carryon
Explorer
Hey everyone, Trevor from PA here.
What got me started on all this: roughly 12 months back, my results showed LDL at 214 and total cholesterol at 285. I sat in my car for a good while just looking at those numbers. Back then I barely moved, my meals were terrible, and I could see where it was all heading. That report snapped me out of it.
So I made changes. Rebuilt how I eat (salmon 3x per week, blended smoothies, hummus with uncooked vegetables rather than processed snacks), began resistance training 3 days each week along with some HIIT, and became a bit fanatical about logging every detail. Spreadsheets are my thing, guilty as charged.
12 months on, with my cardiologist involved at every step, the numbers went like this:
LDL: 214 to 85 to 67 to 30
Total cholesterol: 285 to 146 to 124 to around 72
Trigs: 115 to 65 to 62 to 65
To be fully open, lifestyle alone did not do this. I take rosuvastatin, ezetimibe, and Repatha, and that stack combined with the daily habits is what moved the needle. Occasionally I still open that earliest lab report just to see how far back I started. VO2max climbed from 31 to over 37 across roughly six weeks, which caught me off guard given my age.
As I dug further into the metabolic side of things, peptides and GLP-1s entered the picture. My doctor knows about every single thing I take. What I mainly want to pick up here is how others manage titration and side effects, plus ways to preserve muscle mass while losing fat. The bit of muscle I have took effort and I want to hang onto it lol.
Outside of fixating on lab values, I play guitar poorly (year one, go easy on me), listen to the Dead, and cook for my daughters.
Happy to be here. I lurked for a while and this community looks legit.
Trevor
What got me started on all this: roughly 12 months back, my results showed LDL at 214 and total cholesterol at 285. I sat in my car for a good while just looking at those numbers. Back then I barely moved, my meals were terrible, and I could see where it was all heading. That report snapped me out of it.
So I made changes. Rebuilt how I eat (salmon 3x per week, blended smoothies, hummus with uncooked vegetables rather than processed snacks), began resistance training 3 days each week along with some HIIT, and became a bit fanatical about logging every detail. Spreadsheets are my thing, guilty as charged.
12 months on, with my cardiologist involved at every step, the numbers went like this:
LDL: 214 to 85 to 67 to 30
Total cholesterol: 285 to 146 to 124 to around 72
Trigs: 115 to 65 to 62 to 65
To be fully open, lifestyle alone did not do this. I take rosuvastatin, ezetimibe, and Repatha, and that stack combined with the daily habits is what moved the needle. Occasionally I still open that earliest lab report just to see how far back I started. VO2max climbed from 31 to over 37 across roughly six weeks, which caught me off guard given my age.
As I dug further into the metabolic side of things, peptides and GLP-1s entered the picture. My doctor knows about every single thing I take. What I mainly want to pick up here is how others manage titration and side effects, plus ways to preserve muscle mass while losing fat. The bit of muscle I have took effort and I want to hang onto it lol.
Outside of fixating on lab values, I play guitar poorly (year one, go easy on me), listen to the Dead, and cook for my daughters.
Happy to be here. I lurked for a while and this community looks legit.
Trevor
