"Introvert Talks" is meant to be a new initiative or theme, where I myself as an introvert, just talk about reflections and thoughts about my life, or maybe share more personal stuff. :)
This is my weekly post under this "Introvert Talks" theme and let's see where it takes me and us.
Today I received a wake up call on my health.
And to be honest, it didn't come as a major surprise because I kind of saw it coming. So my company does organise annual check ups for employees, where the basic checks are complimentary and staff can top up for additional packages. Because the tests were done on-site, I always made it a point to register for it.
Some of the results were already apparent on the actual day, stuff like weight, body fat, blood pressure, because one could already tell on the actual day based on the readings from the devices. The blood and urine test results took an additional day to appear in the app.
Being a Statistics freak, not only would I look at the results from a snapshot point of view, I would compare to previous years' results to see if there was a trend that I should be mindful about. And while I already expected this year's results would be bad, let's just say, it turned out worse than my expectations.
Because I skipped the annual check up in 2020 during the Covid lockdown, let's look at some results from 2021 to 2025.
| Year | Weight (kg) |
|---|---|
| 2021 | 61.1 |
| 2022 | 62.3 |
| 2023 | 61.6 |
| 2024 | 64.7 |
| 2025 | 66.4 |
Ouch. I saw this coming but the hard truth obviously hurts. Somehow I was able to keep my weight in check from 2021 to 2023 but it ballooned after that. While I could attribute this to the slowdown of metabolism due to age, I think I am also guilty of eating more food.
To my personal defence, I actually stepped up on my exercise and activity the past few years, so it's a little counter intuitive. The above data are my records from the Samsung Health app. Like what they say, causation does not mean correlation, otherwise it would look like the more steps I walked, the more weight I gained. Lol!
| Year | Blood Pressure (mmHg) |
|---|---|
| 2021 | 108/60 |
| 2022 | 128/74 |
| 2023 | 119/73 |
| 2024 | 122/68 |
| 2025 | 127/84 |
For those who are aware of blood pressure readings, depending on the source, the healthy range is usually below 130/80. So the comment on my report for 2025 read: While you do not have high blood pressure, your readings are borderline high, at prehypertension levels. If left alone, it may progress to high blood pressure.
Being someone who is very zen and calm, this definitely came as a major surprise. Never would I ever expect to be "borderline high", but it is what it is. If I had to think of the cause, I would attribute to work stress as the main contributing factor. The past year hasn't been great in terms of work environment, or the (heavy) workload. As much as I try to draw hard lines between working hours and outside working hours, I think the stresses and unhappiness has definitely taken a toll on my body. I wonder how my blood pressure was so "low" or decent back in 2021. Definitely miss those days.
Regardless, it's time to act now that I know the trend is not looking good, before it becomes more severe.
| Year | Total Cholestrol (mg/dL) |
|---|---|
| 2021 | 166 |
| 2022 | 176 |
| 2023 | 178 |
| 2024 | 197 |
| 2025 | 207 |
There are many components to the analysis of cholestrol (such as HDL, LDL, etc) but for simplicity, I thought I would just mention the total cholestrol since the trends are pretty similar across the board. If you refer to the table below, 2025 is the first time I stepped into the "Borderline High" range. It has been a steady increasing trend, and I can't say I am too surprised by this number, just that from an optics point of view, I have always remained at "Desirable" range and now it's not.
All in all, I would say the results are pretty consistent, in a bad way. Meaning everything just worsened slightly, with some just a little worse, and some a lot more worse. For areas such as blood pressure and cholestrol, I have actually shifted enough to change a classification from "Normal/Desirable" to "Borderline High". It's definitely a little disappointing considering I have taken effort this entire year to increase my activity levels and exercise sessions, but at the same time, I acknowledge there are areas which I could improve on, such as cutting down oily foods and sugary drinks in my daily diet.
So I am going give myself a challenge to improve on this set of results. I think the easiest mode of monitoring and measurement would be weight. So for a start, I am going to try to lose 5 kg (from 66 kg to 61 kg) within next 6 months.
I am not sure whether it is possible but I am going to try it out! Over the next few days, I will probably need to spend some time to think of realistic ways to achieve this result. So let's see what happens 6 months later!
So that's all I have for this week!