cholesterol down

So mostly I stick to good food. My chief motivation for improving my diet is the new awareness I have of my heart itself. It feels more exposed now, unprotected, a fragile dove beating its wings in my ribcage. My idea of a good workout once centered on the muscles I wanted other people to see: my sculpted deltoids, my bulging arms, my tapered legs. All of a sudden that is losing its allure. Now I am oriented toward the one muscle I hope never to see, which has become the most real of them all. I run it harder than ever when I work out, hoping to scour the arterial walls of plaque. I remind myself that there are guys older than I who can run a marathon in two hours and 20 minutes; twenty-six 5½-minute miles clicked off back-to-back. After I take my heart out for a run, I want to stroke its forehead as you would a good horse’s and whisper encouragement to it. Good run, big fella, good going, very smooth.
Because I was anxious, I got retested two weeks shy of the three-month wait my doctor recommended. My new number was 194, a significant improvement. I was coming out of the Coronary Mountains, back down to the foothills. Some would say I was already there. But a little knowledge can be a strong motivator. Given my heredity, the thing that’s going to finally do me in is my heart. The way I figure it, the lower my number, the longer I get to hang around.
In two more months, I punched in at 176. I with they gave out little patches I could sew on my gym shorts to identify me as a member of the Clean Artery Club. I’m aiming for 150. But in my mind I’m out of the danger zone. This, in a way,  makes