also, in the long run i'll need to keep an eye on my cholesterol. but, it's currently actually pretty outstanding.

i've been over this: my diet seems terrible, until you realize that i don't eat very much and i walk a lot.....

these numbers are real. and attainable. note: both of my parents have/had high cholesterol. my dad actually had several life-threatening cardiovascular episodes before brain cancer got him, and his father died of heart disease. if this were a purely genetic concern, i'd be in a lot of trouble. and yet look at these numbers....

chol: 3.69 mmol/L = 66.42 mg/dl. this is actually lower than the normal range (3.8-5.2). i also have low blood pressure....

tg: 0.88 mmol/L = 15.84 mg/dl. lower end of normal range (0.6-1.7).

hdl:  1.37 mmol/L = 24.66 mg/dl. this is pretty much in the middle of the normal range (1.00-1.80). higher hdl is preferable (apparently, above 1.6). but, i have to keep in mind that i'm low, overall. the way you measure a situation like this is to look at a ratio, and while it's not on the print-out, google confirms my logic. my ratio is 2.69; under 3.5 suggests i'm at low risk for heart disease.

ldl: 1.92 mmol/L = 34.56 mg/dl. this is also lower than normal (2.0-2.6), but again you have to keep in mind that the total is low. the important ratio here is ldl/hdl, which is 1.4. that again suggests very low risk - around half of the average risk, it turns out.

non-hdl chol: 2.32 mmol/L = 41.76 mg/dl. this measure is just a difference between total cholesterol and good cholesterol; it's the amount of cholesterol that is not good cholesterol. apparently, i want to keep the difference between non-hdl and ldl less than 30 mg/dl. well, i'm at 7.2.

i have to keep an eye on this because i should be at high risk. but, my lifestyle is very different than either of my parents, and the effects of that are showing pretty clearly.