living on tofu

It's been three weeks since I've been diagnosed with hyperlipidemia (elevated of lipids in my bloodstream), hypertension, and now high blood sugar levels, yes folks I'm not even in my mid 20's and I'm suffering from things that only our moms and dads should be worried about. I guess it's my body taking its revenge on me for all the years of living an unhealthy lifestyle. Funny thing is this all started with a visit to the dermatologist because of some pimple like things that appeared on my back (later turned out to be Xanthomas which is caused by elevated cholesterol levels).

The hardest thing about this is that I've had to drastically change my lifestyle, I'm now eating a diet mainly composed of oatmeal for breakfast, fish for lunch, and tofu for dinner. Add to that I'm now not allowed to consume any kind of alcohol because I maybe at risk for pancreatitis and I'm taking three kinds of medicines which cost around 150 per day.

I sometimes wonder why this had to happen to me, I'm not that old yet to be troubling myself with these problems. But am somehow glad that I found out early and would somehow be treatable, if I ignored it you may find me one day just slumping to the ground suffering from a stroke or a heart-attack.

It really entails a lot of discipline, especially with the food I eat, I'm now reading the nutritional information stickers on food before I buy it. Avoiding saturated fats and trans fat is not an easy thing to do, I don't eat at fastfood joints anymore, I ask how the food is prepared as I'm avoiding anything fried and cooked in a lot of oil. Steamed, grilled, boiled, and baked, these are mostly what I'm allowed to eat. I'm found out a lot of recipes to do with tofu, which has now become a staple in my diet. Oatmeal has been my breakfast food each and everyday, I try to avoid eating eggs (which I used to eat atleast once a day), the egg whites I can eat its the yolk which i avoid. I can't even drink softdrinks, its either fresh fruit juice or water for the time being. But the hardest thing i had to forego for now was Crispy Pata, and other foods prepared in the same way. And BEER, oh my God, I've drank a bottle for weeks now. This really feels like my own "Hell on Earth," of all the things that I had to forego its food.

Sometimes its just plain frustrating, anyone that knows me knows my life for food, but I've resigned myself to the fact that as long as I can maintain this for the next five weeks I hope I can go back to eating those things that I loved.