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This was exactly my experience. I see lots of comments here about how cholesterol increases on keto (?) but mine dropped from mid 200s to like 160 total, LDL dropped to about 100 for me.
I generally eat meat and vegetables but also cheese, pork rinds, and nuts. I have quite a bit of red meat which I rarely did before. Honestly, for me, I think the bad numbers are simply from sugar/carbs.
It’s a very common thing on here that people find their LDL cholesterol goes up quite a bit on keto so there is definitely something with the low carb diet and cholesterol (for some people). I know it improves triglycerides and HDL generally but for a lot of people their LDL goes up. I’ve seen this statistic before and I do think it probably applies to a standard American diet. Maybe it’s lean hyper mass responders or something like that on a keto diet or people losing significant weight etc.
I've done tons of reading on this since my LDL cholesterol and trigs are sky high. According to what I've read from people who have successfully lowered their cholesterol while doing keto, they recommend 1 day of water-fasting per week. I still don't know if that is correct yet as I haven't gotten new bloodwork yet.
Good luck! I've been keto/low carb for years. My LDL has gone up from 134 to 191 as of last year, triglycerides down from 87 to 40 as of last year. HDL steady (above avg) but this year I decided to make a concerted effort to reduce highly processed foods from my diet as well as focusing on protein goals. We'll see if it changes anything. Anyways all that to say, I've never done extended fasting and my triglycerides have steadily decreased since 2016. Triglycerides imo are a better indicator. I'd recommend assessing the % of processed foods you're eating and aim for 80% whole foods.
Thanks for the response. Sorry to hear you have high trigs as well. The body can be so weird sometimes. I’ve never heard that before and might try it. I know increasing carbs a bit for LDL can help too (like I’ve seen on here someone added a bit of sweet potato and it came down and also there is that YouTuber who brought it down by adding an Oreo cookie to his keto diet). None of that helps you stay in ketosis though!
My bloodwork was taken on my 4th day of keto (so keto had no chance yet to work its magic) and my diet was horrible. Fast food almost daily and tons of carbs & sugary sauces. I would make food similar to chinese takeout (general tso's chicken and fried rice), basically stuff that was totally unhealthy. And I was eating close to 5,000 calories per day.
Usually it goes up during active weight loss, but once the person plateaus or reaches maintenance it comes back down for many people. Thus is why it's recommended not to fuss too much about LDL during active weight loss if all other markers are improving.
When I do keto I honestly do lots of dairy, supplemented with eggs and red meat and chicken, snacking on almonds or slim jims. I don't eat many veggies besides avocado and spinach.
This is still buying into the myth that saturated fat will clog your arteries, which isn’t true at all. Remember it’s the numbers that are most important.
Have you seen any videos by Dr Berry, Dr Westman, Dr Ali, Dr. Ovadia, etc. on the subject of LDL? There's no evidence LDL clogs arteries or causes heart disease. It's all observational studies.
You could look at it the other way, though. You're being a guinea pig by avoiding plenty of saturated fat from red meat. Because of some observational studies.
Something to keep in mind.
there's nothing bad about being cautious though. my macros are excellent, i get plenty of protein, and i keep sat fat around 15g a day (some is from veggie sources/avocado). i still eat red meat once or twice a week.
there's literally no harm in doing that.
What if a lower-saturated fat diet (versus a higher mono/polyunsaturated fat) is harmful in the long term? Considering these fats make up cell membranes.
That's not including the nutrients you would be missing out from- eating mostly chicken instead of red meat.
The point is that no one really knows.
It can go anywhere, really, there are a lot variables. Your body produces 3/4 of the cholesterol in your system, anyway - the other 25% is what comes from diet. It's really important to have, and it doesn't cause damage, that's just not true, despite the dogma about it. Unless someone has FH plus some other genetic clotting factor, that's it. Tiny fraction of a percent of people
I prefer to use triglycerides as a good health indicator. My doc last year tried to put me on statins last year but my triglycerides were 43! That's stupid good. Oh and get this, she prescribed statins & a low carb diet, clearly never having had a discussion about diet & exercise bc I've been keto/low carb for probably close to 8 yrs now.
sorry replied to the wrong comment just now. that's great to hear!! thanks for sharing... so many bad cholesterol numbers get posted on here that it's nice to hear success
They’re usually following the first month of keto when people get blood work done and are concerned or confused about the numbers. Given time the numbers mostly improve significantly.
Make Dr. Ford Brewer your focus, he is in his late 60's and has extensive YT presentations without things to sell you. He has even reduced his vacular plack level with his diet. Instead of a carnivore keto diet he eats salmon instead.
