My name's Isla, I'm in the UK (northern Ireland) and I've been eating high-fat carnivore for just over a year now. I'm a former sugar addict (honestly, I used to be the girl who'd just order from the dessert menu in restaurants if she could get away with it!) and it's so nice to be off that rollercoaster. There's a family history of diabetes, and I'm hoping I'll be able to dodge that bullet if I stick to carnivore. The first week was tough, but since then I haven't had any cravings for anything but meat and butter. I must admit, I probably eat too much butter, and the cholesterol test results I got lately were kind of terrifying, so I think maybe I need to cut out the butter and increase the fatty meat and eggs. So that's my project for Year 2: more beef!

 

 

 

Welcome aboard Isla!

11 minutes ago, butterfly said:

I'm a former sugar addict and it's so nice to be off that rollercoaster.

Isn't it? I remember always having to get dessert. Or if I went to a large gathering where everyone brings a dish, I would have to sample everything on the dessert table that people made. Now I have zero temptation and feel like superman, lol. 

13 minutes ago, butterfly said:

There's a family history of diabetes, and I'm hoping I'll be able to dodge that bullet if I stick to carnivore.

You will. If this way of eating can eventually get people off their insulin and diabetes medications, then it can keep us from ever having to get on them.

14 minutes ago, butterfly said:

I must admit, I probably eat too much butter, and the cholesterol test results I got lately were kind of terrifying

 

During my active weight loss, my total cholesterol shot up to almost 600. But this is because there is cholesterol stored in your adipose tissues that get released into the blood stream as you lose fat. I've been weight stable for the last 3 months, and it has dropped to half that. Supposedly it returns to "baseline" (or your new baseline) at 6 months of being weight stable.

Just an FYI if you too have been losing weight rapidly.

 

Thank you for that, Bob! It does feel a bit superheroey doesn't it? "I'm Isla and my superpower is being able to ignore someone sitting next to me eating a Snickers." I never thought I'd be able to do that. I'd probably have wrestled them to the ground for it back in the day.

I used monitormyhealth.com to do a home blood draw (nasty business, those lancets are brutal) and even with the Royal Mail tracked 24 envelope, it took them 72 hours to get back to the lab. So I was told they couldn't do some tests for iron, folate, b12 etc because the blood had been in transit too long, but they did give me hba1c (23) vitamin d (163 - 'excessive' apparently) and the cholesterol panel from hell, lol.

Total cholesterol: 16.8mmol/l (650mg/dl)

Non-HDL: 14.94mmol/l (578mg/dl)

HDL: 1.8mmol/l (70.4mg/dl)

Triglycerides: 3.69mmol/l (327mg/dl)

They don't measure LDL specifically, but using an online calculator, it's something like 514. Gulp. 

There was a note included that I should make an immediate appointment with my doctor. I don't even know how reliable the test is, given the transit time, and I know it's only a snapshot, it could be totally different today, but those are big numbers. I haven't really been losing weight lately I don't think. I don't keep bathroom scales (had anorexia in my teens and don't want to get hooked weighing myself) but my waist has been a steady 26 inches for a couple of months now.

I do eat a lot of butter, it must be said. My fat: protein calories ratio is at least 75: 25 most days, but can be as high as 90% fat. I even do fat fasting days, rather than water fasting. But from the doctors I've been following in the keto sphere - Paul Mason, Ben Bikman, Eric Westman etc., I had thought that saturated fat intake didn't necessarily cause cholesterol to rise. I've been reading about the lipid energy hypothesis and the LMHR phenotype - not sure that's me either, though, my good cholesterol is too low for that and my triglycerides are too high.

I don't know. I should probably get some CAC imaging done, just to check. Like you said, though, it could just be that I'm losing fat all over and not realising, and that's inflating the numbers. I made the mistake of having a brief chat with my dad about my results - he's a very old school GP with no time for "keto fad diet nonsense." And he's convinced I'm damaging my health. It's tough to see your own dad really upset and worried. 

Since there is plenty of evidence that high cholesterol is not associated with all cause mortality I would be worried about it. But that’s just me.
If I had a concern about it I would contact one of the carnivore doctors and consult with them.


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I hear you, Geoff. I was looking at that U shaped curve from the big Korea study on all cause mortality and cholesterol, but I've a feeling that the lowest risk is associated with 200-250ish? I think the risk starts to climb slowly the higher you get after that, but maybe not quite as high a risk as having very low cholesterol. I did read an interesting study about women with very low LDL and triglycerides having more than double the risk of haemorrhagic stroke. So. Something to cling to, I guess.

Dr. Baker posted a video recently showing how his cholesterol jumped about 200 points from one day to the next. First day fasting I think it was about 150, then he fasted for another 10 hours, I think, and it was around 350 once he'd done some moderate exercise too. Seems to tally with the lipid energy model.

 

On 3/1/2024 at 9:40 AM, butterfly said:

But from the doctors I've been following in the keto sphere - Paul Mason, Ben Bikman, Eric Westman etc., I had thought that saturated fat intake didn't necessarily cause cholesterol to rise.

Are you sure about that? I think it is well established that increasing saturated fat intake does indeed cause cholesterol to rise. What I imagine they are saying is that saturated fat and elevated cholesterol aren't to be feared or demonized like they are in modern medicine, and that they are not the *cause* of atherosclerosis. 

On 3/1/2024 at 9:40 AM, butterfly said:

my triglycerides are too high

So this could be from all that fat consumption. Triglycerides are basically fat-based energy. If you're cells don't need all that energy, it's going to float around in your bloodstream until it breaks down, gets absorbed, or gets converted to belly fat. Common recommendations are to check for carb creep in any sauces or spices you may be using, quit coffee if you are still drinking it, and stop any liquid or concentrated forms of fat, which means no fat bombs, fat shakes, or bulletproof coffee. You might be able to improve this by eliminating the fat-fasts.

On 3/1/2024 at 9:40 AM, butterfly said:

I should probably get some CAC imaging done, just to check.

Me too. I want to do this, and then do it every year or every other year, just to monitor it.

Hello and welcome!