SHOCKING!!! Health Screening Vegetarian to Paleo Comparison

sarahkatara

Cass, you rock. I'm so proud of your realizations and your accomplishments. You know I'm not full paleo or anything but I've certainly taken pages from your book and have seen my own amazing results. You're an inspiration, not because of your diet or exercise, but because of how you go about this- with confidence, awareness, and a smile! I'm always learning from you. Love you girl and CONGRATS on your outstanding numbers and changes!

love4fitnesslove4food_wechange

what do you eat as a "paleo" proponent? what did your veg diet look like?

PhilyPhresh

Why on earth would anyone eat Paleo??? What? oh, ignore my ticker...

"Hi, my names PhilyPhresh and I have a totally lame sense of humor..."

Thats totally awesome! glad to hear it has been working out well for you and your overall health! Great job and keep it up!!!

carriempls

So your numbers went from good, to still good, and... I'm not sure I follow, all of your numbers, while having slight variations, are all in exactly the same range. A change of 3 or 4 points is really quite negligible in most of those categories, especially when the old numbers were already in the healthy range.

I don't see how this proves anything, other than the actual diet you eat is irrelevant, as you went from one extreme to the other extreme, and you remained, basically the same.

This was my thought exactly. You're still in the healthy ranges for all of your numbers, a few points here or there really aren't a big change.

If you prefer paleo to veggie than great, you've found something that works for you, but your biometric numbers and health scores are basically the same.

DaveRCF

My company, Hilcorp Energy Company, is awesome for many reasons one of them being our free annunal health screenings. Since I started working with them last April, I've had two screenings to date. The interesting thing is that I changed my diet from Vegetarian to Paleo just after last year's screening so the change in the numbers from 2011 to this year is 100% attributed to diet!

2011 2012 Healthy Range
Diet Vegetarian (2 years prior) Paleo (Beginning Oct. '11) n/a
Height 67 inches (5' 7") 67.25" (5' 7.25") [+.25"] n/a
Weight 160 154 (!!!) [-6 lbs!!!]
BMI 25 24 [-1] 18.5-24.9
WaistCircumference 29.5 29 [-.5] <35
Blood Pressure 128/75 mmHg 122/74 [-6/-1] <120/80
Total Cholesterol 198 mg/dl 190 [-8] 100-199
HDL (healthy) Cholesterol 87 mg/dl 99 [+12!!!] >50
LDL (bad) Cholesterol 95 mg/dl 79 mg/dl [-16!!!!!!!!] <100
Triglycerides 75 mg/dl 57 mg/dl [-18!!!!!!] 45-149
Risk Ratio 2.3 1.9 <4.4
Fasting Glucose 92 mg/dl 95 mg/dl [+3*] 50-99
*I took my daily multivitamin this morning which contains 5g of sugar

WOW is all I can say!!! Changing from a Vegetarian diet to a Paleo diet CLEARLY changed ALL my paramenters (except glucose, see * above) in the positive direction! So all that B.S. about eating eggs, bacon, fatty foods, red meat, and other things with lots of cholesterol is A TOTAL CROCK!!! My "bad" cholesterol leves went down and my "good" cholesterol levels went up!!!! Also, eating fats clearly don't make you fat; look at my triglyceride levels!!! WOW I am seriously blown away!
Also, check out my weight!!! I haven't stepped on the scale in 2 weeks since adjusting to a healthy and balanced life after the Whole30 and SURPRISE!!! I dropped weight!!! Amazing!!!!! I was all prepared to just be happy with maintaining the 160lb range for a year, but this was a plesant surprise!

For those wondering, the Risk Ratio is the Total Cholesterol/HDL number. so 190/99=1.91. Less than 4.4 is a healthy ratio.

The table looks pretty-er here: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/blog/AggieCass09/view/shocking-the-numbers-dont-lie-vegetarian-to-paleo-comparison-423960

Look, you are an active healthy young person who has been eating right for years. If only there were more of you the healthcare system (that is the guys who profit from poor health) would be in real trouble.