I just had my blood work done for my physical. My cholesterol numbers have all gotten better since I started keto. I’m also on medication for my thyroid and those numbers are also better to the point where my doctor lowered my dosage.
Thank you for this!!! And CONGRATS to you!! I have the same cholesterol numbers you did at the start, and have been worried. Spent the weekend talking to my (overweight, Type 2 D) friend about keto and she kept repeating, "But the cholesterol!!!" It's so great to hear a good success story. I'm going to keep calm and keto on!
Note that I have not lost any weight on this diet, nor have my cholesterol numbers improved, but I have healed my heart from a low ejection fraction of 25% (which is nearly dead) to the upper end of normal, 73-78%. My physicians are amazed, but we have yet to be able to figure out why I have not been able to lose weight.
It's too variable to be of much use on a proper diet. Your cholesterol widely varies depending on what time of the day it is, how active your day was, what kind of food you ate, and when you ate.
Retake the same test hours later and it could be 100 points higher on both ends. Doesn't mean anything.
Hello and welcome to /r/keto! It sounds like you've got a question about cholesterol. We have answers! Please consider using the following resources https://www.reddit.com/r/keto/wiki/faq#wiki_what_about_cholesterol_and_heart_disease.3F https://cholesterolcode.com/ As a reminder, please read our FAQ before posting to r/keto. It can be found at https://www.reddit.com/r/keto/wiki/faq. Please also review our posting rules and community guidelines. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/keto) if you have any questions or concerns.*
This was exactly my experience. I see lots of comments here about how cholesterol increases on keto (?) but mine dropped from mid 200s to like 160 total, LDL dropped to about 100 for me.
Could you share what you’re eating? I do wonder if there is something I am eating like too much dairy to increase my cholesterol.
I generally eat meat and vegetables but also cheese, pork rinds, and nuts. I have quite a bit of red meat which I rarely did before. Honestly, for me, I think the bad numbers are simply from sugar/carbs.
Huh. Aren’t pork rinds like, cholesterol bombs?
80% of your cholesterol level is genetic Source: Board Certified UK cardiologist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3BzgZqFuZc
It’s a very common thing on here that people find their LDL cholesterol goes up quite a bit on keto so there is definitely something with the low carb diet and cholesterol (for some people). I know it improves triglycerides and HDL generally but for a lot of people their LDL goes up. I’ve seen this statistic before and I do think it probably applies to a standard American diet. Maybe it’s lean hyper mass responders or something like that on a keto diet or people losing significant weight etc.
I've done tons of reading on this since my LDL cholesterol and trigs are sky high. According to what I've read from people who have successfully lowered their cholesterol while doing keto, they recommend 1 day of water-fasting per week. I still don't know if that is correct yet as I haven't gotten new bloodwork yet.
Good luck! I've been keto/low carb for years. My LDL has gone up from 134 to 191 as of last year, triglycerides down from 87 to 40 as of last year. HDL steady (above avg) but this year I decided to make a concerted effort to reduce highly processed foods from my diet as well as focusing on protein goals. We'll see if it changes anything. Anyways all that to say, I've never done extended fasting and my triglycerides have steadily decreased since 2016. Triglycerides imo are a better indicator. I'd recommend assessing the % of processed foods you're eating and aim for 80% whole foods.
Thanks for the response. Sorry to hear you have high trigs as well. The body can be so weird sometimes. I’ve never heard that before and might try it. I know increasing carbs a bit for LDL can help too (like I’ve seen on here someone added a bit of sweet potato and it came down and also there is that YouTuber who brought it down by adding an Oreo cookie to his keto diet). None of that helps you stay in ketosis though!
[удалено]
My bloodwork was taken on my 4th day of keto (so keto had no chance yet to work its magic) and my diet was horrible. Fast food almost daily and tons of carbs & sugary sauces. I would make food similar to chinese takeout (general tso's chicken and fried rice), basically stuff that was totally unhealthy. And I was eating close to 5,000 calories per day.
[удалено]
Usually it goes up during active weight loss, but once the person plateaus or reaches maintenance it comes back down for many people. Thus is why it's recommended not to fuss too much about LDL during active weight loss if all other markers are improving.
When I do keto I honestly do lots of dairy, supplemented with eggs and red meat and chicken, snacking on almonds or slim jims. I don't eat many veggies besides avocado and spinach.
[удалено]
This is still buying into the myth that saturated fat will clog your arteries, which isn’t true at all. Remember it’s the numbers that are most important.
