Of refeeds and diet breaks

{{{Nony}}}

That just sucks. I hope you can get some good rest tonight and feel better tomorrow. Hopefully, hopefully, he has kept those darn shingles to himself. And hopefully you are asleep right now - I think it's beddy-byes time in NZ.

Nony_Mouse wrote: »

Frantic Googling suggests that because I've had chicken pox I should be okay, ie can't catch it/shingles from someone else. I got the pox for my first Christmas

For whatever it's worth I had chicken pox when I was 10, then got shingles when I was 30—a case bad enough that my doctor said she couldn't understand why I wasn't wailing in pain while in her office being examined.

ETA: Forgot to specify that she suspected it was stress-related as opposed to being caught from someone else, yes.

anubis609 wrote: »

psuLemon wrote: »

Total cholesterol is a *kitten* measure... because it increases as HDL increases. And dieting and exercise can mess up blood work. You are better off looking and non hdl chesterol numbers and maybe HDL to Cholesterol ratios.

The biggest thing is, if you have little to no family history of heart disease and your numbers fall within a good range, than you are in a good state of health. My LDLs will always be and have always been fairly high, because my parents... both are at a higher range.

I will mirror what Lemon is saying and expand on it to say that you may want to compare HDL and triglycerides. I mentioned this in a previous post, but if you're managing blood glucose, I might suspect that you may be following a more low carb, higher fat style of diet. If that's the case, circulating free fatty acids in the blood rise due to the nature of higher fat foods. This is totally normal and somewhat self-explanatory, but in no way does it mean that your risk of CV has necessarily increased. It's all in context.

Higher fat foods = higher circulating fatty acids = elevation in cholesterol levels. As Lemon mentioned, HDL will increase as your health improves. Triglycerides are what you would ultimately like to reduce since it is a measure of packaged sugar lipids that get stored directly into fat cells. LDL is a subjective panel since it is not accurately measured into its constituent particle size and concentration numbers, unless you specifically ask for an NMR lipo-profile test, which most health insurance companies don't provide in standard testing. Though, you can predict the quality of LDL if triglycerides are low and HDL is high (ideally within a 1:1 ratio, or evenly matched numbers).

Actually, I'm not doing low carb at all . I've got carbs set to 45% protein set to 30% and fat to 25%, but most days, I don't hit the fat goal, and I'm always struggling to get the protein goal, so I figure I'm probably eating a higher carb diet than what my macro's are set for.

I'm not diabetic or even pre-diabetic, though I was diagnosed as insulin resistant. I do keep an eye on blood sugar levels, though, because diabetes is very prevalent on my mom's side, and both of my parents and my sister have developed it. My motivation in January to start losing weight was because I really, really didn't want to become diabetic!

My dad's side has a pretty heavy trend toward heart disease, with several folks having had heart attacks or strokes or died from them on his side. My mom's dad died from a massive heart attack, though her mother at age 80 just had a heart cath done ahead of having a valve replaced and she was told her arteries are perfectly clean - clean as someone significantly younger than she is, so I figure my chances for heart disease are probably something like 70/30 lol



From February 2017 to now, my fasting blood sugar went from 81 to 90 - still in the good range, though a bit up from before (but I fasted for something like 8 or 9 hours, which was the bare minimum, which might possibly explain the slight elevation). A1C stayed at 5.3 - still under 6, so good, and actually down a little from 2015. So I'm not worried about blood sugar levels.

From February 2017 to now, total cholesterol went up from 159 to 164. Hdl stayed the same at 40 (down from my 2016 high at 47), but the ratio went up because total went up. Non-HDL went up from 119 to 124. LDL went from 94 to 104. Triglycerides went from 127 to 100, which is a very good downward trend from 2015 level of 156.

The values taken yesterday were after losing over 75 lbs from my weight in February when the first set of values were taken, which means my triglycerides have greatly improved, but HDL hasn't budged, even after losing 75 lbs, and total and LDL both went up some.

I've tried to cut out the processed foods and am trying to eat more lean meats, fish, and frozen or fresh vegetables, though I still get processed meat in my lunches. I've been following something closer to a Meditteranean style diet and am definitely not cooking from pre-packaged meal kits; most of my grocery bill is produce or frozen and dairy; very little from the middle sections of the grocery aisle.

I'm not worried, but hadn't known that losing weight could actually cause a temporary rise in cholesterol levels for some folks, though I suppose it does make sense in a way. My doctor is happy, anyway!

This does give me another question: if obesity elevates your risk of having a fatty liver, would higher cholesterol as you lose weight might indicate the liver is losing that extra fat?

VintageFeline wrote: »

I think that’s still accepted wisdom with a lot of people.

In other news. Whole tub of ice cream just threw itself down my throat. Rude.

quite rude! I hope you dealt with that tub properly! lol