I work with a bunch of engineers and I have an M.Sc. so we are all pretty quant but I would say carry on young lady and don't fixate on the numbers. You were great before and you are great now.

jenluvsushi

How clean was your diet as a vegetarian? I know lots of vegetarians that still eat processed garbage. I personally have had a major change in my blood work as well very similar to yours however, I am currently heavier than before. At my lightest adult weight, I still had sky high cholesterol. I was also on WW and ate lots of 100 calorie packs of junk back then. If it fit into my points, I ate it. Today I weigh more, but I am pretty much off of processed foods (90/10). My cholesterol has never been so low. Could it just be from eating cleaner non-processed food? I eat way more cholesterol now than I ever did back then as well. I exercised back then too....interesting.

I didn't read your above explaination about your diet until after I posted...oops! BTW-With the exception of the occasional PB and sprouted bread, I'm darn near paleo myself.

PhilyPhresh

Interesting. But I'm a vegetarian and other than BMI (which I'm pretty sure was a BC issue), my numbers are better than yours.

....... well congratu-f***ing-lations, they weren't posting to see who had the best health screening numbers... get over yourself.

Deipneus

I always like to go with the current fad diet whatever it is that week. Vegan one week, Paleo the next, South Beach, Gluten Free. My body loves it.

bcattoes

Wow, congrats!

But since there is not specific vegetarian diet this is a tribute to you personally, more than a paleo over vegetarian diet.

I was curious about your remark re: fats. Does that mean that you were eating low fat when eating vegetarian?

kandienicole

Good for you for comparing your numbers year to year and staying in control of your health-also, congratulations on the improvement, regardless of how slight, as others have mentioned. You are doing great things for your body by staying active and paying attention to your food choices!

As others have said...you will always have haters...people who will be negative regardless of what you have to say-just ignore their negativity. If anything...it seems that no one here on MFP can ever post anything positive without at least one person being a jerk and/or negative.

If you want to ask the OP a question about their diet or if they changed anything else in their life to get the numbers to change...FINE and great for you for being inquisitive...but there is no need to be condescending about it. Rarely do I get on the forums...maybe 4 posts in 7 months...but, this one has gotten a little ridiculous and I couldn't help but tell the OP congratulations on continuing a healthy lifestyle!! Everyone else...follow the Golden Rule, as elementary as that sounds.

Penfoldsplace

I am glad you found something that works for you well done on your progress but comparing it to some sort of scientific study is very far off the mark. I mean paleo could very well have contributed but there's no way of knowing.

It could depend on how long you have been living a more active lifestyle couldn't it? For example if you became more active a year before your first blood test then the following year your body would have the benefit of two years of healthy living.

Dragonwolf

So your numbers went from good, to still good, and... I'm not sure I follow, all of your numbers, while having slight variations, are all in exactly the same range. A change of 3 or 4 points is really quite negligible in most of those categories, especially when the old numbers were already in the healthy range.

I don't see how this proves anything, other than the actual diet you eat is irrelevant, as you went from one extreme to the other extreme, and you remained, basically the same.

This was my thought exactly. You're still in the healthy ranges for all of your numbers, a few points here or there really aren't a big change.

If you prefer paleo to veggie than great, you've found something that works for you, but your biometric numbers and health scores are basically the same.

One of the biggest issues people have with Paleo/Primal is the amount of fat (and meat, to a somewhat lesser extent) that's in it. Everyone's first reaction is "OMG! You're going to clog your arteries and have a heart attack!" The fact that her biometric numbers have not only gotten worse, but have in fact gotten better, even when staying in a healthy range, is evidence to the contrary. And even though it wouldn't be considered scientific, perhaps enough of such reports would prompt the "real scientists" to do some actual studies.

SanteMulberry

The Paleo diet has been found to be healthier on every parameter of blood chemistry. The key is that it reduces blood sugar and thus excessive insulin, high triglycerides, and other things as a consequence--such as reducing high levels of cortisol, bad LDL cholesterol and raising good HDL cholesterol. I'm surprised that your fasting blood sugar went up---most people find that theirs' go down. You could have it tested again just to make sure that there was no lab error.

