Well, it was my 60th birthday recently. It was certainly didn’t turn out as I expected… Mark’s wife, the day before I was going to leave for Costa Rica for a couple weeks, fell off a mountain. She is quite banged up, but fortunately, more or less okay. Two broken wrists, but other than that seemingly, so far, all is basically well. It was a stressful couple of days for me, especially the day that she failed to come back from her hike. One is never as prepared for emergencies as one likes to think.

The two or three days, that she was missing, then found, then waiting for the operation to be done, absolutely exhausted me. A friend of mine made the comment that it is, actually, in many ways, worse to be the person visiting the hospital, than it is to be the person in hospital themselves. There is some truth to that I believe.

I am just so thankful that she is okay. She seems to be recovering very quickly. She is home and very mobile.

Not that it is all about me, but turning 60 has seemed almost meaningless. Certainly, it seemed dwarfed by the recent events. In addition, I feel like I haven’t accomplished all I really wanted to do by the age of 60. Some of the goals that I set in the blog have not come to pass. No ‘six-pack by 60’ for example. On the other hand, I think I probably have met my language goals 😊. I would consider myself A1 in Italian and Thai, and a solid B2+ in Spanish, French, and Turkish. Not a bad thing. And I’m hoping to hit C1 in Spanish by the end of the year. For me, studying multiple languages simultaneously hasn’t worked really well. It seems better when I concentrate on just one at a time.

And I’m in reasonably good shape and reasonably good health. I have no cause to complain.

I have been sticking, more or less, to the regimen of no processed carbs that I started after my blood pressure incident six weeks ago in Turkey. It has not been as difficult as I thought it would be. I am in the middle of an experiment where I am taking a fair size handful of supplements, as suggested by the Great Cholesterol Myth book, every day. I started on 18 August, and I will be doing a blood panel after 6 to 8 weeks, however it works out, to see what that would affect those taking those supplements is had on various blood markers. I will let you know. The supplements are, for those interested:

The arrows indicate whether the supplement is supposed to raise or lower the marker in the column heading. Some of the notes are a little obscure I admit, and I lack the energy to give a detailed explanation of each, but if anyone is curious email me and I’ll respond. ** I stopped taking the Niacin as with only 100mg I was experiencing what is called ‘Niacin Flush’. Not harmful but certainly unpleasant. https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/niacin-flush

One thing worth mentioning. The book mentioned that one of the important ratios to track for potential issues with diabetes and heart disease was the Triglyceride/HDL ratio.

The higher your triglycerides, the greater the chance that you’re insulin resistant. This in turn means that insulin is contributing mightily to the very inflammation that damages LDL cholesterol in the first place and starts the whole cycle of plaque formation. The take-home point: Reduce your triglycerides (and raise your HDL), and you reduce your risk of heart disease.

Lowering your sugar intake probably won’t affect your HDL level, but it will dramatically affect triglycerides and fasting insulin. And both of these will certainly drop when you lower the amount of sugar and processed carbs you’re eating (or drinking).

Bowden, Jonny; Sinatra, M.D., F.A.C.C, C.N.S., Stephen T.. The Great Cholesterol Myth, Revised and Expanded (p. 86). Fair Winds Press. Kindle Edition.

 OK – So in 4 weeks, after reducing my processed carb intake by 80% - My triglyceride numbers went from 130 -> 77. No other pharmaceutical intervention (I had stopped taking the statins the 1st week in July). That is a pretty great result.

Prior to this my ratio varied from above 4 (which is terrible) to 2.6. As of now, the ratio is 1.6 (anything below 2 is great). And the only change I made was to stop the massive bread intake. So, I will continue with that regimen of reducing processed carbs and keep looking at the numbers.

I was really looking forward to Costa Rica, I had made my plans for my birthday night there, none of which of course came to pass. However, in the grand scheme of things it is hardly a blip on the radar. Once Liza is home and settled and the well on the road to recovery, I will head out again. Right now, I’m thinking probably the middle of September. I must admit that I was looking forward to the weather there since it seems to vary between the low 60s to the high 70s day in day out with daily thunder showers, as opposed to horrible sunny Las Vegas, where it seems to be going over 100 every day. It really does remind me of Saudi Arabia. And that can’t be good in the matter how you look at it.

I am not in any way looking for sympathy, but I am feeling quite dispirited as I write this. Not sure exactly why, but there’s no doubt that I’m not feeling at my best. Analytically, it is most likely because of the event that happened with Liza. Terrible thoughts going through my head when I was running around the day that she failed to return from her hike. Thankfully, the worst of them did not come to pass, but it really did have an effect on me. So, over the next few weeks, she will not be the only one recovering.

I will be spending much of the next three weeks helping to trim down the amount of stuff that is here in the house. Liza is very much a minimalist, like me. In truth probably more so 😊. That plus Spanish studies.

I’ll sign off for now and my next post will probably be from Costa Rica.