Basically, it's kinda all good with nothing "bad," but I'll own the ugly part as I've never fancied myself terribly attractive.
Health markers were taken last week when I gave another double red blood cell donation. I do this every 4 months. So, I can now compare these health markers from the week before I started back in the gym and then again now after 12-weeks.
If you have not seen the visual results from the 12-week phase, please check the Coach Log from last week for those pictures and a detailed layout of what I did. I lost only 4 pounds of scale weight, but I think you will agree that the body composition changed substantially.
It is important to understand that I did not train for over 12-weeks and ate anything and everything I wanted to eat, prior to this last 12-week phase. I had no regard for any type of diet, at all. I also was not on any TRT or any supplements of any kind. When I stopped training and dieting, I also stopped every single supplement that I had been using and I stopped them all cold.
I ate like a hog in that I ate whatever I felt like eating at whatever time I felt like eating it. I might go the entire day having eaten nothing and then have 2 massive meals in the evening. Typical food might be burgers, tacos, gourmet grilled cheese sandwiches, pizza, etc..
Blood Pressure with a cuff right before giving blood:
Before - 135/86
After - 143/81
Daily monitoring with my Omron wrist BP monitor:
Before - 126/78
After - 132/76
To explain the BP reads better, I get anxious with the cuffs for some reason. My office measurements and when I give blood are always higher than the daily reads that I do at home. You might think that my wrist monitor isn't that good, but it is very good and I purchased it for this reason. What is going on is the anxiety from the cuff is impacting my "office" numbers. That means the reads that I get daily at home are more accurate and obviously lower. I feel that my current BP is actually very good considering going back to the gym and doing everything that bodybuilders do in the off season to grow. I expected my BP to be higher than when I started, but it clearly is not.
My resting HR before starting back to the gym was 71, consistently.
My resting HR after being back in the gym for 12-weeks is 62.
Cholesterol Levels:
Before - 136 LDL and 53 HDL for a total of 189
After - 101 LDL and 53 HDL for a total of 154
So, being back to doing everything that bodybuilders do while bodybuilding, my cholesterol fell substantially due almost entirely to the change in diet.
Hemoglobin -
Before - 15.1
After - 15.9
This was the most surprising of all of the numbers that I reviewed.
Anyone who has followed me for a while knows that I have battled high hemoglobin, RBC and hematocrit numbers for years - since roughly 2013. This is precisely why I went strictly TRT in 2013 and stayed that way until well into 2018. I am now full blown and have been since the beginning of this last 12-week phase. If you don't know what full blown means, I'm sorry. You either know what it means or you don't.
This entire situation has forced me to reevaluate what was going on with my elevated blood numbers for years because a few things stand out:
1. I now live at sea level vs. 9k feet and where you would think my numbers would be substantially higher than they are, they simply aren't, and I can't really explain it very well.
2. I am still using the tanning supplement that I have used for years. This supplement has also been shown to increase hemoglobin, RBC and hematocrit and yet, my numbers are lower than ever.
I would have to guess a few things:
I have to wonder if all of the problems I had were more related to living at the higher elevation than it actually was the higher blood numbers from supplementation.
I also have to wonder why it is that my numbers aren't out of range like they had been for so many years. The only thing that really has changed is the elevation. I cannot think of one other variable. I am not carrying any more or less (significantly) body fat or muscle mass than when I was in Colorado and my diet, training and almost every other component has been relatively unchanged.
Even my blood pressure is lower here at the lower elevation.
I am not saying that I am going to go back to staying full blown all of the time. I doubt I would do that whether my blood numbers would allow it or not. However, it does release a lot of pressure and anxiety off of me and it allows me to run full blown much longer than I had originally anticipated. Obviously, if I am 15.9 after 12-weeks and just gave double red, I will drop quite a bit again and the pattern would imply that I would not be much over 16 in another 4 months when I give another double red donation. Plus, I will be going TRT in only 2 months, anyway, for 8 weeks before going full blown again. That means that I have absolutely no concerns going TRT and having bad blood numbers. When I put this plan together a handful of months ago, I anticipated not being able to go TRT, at all, and having to shut down the full blown status completely for 8 weeks to return blood numbers to normal ranges. That almost certainly will not need to happen and that is exciting.
Understand something, too:
I am not putting this information out here to be judged or criticized. You live your way and I will live mine. What I am doing is being as transparent as I can and telling you what I am doing and why and what the impact is from these decisions. I am careful and I am cautious, so if there are indications that things don't look good, either now or in the future, I will then have to change my plan. Right now, this is what I am doing and I am going to continue doing it because I feel that I am responding very well with little to no indication that things are not going well from a health standpoint. Obviously, I will continue to monitor everything closely. I appreciate the support and the lack of judgment.