By The Numbers

This week the company I work for held a health fair. The premise of it was to "Know Your Numbers". Unfortunately, my family medical history includes almost every disease under the sun so it's important that I stay on top of my health. Because of that, I signed up for an appointment to have a health screening done.

I showed up for my appointment with a genuine curiosity about what my results would be. Of course, I was mostly concerned with my BMI and body fat percentage. I'll be honest, when I got my results I was pleasantly surprised. And because I'm all in to Keeping It Real, here are my actual numbers:

Total Cholesterol: 129 mg/dL. Optimal is less than 200 mg/dL
HDL (Good) Cholesterol: 46 mg/dL. Optimal is higher than 50 mg/dL for females.
TC/HDL Ratio: 2.8. Optimal is less than 4.0.
LDL (Bad) Cholesterol: N/A. They couldn't get a reading from my blood work (no idea why).
Triglycerides: Less than 45 mg/dL. Optimal is less than 150 mg/dL.
Glucose (blood sugar): 76 mg/dL. Optimal is less than 100 mg/dL after fasting, which I did.
Blood Pressure: 104/70 mm Hg. Optimal is less than 120/80 mm Hg.

Now for the good stuff.

Height: 5'3"
Weight: 140.8. The nurse kindly dropped the ".8" to make it an even 140. What an angel :-)
Body Fat Percentage: 28.8%. Healthy range for my age group (20-40) is 21-33%.
BMI: 24.5 kg/m(squared). A BMI of 18.5 to 24.9 is considered "Normal".

A few things I learned:
-I am in good health over all.
-I am perfectly healthy at this weight. If I keep working to maintain it, I'll be good to go!
-I need a new scale. I weighed myself like I usually do before getting in the shower and my scale read almost 2 pounds higher - and I was naked! You shouldn't weigh less fully clothed than you do naked...you just shouldn't.
-The Internet is an excellent resource to research your health concerns. Just make sure you use a reputable website. I was encouraged by the RN to use the net to learn more about what my results mean.

So there ya have it. I'm healthy! It's extremely important to be in charge of your health. A regular doctor can perform all of the tests I had done today so get to the doctor people! You are the only one who can change your health.