5, essentially it means that my levels of inflammation are essentially nil, which if I keep this up, bodes well for avoiding all of the major disease afflicting the developed world like Diabetes, Heart disease, Cognitive issues like Alzheimer’s, etc.

So, I am putting this out there just to show you that even if you think you believe you are on the right path; i.e., you don’t have any major health issues, but maybe you are carrying a few extra pounds, get a checkup anyway. Then, get a copy of the results from your Doctor, and use this as your baseline. What is being tested is not rocket science to understand, and you can google unfamiliar terms.

I have kept on this WFPB, Vegan diet ever since, and I still feel very good. I plan to do this for a while, maybe forever.

It may not be for you, and because I am a bit of an extremist, probably going cold-turkey from your current animal-based diet may not work for you. That’s ok! I think that we can all agree that incorporating more whole food plant-based meals would be a good move for your health.

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