Today my wife and I sat down with our new numbers, investigated what they all mean (rather we refreshed our memories), and compared them with preceding blood panels to look for trends. Then we looked at all the information we could find online and in our health books regarding: HDL Cholesterol (good cholesterol - the 'chimney sweepers' of your arteries), Testosterone and Menopause. And together we came to the same conclusion that I've been going on about the past couple of days (especially for 50 year-olds)...

Your body needs proper sleep, a good 8 hours if possible, and as much deep sleep as possible. My problem is that I have to stop thinking of sleep mainly as a waste of time.
With only so much life to live, why would I want to sleep half of it away? <- That's been my attitude for a long time and it's completely wrong!

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Also, if you're in the process of losing weight, don't worry about not progressing with the amount of weight you lift. Your workout weight to body weight ratio is still improving, even with the same workout weight. So wait until your body weight is settled (you consider weight loss complete) and THEN chart your progress (which is going to be slower at 50 than 30).

We're changing some sleeping and exercise habits and making slight adjustments to our diet to try to tighten up some of those numbers, mainly my potentially dangerously low HDL Cholesterol (again, *naturally*, no gimmicky snake oil or pharmaceuticals). And next year I want a complete testosterone breakdown (5 or so different specific readings including free-T [usable T, not bound to a protein]). Today I've learned of all kinds of ways to improve those numbers for next time.

Fascinating stuff, the human body. Learn it and fix what you can.



The rusty wire that holds the cork that keeps the anger in
Gives way and suddenly it’s day again
The sun is in the east
Even though the day is done
Two suns in the sunset, hmph
Could be the human race is run