I have lost 14 pounds since I went on Paleo and have been able to nearly get off my blood pressure medications. I was taking two medications at the maximum dose for each and now I take a quarter dose of one I am confident that I will be able to get off of that when I lose a bit more weight and become even more active. My arthritis is better than it has been in a long time and I feel so much more energetic! I will never go back to eating sugar and grains! It is fairly certain that high consumption of sugar and grains, combined with sedentary lifestyles, is responsible for the obesity and Type II diabetes epidemic that Western nations are currently experiencing.

katejain

I have been a vegetarian pretty much all my life. Don't eat eggs, chicken or fish either as some people claim to be vegetarian but still eat those 3 things. I have never had any bad health issues due to being vegetarian. I'm also tired of people telling me I'm going to die 10 years before a meat eater!! LOL the key to your numbers drop has a lot to do with weight loss!!

beckajw

I have been a vegetarian pretty much all my life. Don't eat eggs, chicken or fish either as some people claim to be vegetarian but still eat those 3 things. I have never had any bad health issues due to being vegetarian. I'm also tired of people telling me I'm going to die 10 years before a meat eater!! LOL the key to your numbers drop has a lot to do with weight loss!!

Probably with a 4 pound weight loss this isn't true. There is no reason to get defensive. She didn't say vegetarianism is bad, she just said paleo worked better for her. If vegetarian works for you, then do that.

geebusuk

http://nutritionfacts.org/video/plant-based-atkins-diet/

I've had the mis-fortune to be presented with that site in the past.
So often it seems to use the video format to pick and choose the information to elicit the emotional and logical response they want while ignoring the background reality.

The source cited uses the words 'associated', 'suggested' and 'may' in it's conclusion.
We have a link, but we do not have causation.
One obvious thing is that often vegetarian people live more active life styles due to their general beliefs.

PhilyPhresh

I have been a vegetarian pretty much all my life. Don't eat eggs, chicken or fish either as some people claim to be vegetarian but still eat those 3 things. I have never had any bad health issues due to being vegetarian. I'm also tired of people telling me I'm going to die 10 years before a meat eater!! LOL the key to your numbers drop has a lot to do with weight loss!!

Probably with a 4 pound weight loss this isn't true. There is no reason to get defensive. She didn't say vegetarianism is bad, she just said paleo worked better for her. If vegetarian works for you, then do that.

leave it to a vegetarian to get all defensive and butt hurt about Paleo working for someone...

AggieCass09

so much for wanting to possibly spark the "maybe I should consider eating real foods" notion for some people, clearly this is all about my ego.

bcattoes

The Paleo diet has been found to be healthier on every parameter of blood chemistry. The key is that it reduces blood sugar and thus excessive insulin, high triglycerides, and other things as a consequence--such as reducing high levels of cortisol, bad LDL cholesterol and raising good HDL cholesterol. I'm surprised that your fasting blood sugar went up---most people find that theirs' go down. You could have it tested again just to make sure that there was no lab error.

I have lost 14 pounds since I went on Paleo and have been able to nearly get off my blood pressure medications. I was taking two medications at the maximum dose for each and now I take a quarter dose of one I am confident that I will be able to get off of that when I lose a bit more weight and become even more active. My arthritis is better than it has been in a long time and I feel so much more energetic! I will never go back to eating sugar and grains! It is fairly certain that high consumption of sugar and grains, combined with sedentary lifestyles, is responsible for the obesity and Type II diabetes epidemic that Western nations are currently experiencing.

I believe the Paleo Diet can be healthy. Just wanted to put that out there before anyone accuses me of bashing it.

But your post prompts a few questions:

1. Who has found the Paleo diet "to be healthier on every parameter of blood chemistry", and healthier than what?

2. Are you sedentary and eat a Paleo diet? If not, then how can you logically attribute all the success to the diet, since exercise alone is known to improve blood chemistry, as well as improve energy levels?

3. Limiting sugar and eating whole grains instead of overly processed grains has had the same affect that you describe for many people. Do you not feel it's possible that you would have had similar results had you simply reduced your intake of these things, along with total calories?

ChrisRS87

Confusion of correlation and causation.

lol