More wine and fish please!

The latest cholesterol readings looks good overall though the numbers have worsened a bit since the last review, but nothing to worry. But considering the fact that I have been eating a lot of fattier stuff than earlier, this is indeed fantastic. I have limited the diet only to natural stuff - no colas, no diary products(it is for the cow), no packaged juices or packaged meat. Coconut and fish are central to my diet and off late I have added cashew nuts which is considered a bad nut, but difficult to resist for someone who grew up with cashew trees around. I have been physically active running regularly and commuting by cycle, though it is a pretty short one to have any serious impact.

But the HDL(good) cholesterol is the only number that is out of bounds(44 - dropped from 46). On looking at things to improve HDL numbers, the key thing that seems missing in my diet is alcohol. Alcohol consumption has dropped drastically mainly because it does dehydrate you and can impact the runs the next morning. The only natural one that is available is wine though I would have preferred coconut toddy any day. So I picked up a wine bottle on my way home - Grover Shiraz, a local variety. Though fish is a major component of my diet, I need to up a bit on fish (of the omega-3 fatty acids variety) as well to improve HDL - may be make it part of the menu every day. There aren't too many other things in the list that could probably help out. May be the runs were shorter(less than an hour) during the last six months - I should probably stick to a longer routine and skip those 5K and 10K runs and stick to a 15-20K long runs in the weekend. Hopefully work at the garden should also add to my physical fitness.

But it is becoming very clear of the stupidity of controlling diet and tracking cholesterol readings(expensive - 600 INR at Wockhardt) instead of trying to be physically active and eating all natural stuff. So I will probably stop checking my Lipid Profile for a while unless I see any other issues. Getting back to a natural lifestyle is the real solution for all of these problems wrought by the unhealthy lifestyles that we are stuck in.