Drawing blood and conclusions

It's the week after our 21 day raw food challenge.  I had a vague plan for meals and the grocery bill was considerably lower.  Mainly because I knew we had enough stuff on hand for several meals and we didn't need near as much produce.  So how did it feel?

We ate way more cooked food although we stuck to our whole food plant based lifestyle.  We continued smoothies for breakfast, had a couple of bean dishes on rice or quinoa.  Ate out at 3 mexican restaurants (the former downfall zone) and found that it was easier to say no to the chips right off the bat rather than start to eat them and make myself stop.  My standard has been raised for  what I'm allowing in my body.  I have to say, though, I didn't feel as good as last week.  The energy level was lower.  I craved mango and pineapple, which I was out of.  I wanted my happy salad dressing and I missed the juices (not the juicing..).  I don't want to go back to 100% raw because although I managed to get my budget down considerably, the time spent juicing and chopping was a burden.  Can I find a happy medium?  That is the plan next week.  I bought a ginormous amount of produce at the farmer's market for $78, including my box of mangoes for $7, super ripe bananas - 40 for $4, 2 - 10 lb bags of potatoes for $5 total to name a few deals.  I gave one of the bags to mom so they can enjoy their baked potatoes.  Meal plans include smoothies or grape nuts for breakfast, salads for lunch and cooked meals for dinners.  Oh and we are adding in Kombucha because the last couple of times we tried it, we found it to feel amazing!  It's great for the gut.  More research and posting to come.

So what did the blood work show?  Very interesting and somewhat confusing results.

Cholesterol on Denise (Cliff's results coming soon - hint:  his was better than mine)

	Optimal	11/2015	4/21/2016
LDL-P	<1000	1428	1393
LDL-C	<100	115	107
HDL-C	>39	47	35
Triglycerides	<150	92	102
Cholesterol, Total	100-199	180	162

The cholesterol test is the only one I had done before and after this challenge.  Bear in mind that neither of these blood tests were taken at fasting so it's hard to get a 100% accurate reading.  For those of you who are not familiar with these descriptions: the LDL is the bad (l-ousy) cholesterol.  The LDL-P is the particle size of the bad cholesterol which is used as an independent risk factor for heart attack and stroke.  Mine went down-great news.  Still something to watch.  The HDL is the good (h-appy) which went down.  The fact that I was not consuming any cholesterol for 3 weeks could be a reason that the HDL did not go up.  The liver makes cholesterol but the only way to consume cholesterol is in animal products.  So if you want to lower your cholesterol, stop eating it and see what happens.

Complete Metabolic Panel

	Optimal	4/21/2016
Protein	6.0-8.5	7.2
Albumin (amino acid)	3.5-5.5	4.4
Potassium	3.5-5.2	4.2
Sodium	134-144	141
Calcium	8.7-10.2	8.7
Kidney function		Normal
Liver function		Normal
B12	211-946	968
Iron (serum)	27-159	35
Iron (saturation)	15-55	9
Folic Acid	>3	7.4
Hemoglobin	11.1-15.9	12.2
Hematocrit	34.0-46.6%	38.7%

So for the panicking loved ones concerned about protein, my levels were excellent!  That's what the first two numbers tell us.  What I found funny, since everyone freaks about it, was the B12 which was off the charts.  As a WFPB eater you need to either eat nutritional yeast often or supplement.  The way I supplement my B12 is in a drink that I drink every day providing 100% of my B12.  It's called Axio and it has great, all natural goodness for mental clarity and brain function.  More information found here and here.  

Now what about that iron?  Yep I have always been low, even when I ate meat so no need to sign me up for Omaha steaks :)  The serum is ok, the saturation is low.  The saturation is the "pantry" or iron stores I have.  The fact that my Hemoglobin and Hematocrit are normal means I'm not anemic.  Check.  I do, however need to up my iron intake.  More leafy greens, edamame, beans in general.  Also GRAPE NUTS offer 90% of my iron for the day.  Excellent!

So good news, if you want to consider a raw food diet you don't need to worry about vitamin deficiencies.  Know you will need to supplement B12 and eat more dark greens and edamame if you have a history of low iron.  I hope this helps relieve stress and paint a big picture for you.  Cliff's blood work will be analyzed this week and I will report shortly.  Thanks for checking in!