With the month of Movember quickly approaching, thoughts of health — mine and men’s health in general – have been swirling around in my head.

Not only am I trying to raise awareness for men’s health issues during Movember, but I’m also trying to make some better choices for myself along the way.

So I went to the doctor a week ago and got my cholesterol checked because, I, uh, um… well… I may not have the best eating habits.

But as Maury Povich would say…

I didn’t recognize the number on my phone, but when she said she was calling from my doctor’s office things changed.

Nurse: I’m calling from Doctor So & So’s office and I have your results.

Me: Uh-oh. Hold on let me get some paper so I can write all of this down.

She then told me that my blood count and metabolic something were all normal and that I didn’t have the diabeetus.

Then she started reading out my cholesterol numbers.

As she was rattling off the numbers.

I quickly jotted down the numbers as she talked and explained where each number fell within the range of what was acceptable.

Total Cholesterol: 233
LDL: 150
Triglycerides: 217
HDL: 40

I was expecting things to be WAAAAAY worse, so I was all…

She said the doctor didn’t want to put me on any medication at this point but wanted me to eat a low-fat, low saturated fat diet, start exercising and start taking red yeast rice tablets and retest me again in six months.

That had me…

I went online and ordered me a 6-month supply of red yeast rice tablets and started plotting how I was going to get my numbers down for my next visit in April.

Then I remembered that Tammy had recently come across a printout of a cholesterol test I had while we were in Illinois. She found it for me so I could compare the two results.

The test from from 2004 and I was shocked at how eerily similar the two were.

2004 Results
Total Cholesterol: 232
LDL: 161
Trig: 169
HDL: 35

I told Tammy that I could make a case for it being good AND bad that the numbers were in the same ranges from ten years apart.

I do feel like my 2014 triglycerides we so high because I had been to Ubee’s – where they deep fry their burgers – on Friday then had a chicken tender platter with fries and fried okra from The Green Beetle on Sunday.

Getting those numbers down shouldn’t be a big issue, especially since the retest is AFTER football season.

Movember is only a few days away, I’d love to have some of my fellow bloggers and readers join my team, MovemberMania, and help raise money for men’s health awareness. More Movember updates to come!!