Halved in 27 Days...

I had my check up at Dungun Hospital yesterday.

On 3rd October 2013, my results were as follows:-
Total Cholesterol was at 7.0 mmol/L
LDL Cholesterol was at 5.2 mmol/L

Now it is...
Total Cholesterol is at 4.2 mmol/L
LDL Cholesterol is at 2.6 mmol/L

If you wanna know what the numbers mean, have a look HERE.

I am very surprised at the results. Thinking back it's probably due to my diet... I was like a horse for the 27 days... no, it was not due to the quantity I ate... It was what I ate... I was eating oats twice a day for most days. 

I also think it had to do with the fact that I was on 75gms of aspirins daily throughout that duration. Aspirins work as inhibitors (inhibiting clots), thus thinning your blood and increasing blood flow. There was an article I read about traditional ways to reduce cholesterol by using Black Wood Ear fungus. The article is here...

I actually have the ingredients bought but never got the chance to use it yet. The fungus works as inhibitors as well. I have friends who also told me that they used this recipe with success.

Therefore, it is my personal opinion that oats and the inhibitors worked together in bringing my levels down fast. How? I have no freaking idea... probably the inhibitors made the blood more fluid thus making it easier to absorb and transport the fibre from the oats to cleanse the arteries. That's just my 2 sen...

For those of you who have high cholesterol, no harm trying...

OS X Mavericks

OS X Mavericks is here and it's FREE! It's a 5GB download but I had it downloaded within the hour. I then proceeded to make a bootable USB Installer. You can get the instructions HERE... they now have it done in 4 steps whereas I did it the long tedious way. Anyway, I made it and kept it away. 

I then installed OS X Mavericks onto my notebook. It's a pretty long process. It took me over an hour to have it installed. 

The footprint occupies 10GBs after installation. After installation and downloading iLife, I noticed a flicker when it booted up. I thought it was a one time off... so I rebooted to see if it persisted. Damn! It was still there.

A video of the flicker at the end of the boot sequence. 

I tried to reinstall. Unfortunately, after installing the downloaded Installer from the App Store, the system would purge it from the notebook. Thankfully I had the USB drive made otherwise I would have to re-download the entire 5GB. I then reinstalled from the USB Installer. Another hour plus wasted. The damn flicker was still there. Sigh... 

Other than that flicker, everything worked fine. Of course there were a couple of applications that didn't work but they were minor applications and not the major ones. I deliberated on a Clean Install. I normally do a Clean Install but it was just too much work. Moreover, I had already downloaded and installed the new versions of iLife. That would mean downloading all over again. Sigh. Should I?

Eventually, I couldn't bear the flicker. Yeah, that's how anal I am. So, a Clean Install it is. Back Up the notebook..... Export my mailboxes..... Copy my iTunes Library..... Copy my files and folders... Copy my VPN key and certificates... Take note of my mail settings and whatever other settings...

It is a long process..... then I did the Clean Install. There's no turning back. It was much faster with the Clean Install. After the installaton, I rebooted and held my breath..... and crossed my fingers and my toes... YESSSSS!!!!! It's gone! The flicker's gone! Hooray!!!

Not only is the flicker gone but it boots up faster as well. It's up and running in 15 seconds now... it used to be about 20 seconds when I first got it and lately, about 30 seconds. BTW... this is a Mid-2011 MacBook Air.

I have always preferred a Clean Install... that's why I made the bootable USB Installer in the first place. It's very tedious but better as you get a clean and uncorrupted system and it forces you to do some major housekeeping. I put everything back in manually as opposed to using the Migration Assistant as I wanted it to be really clean.

I only struggled with VPN for a few hours as it was not connecting. After all the fiddling, I called my IT guy for help only to find out the system was down. Sigh...

Of course, there were some glitches. I have not been able to get the scanner driver to work and CCleaner is not compatible. I have not re-installed everything yet as I only want to install what I really need. Oh yes... the Google client auto mail setup doesn't work. I had to do it manually.

But so far so good... I'm loving it.

Exercise Stress Test

My wife and I drove to Kemaman Hospital for my Stress Test this morning. This is the second time this week. My original appointment was for 10:00am on Sunday. However, when we arrived there it was somehow cancelled. My name was there but someone had apparently cancelled it. I had two options; wait for 2:30pm or come back on Tuesday at 9:00am. We opted for the second option as 4 hours was a long wait.

We arrived at 9:15am after a 75-minute drive. The clinic was full. It was a long wait... I was the last patient. It was a traumatising experience. One of the patients, a pakcik, had to stop his test as he had an attack. When it was finally my turn, the doctor sat down and have a chat with me first. probably because I was the youngest patient there. He didn't think I needed to do the test. I related what happened to me a few weeks back but he still didn't think I needed the test. Nevertheless, he decided to go through with it for peace of mind. 

I was required to sign a form acknowledging that I understood the risks of the test and that a heart attack was a possibility. The doctor encouraging me to push for Stage 7.

The stress test is basically a test where you have the ECG attached to you while you are on a treadmill. Then the speed and gradient is increased every 3 minutes. Your maximum heart rate is determined before you start... which is 220 minus your age. Mine is at 178bpm. The goal is to be able to achieve 85% for your maximum heart rate.

My results are below... I achieved 101% of my maximum heart rate. Click on the picture for a larger view.

I stopped at 13 minutes. I could have pushed to Stage 7. I stopped due to the following reasons:-

1. The appointment checklist states that you should not consume anything 2 hours prior to your test. My test was scheduled at 9:00am. Therefore, I have not had anything to eat... I only had a cup of coffee at 7:00am. So, basically I am already dehydrated when I started. It was after 11:00am when I started.

2. During the test, they did not have any water on standby and my throat was dried out.

3. My leg muscles were sore...18% gradient is very steep...

Basically, my legs and throat gave up... not my heart. : )

My next test will be in Dungun Hospital on the 30th. Hopefully my cholesterol would have gone down significantly by then. In-sya-Allah...