Can calorie counting help lower cholesterol and tryglycerides?

It helped mine. And my blood pressure.

Dietary cholesterol meaningfully affects blood cholesterol?

Losing weight and exercising did wonders for my blood pressure-no longer on meds. On the other hand my cholesterol got worse. If all goes as usual when I post this someone will probably want to argue with and say really? REALLY? My overall went up. My LDL went up. My triglycerides went up. My HDL went down. And I was eating to supposedly reduce cholesterol as suggested by my primary doc. Bummer. Bad genes, I guess.

What did your doctor say you should do?

And yes it lowered my BP because i lost almost 100 pound byt weighing ALL my food, counting and logging.

Doesn't mean it will do for you too. But weight loss has a lot more benefits and is healthier

Most important is what your doctor adviced you too.

Losing weight will directly affect both. And you lose weight by counting calories.

A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

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Eating less calories actually promotes longivety. In certain Asian countries people live on less than 1500 calories a day to be very old.

RodaRose wrote: »

ShrinkingStargazer wrote: »

thanks everyone, yea i will try not to go over in my fat and i do exercise which hopefully will help as well

Fat are o.k. Be careful about carbs because they raise triglycerides.

Carbs do not increase triglycerides. And cholesterol, fat and sat fats dont either. Genetics and weight have a much higher impact on those.

All my numbers continously improve over the past several years (well minus blood pressure but mine has always been 110/70) and continously eat 250+ g of carbs and eat red meat almost daily.

Having said that, i believe that eating a variety of foods (fruits, veggies, meats, fish, whole grains) and getting them from whole sources may help. There are some studies that would suggest foods high in poly and monounsaturated fats help lower ldl and increase hdl. And omega 3s (found in fish) can improve cholesterol as well.

I lost 15 kg via CI<CO ... and my overall cholesterol level dropped 1 full point from 5.2 to 4.2.
As part of that, my bad cholesterol also dropped.

I also didn't watch any particular macros or my intake of cholesterol or saturated fat at all.

My Dr was so pleased when I came in and asked to be weighed ... and she discovered I had lost the weight. Then she sent me for bloodwork and was so excited by the results she called me at work to let me know!

Agree with Jessicapk, fiber is important. Whether you get it through eating whole foods or through psyllium husk, or a combination of the two, it will help lower your cholesterol. I use orange-flavored Metamucil or Now Foods Psyllium Husk Powder in addition to eating foods high in fiber - oats, vegetables, beans, etc. - as suggested by my doctor.

IWTBFCIN3 wrote: »

My cardiac surgeon told me to cut down on carbs to lower my triglycerides and to lose weight. Yes losing weight can help lower them as well as exercise! Just counting calories alone is not much help! In my opinion!

I was diagnosed as having hereditary high cholesterol at age 26. At the time, I was a healthy weight and did strength training and cardio regularly. They put me on a statin to lower my cholesterol. It didn't do much. They put me on a second medication and my levels still remained in the elevated range. So, my PC doc suggested I cut back on carbs. I did and within the three months until my next blood test I managed to get my total cholesterol down to 176 (don't remember the breakout of HDL compared to LDL). I eventually went off the medications because I got married and wanted to have children. I then ignored my elevated cholesterol for years. I recently was put back on one of the medications I used to take (I just turned 40 last month) but I also just recently started trying to eat better...my last test showed me around 170 total cholesterol (again, don't remember HDL/LDL stats). I'm not doing low carb, per se, but I am more focused on my consumption of protein and fats and trying to eat fewer carbs while also eating better better carbs (whole wheat breads and pastas vs. regular, more veggies, fruits, etc).

yarwell wrote: »

psulemon wrote: »

Carbs do not increase triglycerides.

Except when they do - like +40% or more in a high carb low fat diet at maintenance calories in http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/77/1/43.full.pdf+html (Table 3)

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11082210 "It has been known for decades that low-fat, high-carbohydrate diets can increase plasma triglyceride levels"

"When the content of dietary carbohydrate is elevated above the level typically consumed (>55% of energy), blood concentrations of triglycerides rise. This phenomenon, known as carbohydrate-induced hypertriglyceridemia, is paradoxical because the increase in dietary carbohydrate usually comes at the expense of dietary fat." http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11584104

1. My only concern with this study, was it was only 5days in duration. It would be interesting to see how this would play out over an extended period of time.

2. Do you have the full article for the second abstract?

3. Not really a study but an observation. I will note, that the studies they reference are fairly extreme. In the first study they reference, the people were switched to a diet of almost not fat and 76% carbs. And the second study was on postmenopausal women (which I don't think would apply to this situation).


Either way, if I was to infer anything, it would be not to follow a diet that is 70% + in carbs. I guess my bigger question that I have, is the increase in triglycerides due to the increase in carbs or the decrease in fats. Since fats are essential, there may be potential that it has a greater impact than carbs themselves. Additionally, we have learned that a low cholesterol diet can cause your body to create cholesterol which causes an increase in total cholesterol levels.

I would also enjoying seeing more recent studies. Unfortunately, the newest article was from 2003.


I will also note, that my N=1 study. I eat about 2500 calories a day (45% carbs, 32% fats, 27% protein) I workout 6 days a week and lost 10 lbs in the 9 months between my two doctors visits (Sept 2014 vs June 2015). Below is a then/now comparison of my numbers.

Cholesterol -194-->187
Triglycerides - 101 --> 63
HDL - 47 --> 47
LDL- 127 -->127

Based on genetics, it's very difficult to alter cho, LDL and HDL's. Once i finish unpacking my new house, I will pull the last 5 years of my blood work. All have been fairly similar.

TLDR - genetics is a beotch!

I know when I'm doing research, it is frowned upon to use anything older than 10 years of age. While you say, once its been established its just repetition, however thats not true. Our technology is constantly changing, altering how we can do studies. Our understanding of things changes over time too as other related studies are completed, changing how we may interpret data. Studies vary greatly in my field 20 years ago and now, and its true in other field as well.

ShrinkingStargazer wrote: »

Can calorie counting help lower cholesterol and tryglycerides?

No.

But eating the right amounts of food can.