"You eat...what?"

Sunday, April 11, 2010


“The doc wanted me to take cholesterol medication and lose 20 pounds,” Dan told me when shortly after I arrived there on my bike to pick up the Jeep I’d dropped off three days earlier.

“Did he measure you with body fat calipers?”

“Nope,” he relied.

“What were your cholesterol numbers?”

“He didn’t say – and I told him what he could do with his medication.”

Now…both of these things piss me off. I’m trying to decide which one is worse. I know very few doctors have any clue about body composition, or if they do, don’t take the time to find out what it is. They used the almost useless height/weight information and make recommendations about weight loss. They’re probably right most of the time since Americans by and large need to lose weight, but they’d never prescribe medication for something about which they were ‘probably’ right, would they?

Then…there’s the cholesterol thing. I’m bothered that he didn’t even share the numbers with Dan, but why would he move to medication so quickly for numbers he said ‘were a little high’? Dan was right to refuse the medication and since the doc didn’t push it, I’m guessing he knew it. Dan says he’ll lose the weight (he’s down 10 pounds since he met the doc) by making some dietary changes. I asked him what he was doing?

“Well…I stopped eating my peanut butter/butter combination, for starters,” he said.

“Which is what…exactly?”

“I’d put peanut butter on a spoon, smear butter over it and eat it. Go through about 3 sticks of butter a week,” he said.

“Why, in God’s name, were you eating that crap?”

“Tastes good,” he said with a grin.

He already had the answer to the weight and maybe the high serum cholesterol, too. It took me two questions to figure that out. He could make other changes over an 8-week period and go in for a retest of the cholesterol numbers. If they remained high and he had other risk factors for heart disease – then maybe it’s time to push harder for the medication. As a first step though, it seems a little irresponsible. I bugged Dan to pull his bike out and get on it again to do something about the rest of the weight he wanted to lose.

“You’re going to be riding with me again,” I threatened before I left.

Anyway…the last long training ride before the birthday triathlon went well. It was about 60 degrees and overcast. My plan was to ride at least two hours, but as the weather cleared, I decided to go longer. I ended up with a 42-mile ride in about 2:45. I figured the 55 miler would mean three and half hours in the saddle – so this was close. This Saturday should be interesting. I’m hoping for half way decent weather.

Bike duration: 2 hours and 46 minutes.

Training Heart Rate: 120

Calories burned during workout: 2400