And So It Begins [28 Day Challenge]

Happy Sunday, Go Browns!Welcome to Day 5 of my Engine 2 Diet 28 Day Challenge.
I as I said in my last post I am taking the Engine 2 Diet 28 Day Challenge. I started a hybrid version prior to kicking off on last Wednesday to get in the mindset and learn how to prepare some of the meals so the challenge wouldn't be such a shock. Actually, in the 28 Day Challenge there is a Firefighter version and a Fire Cadet version. The Firefighter version is cold turkey immersion into a plant-strong lifestyle for 28 days. The Fire Cadet version is for those fainter of heart and removes various things over the first three week. For example, the first week is no meat or processed foods, the second week implements no dairy, and the third is to eliminate extracted oils.
What I did was similar in that I drastically cut back on everything - I haven't really had milk that much if I had soy milk around. Even had some of the Engine 2 meals for dinner which means I wasn't having meat. I didn't really do the regimented way of eliminating the E2Diet non-compliant foods but cut way, way back on them replacing them with fruit and vegetables.
I mention this all because last week I said I'd post my numbers this week and that is what I am going to do. However, the "before" numbers are already really good so I wanted to put them in context. It's largely due to my partial Fire Cadet challenge in the month leading up to my current Firefighter plan already has me almost convinced that Dr Esselstyn's and others many of whom were in Forks and Knives are correct and the root of many American health problems comes down to our diet. That's a topic for another day though. For now I just wanted to set the table for presenting my numbers.

Every year as part of the Open Enrollment season, Hyland provides a free-of-charge biometrics screening. I would assume that one of the purposes behind it is to make sure employees know their numbers. We are incented to take advantage of the screening by getting a credit on our healthcare costs. For example, employees with a BMI under 29 get a 5% discount of their healthcare premiums. I took my screening on September 10th so I am using that as the "Before Fire Cadet" challenge. I did have a second test done because they thought my glucose levels were a little high but I won't go into those here since they don't really add anything relevant. The blood test I took on 10/22 can be thought of as my "after fire cadet challenge" while simulatneously being my "before" for the full Engine 2 Diet 28 Day Challenge.

Starting Numbers	Sept. 10, 2014	October 22, 2014
Height	65 Inches	65 Inches
Weight	184(181)	171.6
BMI	30.62	28.5
Body Fat %	30.9	30.2
Glucose	108	89
Total Cholesterol	169	141
LDL	111	98
HDL	27	24
Ratio	6.04	4.5
Tryglycerides	147	95

As you can see the changes are tremendous already. In fact other than weight and raising HDL almost all of my numbers are healthy. So my challenge will be to increase hdl (excercise) and to continue to lose weight and lower that body fat %. I put 181 pounds in parentheses since that's the number that really is an apples to oranges comparison for weight. During the screening the weigh us with our clothes on but I weigh myself right before taking a shower first thing in the morning. All subsequent weight numbers are using mine from the morning.

So there you have it, those are my starting numbers.