Health Update - Month 14

This month has been a positive one. After the scary bleeding episode last month, I focused on recovery, stress management, and slowing down. The results have been encouraging: normal bleeding, continued weight loss, and better sleep.

I did not do any blood work this month. I have learned so much how to listen to my body and manage my health, I want to rely on my experiences rather than frequent blood tests, or seeing doctors. At least for now, it works.

Contents

• Body Weight
• Gym Performance
• Sleep
• Heart Rate (Resting Heart Rate & HRV)
• Menstrual Cycle
• Autoimmune Update
  • ITP
  • Lupus
• Learnings
  • The Hunger Code
• Next Steps

Body Weight

This month my weight has been going down, continuing the trend from last month, despite lowering my gym workouts from four times per week to two times per week.

My weight right now is probably the lowest since high school! Last April I was close to this level, right after I switched to the carnivore diet. At that time, I think the weight loss was due to water loss caused by the diet.

This time, my diet is more balanced and with less intense workouts, it is still dropping!! It is amazing. I attribute this to:

• No snacks between meals.
• Making myself very relaxed, no stress, walking comfortably (lower cortisol).
• At meals, eating slowly. Eating until 80% full, then waiting for the satiety signal to kick in. If still hungry, I eat more. Most likely I will not be hungry.

This successful weight loss experience confirms what I heard before:

• The gym is for building muscle, while diet is the key to weight loss.
• Stress management and sleep are also very important for weight loss.
• The body can tell you when to stop eating; you just need to listen to it. You don't need to count calories.

This is a brand new, wholesome way to think about weight management. God has everything planned out; He designed us beautifully and wants us to be at ease and happy.

Body Weight - Previous Cycle

Body Weight - Current Cycle

Gym Performance

Since the last bad bleeding experience, I have reduced my strength training to twice a week. I am focusing on pliability and flexibility rather than just chasing numbers.

Sleep

Sleep has been good and consistent this month: 8 hours of sleep, falling into deep sleep around 9:30 pm while watching some light shows, and waking up around 5:30 am feeling refreshed.

I don't need to track my sleep using extra devices. If I sleep well, my body knows it: limbs feel a little numb at waking up, and I feel happy and energetic. No digital gimmicks can replace this feeling.

Despite requiring myself to slow down and avoid activities that would cause my heart rate to go up, I just learned that I should not have phone conversations for too long, as they can cause my heart rate to rise as well.

I have been writing down the protocols for sleeping well from all the experiments, and I will share them in another post.

Heart Rate (Resting Heart Rate & HRV)

My heart rate has been stable in the past month. It is around 56 bpm and the HRV is around 36 ms. No huge swings.

Resting Heart Rate

Heart Rate Variability

Menstrual Cycle

Bleeding was normal this month, under the same dosage of Doptelet (40mg every 9 days), which means my changes to my workout routine and stress management were working.

Autoimmune Update

ITP

Given no bleeding episodes this month, I decided to slightly reduce the dosage of Doptelet to 60mg every 14 days (from 40mg every 9 days). We will see how it goes in my next bleeding cycle. I will continue to manage stress and avoid heavy workouts when it is close to my period.

Lupus

Texas sun is getting stronger and stronger, I still go out and play with my kids. No sensitivity. I dont feel like i have lupus anymore.

Learnings

The Hunger Code

I picked up Dr. Jason Fung's new book The Hunger Code. Even though I felt like I had learned a lot about food, weight loss, and health in the past year, I still learned new things from this book.

The book argues that obesity is not about "calories in, calories out"; it's about how your body feels—whether it's hungry or not—which is the root cause of obesity. When your body is out of balance, you feel hunger more often, even if you have enough food in your stomach.

Key takeaways added to my learnings this month:

• Satiety over Calories: Eat fiber and protein first, then carbs to feel the satiety signal sooner.
• The Deadly Combo: Natural foods are either high in carbs or high in fats, but rarely both. Combining the two creates maximum pleasure and super addictive effects. No wonder processed foods are so hard to stop eating!
• Equilibrium over Stats: Chasing a low Resting Heart Rate (RHR) is meaningless. If you are active during the day, the body automatically lowers the heart rate at rest to conserve energy. It's equilibrium—a fantastic design.
• Fun Fact: GLP-1 (the basis for many weight-loss drugs) was originally developed from the venom of the Gila monster, a small poisonous lizard.
• History: major cigarette companies saw fall of people smoking, then acquireed processed food companies General Foods and kraft, etc to get profit from the addictive nature of humans.

Next Steps

• [New] Monitor the effect of the reduced Doptelet dosage (60mg every 14 days).
• Have meals fit into the fasting schedule
• Keep strength training at 2x/week
• Focus on body comfort over stats
• Avoid stressful workouts before and during my period
• Rinse the mouth after coffee and brush lightly, to prevent staining
• Get blood test done around ovulation to get the most accurate lipid panel
• Strength training focus on pliability and flexibility
• Increase fiber to feel full
• Keep Doptelet at 40 mg every 9 days (20 mg for 4 days, then 20 mg for 5 days)
• Keep pork intake low; focus on beef, fish, lamb, and eggs
• Eat clean, sleep well, and get regular sun exposure
• Monitor low heart rate and HRV
• Continue eating complex carbs, vegetables, fruits, and nuts
• Continue avoiding gluten for now (!!!) until platelet count is back to normal range
• Continue using organic cloth menstrual pads
• Continue avoiding screens while eating