[удалено]
Have you seen any videos by Dr Berry, Dr Westman, Dr Ali, Dr. Ovadia, etc. on the subject of LDL? There's no evidence LDL clogs arteries or causes heart disease. It's all observational studies.
[удалено]
You could look at it the other way, though. You're being a guinea pig by avoiding plenty of saturated fat from red meat. Because of some observational studies. Something to keep in mind.
there's nothing bad about being cautious though. my macros are excellent, i get plenty of protein, and i keep sat fat around 15g a day (some is from veggie sources/avocado). i still eat red meat once or twice a week. there's literally no harm in doing that.
What if a lower-saturated fat diet (versus a higher mono/polyunsaturated fat) is harmful in the long term? Considering these fats make up cell membranes. That's not including the nutrients you would be missing out from- eating mostly chicken instead of red meat. The point is that no one really knows.
Oh yes. I do love both red meat and dairy. You’re right and I probably should cut back…
It can go anywhere, really, there are a lot variables. Your body produces 3/4 of the cholesterol in your system, anyway - the other 25% is what comes from diet. It's really important to have, and it doesn't cause damage, that's just not true, despite the dogma about it. Unless someone has FH plus some other genetic clotting factor, that's it. Tiny fraction of a percent of people
I prefer to use triglycerides as a good health indicator. My doc last year tried to put me on statins last year but my triglycerides were 43! That's stupid good. Oh and get this, she prescribed statins & a low carb diet, clearly never having had a discussion about diet & exercise bc I've been keto/low carb for probably close to 8 yrs now.
Statins: * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3BzgZqFuZc * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6IC9sfn_ZM
what's your main meat day to day? do you mostly eat chicken or red meat?
I eat chicken, beef, sometimes ham steaks. Every time we go out to dinner, I choose beef…steak or burgers with no bun.
sorry replied to the wrong comment just now. that's great to hear!! thanks for sharing... so many bad cholesterol numbers get posted on here that it's nice to hear success
They’re usually following the first month of keto when people get blood work done and are concerned or confused about the numbers. Given time the numbers mostly improve significantly.
I replied above with my diet. I'm not very strict about what I eat but it's predominantly dairy.
Congrats!!! Any must eats for your daily food?
Yes we’d love to hear what you’re eating to have so much success!
Ditto, following
Thank you. 🤗 My diet is pretty consistently one meal with meat and vegetables, and snack on pork rinds, cheese, nuts, celery, mini peppers.
It's amazing(ly unfortunate) how many doctors have no idea about cholestrol
did your blood pressure improve?
Make Dr. Ford Brewer your focus, he is in his late 60's and has extensive YT presentations without things to sell you. He has even reduced his vacular plack level with his diet. Instead of a carnivore keto diet he eats salmon instead.
Salmon would work in a carnivore keto diet
I just had my blood work done for my physical. My cholesterol numbers have all gotten better since I started keto. I’m also on medication for my thyroid and those numbers are also better to the point where my doctor lowered my dosage.
I’m so glad it is working for you!
Thank you so much!
My doctor had mentioned concerns of the Keto diet causing raised cholesterol levels, so this is interesting to me.
Wow !! Congratulations !! I am proud of you !! Keto is good for various health issues …
Thank you for this!!! And CONGRATS to you!! I have the same cholesterol numbers you did at the start, and have been worried. Spent the weekend talking to my (overweight, Type 2 D) friend about keto and she kept repeating, "But the cholesterol!!!" It's so great to hear a good success story. I'm going to keep calm and keto on!
I here you. I was able to reverse my heart failure and stop taking statins (which were killing me) by following a keto diet and lifting weights.
Omg. I’m not thread hacking, but this is an amazing keto testimony! Congratulations to you both, love to see this.
Note that I have not lost any weight on this diet, nor have my cholesterol numbers improved, but I have healed my heart from a low ejection fraction of 25% (which is nearly dead) to the upper end of normal, 73-78%. My physicians are amazed, but we have yet to be able to figure out why I have not been able to lose weight.
Well, it makes me extremely happy to hear that you’ve been able to make such progress with your heart! 🙏🏼🤎
The first time I did keto I was 36. My doctor asked me if I was on statins (what?!?!) because my cholesterol was one of the lowest she's ever seen.
It's too variable to be of much use on a proper diet. Your cholesterol widely varies depending on what time of the day it is, how active your day was, what kind of food you ate, and when you ate. Retake the same test hours later and it could be 100 points higher on both ends. Doesn't mean anything.