Blood works

[Stephen]

Hey all,

My apologies if this has already been covered before but I’ve literally just come back from Doctor appointment.

Last year (September) I had a routine blood test and my doctor said my Cholesterol was high and what had I changed. I had cut flour and sugar from my diet but was eating Paleo (not Keto). It was 7.5. Normal is apparently 5.5 or below.
I had went Keto from December, so 5 and a bit months. This time my blood test showed my Cholesterol is 9.6 and my doctor is having kittens. I told her I was eating a Ketogenic diet and she told me I was eating too much fat.

Has anyone experienced these results before? I thought it was hard to over eat fat, and I stop eating when I’m satisfied but perhaps I’m eating too much.
I didn’t agree with the balanced diet she gave me, it looked full of carbs. Funny, I noticed my reaction to the pictured food… things like eat low fat cheese and margarine. (omg no).

I’m not expecting medical advice here, obviously.
Confused.
Stephen

[LindaA]

Hi Stephen
Mine went from 4.5 before starting Keto to 6.3 and the LDL also went up but my doctor just told me that those figures were not important and because my HDL went up and my triglycerides went down, she told me to ignore the other figures and she was happy for me to continue eating Keto.

[Stephen]

Thanks!
I suppose it makes sense that if i am eating food with cholesterol in it
then it will end up in my blood.

[Kanel]

Hi Stephen,

Your doctor probably don’t know that dietary cholesterol has very little impact on serum cholesterol and that dietary fat has very little impact on fat on the blood (triglycerides). Also, cholesterol is a very poor marker of heart health and is absolutely vital for life.

My LDL and total cholesterol also took of to the sky when I started keto but after reading tons of articles, studies etc. I’m not worried at all because all the markers that are the real underlying causes (inflammation, oxidation, glycation etc.) all improve on keto.

Read up on the science and explain this to your doctor or point her to the science resources. If she is really willing to help, which most doctors are, she will look into it and spread this information.

Good luck!

[Kanel]

No, it does not. Your liver is making about 3000mg of cholesterol each day and if you eat foods containing cholesterol, your lives makes less!

[MarkGossage]

@Stephen

I think you need to read around on this area of the forum

https://www.ketogenicforums.com/c/health/cholesterol

Huge amount of info out there about cholesterol and what it means.

Highly likely your Doc is unaware of most of it!

[Stephen]

Thanks all. Reading more with a focus on Cholesterol.

[Stephen]

Omg thanks for sharing your Feldman Protocol youtube video. @DaveKeto
I just came across it here in the forums. Made a big difference and I guess now I need to test it out. (I’m a software developer so loved the graphs/numbers)

I’m thinking back on the three days before my blood test and lately I’ve been skipping meals. Some days I’ve just been eating lunch or breakfast and not eating dinner. Not fasting, but more kind of just listening to my body and using the stored reserves unless I was actually hungry.
Would be a great time to eat 5000 calories (which seems a lot!) and get another blood test.

[Kanel]

@Stephen Yes! @DaveKeto’s work is awesome and I made the same mistake of doing more fasting before the blood test. I hope to be able to do his experiment some day but it’s just not the right time for me now - my GF would go apeshit because we are already spending quite a lot of money on food

Agree, a good thing about keto is that you can better rely on your hunger signals for when it’s really time to eat.

[DaveKeto]

You don’t have to hit 5000 calories specifically. Just go as high as you can while still keeping to a ketogenic ratio.

[Stephen]

Hey all,

Started planning (and buying) some food so I can eat 5000(ish) calories once I have scheduled a blood test.
I’m a little confused. I bought some half macadamia nuts (sunbeam) and made sure they were not roasted (they roast them in the bad oils).
Entered it into MyFitnessPal to see the nutrients. 1 bag (110g) is 15.2g of carbs (13.8g/100g).
So if i’m eating one bag of these, and it takes me to 3313Kilojoules (20,000 Kilojoules is my target which is about 5000 calories), I’m guessing I won’t be eating less than 20g of carbs per day.

Also how the hell do people afford to eat 5000 calories of food, these macadamia nuts cost like $7 for 110g. yikes. Glad its only 3 days worth…

I ate a massive breakfast. 3 bacon slices, an egg, a cheese sausage, a tomato. Comes to 1887 Kilojoules. How in gods name did @carl hit 5300 calories in a day!? Give the man a medal!

I also scratch my head when people share their various recipes and I look and see there are carbs in it. You know, things like recipes with cocoa, dark chocolate, etc. I guess the normal amount put in is very small.

[Stephen]

Well that’s good. Three days of eating as much as I could… day three I managed to hit 20,000Kj (5000 calories) and I was so sick of eating I decided to Fast. First time fasting, am just drinking tea.

The other two days I got close but not quite. Waiting for blood test results. Hoping it behaves as expected. I also had a heart CT scan (from my Doctor who freaked out) and I went to another doctor for a second opinion. The new doctor was great, he supports LCHF eating. Looked at my bloodwork results (from the first test) and said everything looks spot on except for my Cholesterol. Going to go to him in future!

Have been fasting for a day and a half. Think I’ll break it now because the guys at work are going to Nandos. lol

[Stephen]

Update on my Heart CT scan. I should have checked my email two days ago, the results were sitting there and hadn’t read it yet (thought it was a copy of my blood test from a week ago). I was surprised they emailed me a copy, I thought they would send it only to the doctor so they could charge me for a visit to find out what the results were.

All normal. Calcium score of zero.

So happy! So should hear about my blood test in a couple of days and if my body behaves like @DaveKeto’s then hopefully cholesterol will be down.

[DaveKeto]

Hi Stephen – sorry for the late reply. I was on the LC Cruise for this last speaking engagement. (Great itinerary, btw!)

Glad to see your CAC of 0 – congrats!

Sounds like you did a solid run at the high cal diet, though hopefully a solid ketogenic ratio. I look forward to seeing how your results turn out.

[Stephen]

No probs, the LC cruise sounds awesome. Thanks! It’s always nice when they think you are “normal”.

Have done cruises in the past but they were massive eat fests where you would come back several kilos heavier from all the carbs. A LC cruise sounds like the perfect fit to my new way of eating.

I did the whole eat for three days thing which was really educational. I ate quite a lot of macadamia nuts and coconut oil (in coffee etc). After three days of so much calories I fasted for 40hours (my first intentional fast).

I don’t have my blood test results yet, was expecting they would post them to me, but I guess I need to call the medical center where I got the test done. They usually call you if they are not normal so perhaps it was all good. Will chase it up this week and email you the data (I tracked my food for those three days too).

I know some people on this forum think Dr Burg is a bit of a quack but I like how he explains things in his videos and another opinion is always good to hear. I saw a video lately where he explained how he thinks LDL cholesterol is not “bad” just that it signifies there is something there that needs repair. It matches up with how I believe things are. ie Cholesterol is there to fix stuff, its not the root cause. Don’t take drugs (statins) to remove the thing that you need to live. Fix the problem (inflammation).

Link to the video (like him or no, don’t care). https://youtu.be/GC9V1TWYLo4