My most Important Asset

I am 6 feet tall. I was overweight. My weight used to be at or above 190 pounds. With that weight, my BMI was not good. Many would argue that BMI is not reliable. True. It is also true that your heart rate or blood pressure may not be reliable. BMI is one of many health measures like heart rate, blood pressure, etc., used to monitor one’s health status. None are trustworthy, standing on their own.

I was a smoker. I used to smoke over one pack per day for 25 years. A doctor has suggested that I should take a lung CT Scan as a way to catch signs of lung cancer. Since I have quit smoking for over 20 years, my risk of having lung cancer is at the same level as non-smokers. But I took a CT Scan to have peace of mind.

The lung scan came back showing normal lungs. But the scan also showed arteries calcifications close to my heart. These calcifications could cause blood clots leading to strokes and heart attacks. So my primary care doctor sent me to see a cardiologist.

The first cardiologist spent less than 5 minutes with me and wrote me a statin prescription. I was not too fond of that. And I discovered through a Google search that the dosage he prescribed for me was wrong according to FDA directives. Asians should be prescribed a lower dose due to adverse reactions to that brand of statin.

I asked my primary care doctor to find me another cardiologist. She did. This next cardiologist turned out to be a well-known doctor and the wait time to see him is at least six months. But my primary care doctor got me to see him within a couple of weeks.

This cardiologist spent an hour with me running stress tests and examining my CT Scan results. Ultimately, he concluded that statin was unnecessary at the time, but I should do another Heart CT Scan in a year to see if the arteries’ calcifications have worsened.

During that year, I changed my diet. I adopted intermittent fasting and limited my carbohydrate intake. Intermittent fasting wasn’t as hard to follow as I first thought. It is an eight-hour feeding (from 10 am to 6 pm) and a sixteen-hour fast (from 6 pm to 10 am). During feeding time, I could eat anything I so desired. Of course, I couldn’t eat many carbohydrates. Reduction in carbohydrate intake was hard. I could not have bread, pasta, noodles, rice, pizza, or Chinese Dim Sum. They are my favorite foods. But it was necessary at the beginning of the new diet to remove extra sugar from my body.

Besides the fasting and low-carb diets, I also adopted a more rigorous daily workout routine. The daily routine includes an hour of walking or jogging outside the house — which burns about 300 calories. I also do strength and cardio training four times per week for about 40 minutes per session. Each of those sessions burns about 200 to 300 calories. The total calories burned per day is about 2000.

In the first six months of intermittent fasting and low-carb diets, my weight has steadily dropped by nearly 1.5 pounds per week. It was very consistent. Then I gradually added some carbohydrates back into my diet. That made my diet much more tolerable and, therefore, easier to stay on course for the long run.

Today, my weight has steadied at 162 to 165 pounds. But what was the best news? My most recent Heart CT Scan showed ZERO arteries calcifications. That was unexpected. The theory, and it is just theory, is that symptomless inflammation has been occurring for years inside my body. Symptomless inflammation causes all kinds of immune system problems and heart problems. It was inflammation that caused arteries calcifications in my case. The high sugar level in the blood is one primary culprit of inflammation. The intermittent fasting and reduced carbohydrate diet have calmed down the inflammation and allowed my body to heal. The above is just theory and speculation on my part by doing amateurish research on inflammation. But my results spoke for themselves.

I am sharing this story because health is our most important asset. It is an asset that we could build and accumulate without any extra resources. We need to know how to do it. In my case, it was intermittent fasting (which anyone can do) and low-carb diets (also anyone can do). No unique meal plans are required — no extra money must be spent.

We now know that inflammation causes problems with our immune system. We also know that many COVID deaths were caused by the uncontrollable reactions of our immune systems. I sometimes wonder if we had managed our weight better; maybe our COVID death rate could have been lowered.

Maybe the one way our nation can save trillions of dollars in healthcare costs is to reduce the population’s sugar intake leading to a reduction of inflammation inside our bodies. Low inflammation could potentially reduce health problems caused by our immune response. That means our general population could lower the number of heart problems and autoimmune diseases by reducing our blood sugar levels via intermittent fasting and low-carb diets.

Many families with middle-aged to elderly folks may want to pay attention to their diets. It is effortless to adopt an intermittent fasting routine. It is much easier to do intermittent fasting than to do any of the calorie-restriction diets.

This article is based on my personal experience only. I am not a healthcare professional, so I am not giving any healthcare advice. It would be best if you talked to your healthcare provider for proper guidance to attain optimal healthcare for you.

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