Dr. Westman's Page 4 Question

food
(Full Metal KETO AF) #21

My doctor trains with weights and is a gorilla sized power lifter. :weight_lifting_woman:

(Little Miss Scare-All) #22

Does he also happen to be a gynocologist?

(Full Metal KETO AF) #23

:laughing::laughing::laughing: too funny, no he’s just a general practitioner. :cowboy_hat_face:

(Empress of the Unexpected) #24

I find testing valuable. My Triglycerides were 208 before starting keto, and are now down to 138. All my markers improved - HDL went up, etc. All my liver function tests were better as well. They just say that during the first few months the numbers may move around some, and usually stabilize at 6 months. Best results obtained with no more and no less than 12-14 hours of fasting, including no coffee. I would NEVER take a statin.

(Liz Ellen) #25

Congratulations! That is tremendous. My BG was 126, as I shared, but my A1C was 5.8%, just inching into prediabetes territory. I bought a BG monitor and found I have the dawn phenomenon, where my BG shoots up overnight. I feel SO MUCH BETTER having lower BG. I haven’t tested at night – I wonder if I’m still quite a bit lower than the morning still.

(Liz Ellen) #26

I TOTALLY agree with you about how little we know about our bodies. I have often thought people will look at how we treat cancer in a few hundred years and think we’re barbarians. Same for weight loss surgery, heart surgery, genetic diseases … all of it.

Too bad I won’t live long enough to go to sick bay and have everything fixed with a scanner a la Star Trek.

And, thanks for your advice RE consultant versus all-knowing doctor. I agree with you intellectually, but I’m also dreading this encounter. I have no idea how my doctor feels about keto. Decided to jump in without soliciting his opinion.

(Liz Ellen) #27

What are your go-to keto restaurant meals for working lunch? I’ve been switching between chef salads (no croutons, please) and wings with ranch. Looking for suggestions that don’t immediately signal my diet preference to everyone I’m with.

(Full Metal KETO AF) #28

A BG spike at dawn is an evolutionary development. It doesn’t have lots to do with diet I believe. It’s your body’s way of getting you going and out on a search for the day’s sustenance. I think we get a little jolt of adrenaline as well. This always confuses me as to why they have you fast all night and come in with a BG spike to get tested. And @Regina is correct about the coffee. Many doctors still tell you it’s ok but recent studies show “not so good”. :cowboy_hat_face:

(Liz Ellen) #29

So happy to hear this. Good on you! That is GREAT progress.

(Liz Ellen) #30

I would never drink coffee before getting blood work. Saying the rosary and sacrificing chickens, of course.

(Empress of the Unexpected) #31

Oh and my BG went from 97 to 87. First time in years. So keto does work. It just needs some time. The coffee is sometimes linked with increased triglycerides. Some threads on here recommend cutting it out for a few days before the test. I was not that brave!

(Full Metal KETO AF) #32

@Regina My triglycerides went stellar and I drank coffee the day before. Besides if you drink coffee everyday having a stat where you’ve not had any in days seems like a lie to yourself and your doctor, especially if you’re going to drink some as soon as you get home from the blood draw. I think morning of abstention is enough.

(Empress of the Unexpected) #33

Very true. I think I read it on the Feldman protocol. I think I was talking to myself a bit there. I’ve noticed quite a rise in BG after I drink coffee and have toyed with the idea of giving it up for a while to see if I am imagining things. I drink under a cup a day so not worried about withdrawal. But at the moment kinda have my hands full with the dairy free thing so will worry about the coffee later. :rofl:

(Little Miss Scare-All) #34

Maybe you can talk him into it. That wouldnt be weird at all!!

(Little Miss Scare-All) #35

I was kicking around the idea of kicking coffee to the curb. Ive done it before, and I lived on Aleve for a week but got through it. I was battling adrenal burnout and healed myself from it, took about 6 months.

I started drinking the darn stuff again, esp iced coffees–my weakness. I just finished with the Keto Flu, and I really dont want to go through another detox juuuuuust yet lol. But soon! Fare thee well, my beloved iced goodness.

(Empress of the Unexpected) #36

Just arranged my thoughts. Even when my trigs were 209, my doctor was not concerned, and I have no other health issues, so foregoing caffeine would be more of an experiment on my part, not a purposeful lie. I can test my BG anytime I want, but I only have the opportunity to test trigs once a year. Without running the no caffeine for a week experiment, I would have no way of knowing if there was a connection. Of course, I might do that, and the reason for the drop could be continued keto, I would never know. I, of course, am totally against withholding info from a doctor when there is a real issue - but to satisfy my curiosity - don’t see a problem there.

(Full Metal KETO AF) #37

I didn’t mean literally “lie” to the doctor. Poor choice of words. I guess I was implying going through pre test altering of your blood just for the sake of a number on a piece of paper that won’t really reflect what your blood work would be on a day to day basis normally. I think that’s kind of the reason for testing, to see what’s really going on. Anyway I like HWC in my coffee so it’s better to wait anyway even though my doctor used to always tell me black was okay.

(John) #38

I used to have moderately high cholesterol - 240ish range. Doc put me on a statin. It worked, all of the numbers got into the right ranges. Blood sugar was a little high, 102-105 range typically. But I was pretty overweight.

I ran ouf of the statins last July and didn’t get around to calling and getting it refilled. Started keto in September, got my first bloodwork done after 6 weeks. Blood sugar was down to 80. A1C was 5.1, which is well within the “safe” range. However, cholesterol numbers were back up. 235 total. HDL was too low (39), LDL too high, triglycerides were in a normal range but the Trig:HDL ratio was too high.

So he wanted me to go back on the statins. I did, and have been taking them daily since then. Same ones I had been taking for several years prior to that 3-month vacation from them.

I plan to go back in for a re-check in April, 6 months after the last visit, which will be about 7 months on keto. I will most likely have some pretty significant weight loss compared to that visit, so I expect the doc to be surprised. I’m interested to see what the fasting glucose looks like on keto + statins. The last one was keto with no statins. Also the lipid numbers.

I may do another test of “no statins” after I get my weight down to a more healthy range. I don’t really notice any side effects from them and they don’t cost much, but I’d rather not take any pills I don’t have to.

(less is more, more or less) #39

I’m not sure where this thread has gone, but I fear the original question was buried in responses inconsistent with my visits with Dr. Westman as his patient.

Explicitly, his “When hungry, EAT AS MUCH AS YOU WANT OF THESE FOODS"(These foods have no carbs.)” list does not list butter, or fats and oils. This list closes with:

Don’t avoid the fat. Oils and butter have no carbs. You do not have to deliberately limit quantities, but you should stop eating when you feel full.

His advice to me was that I can enjoy butter, but we don’t have a green light to “limitless” butter. Yes, we’re to eat to satiety, but Dr. Westman also cautions against total disregard to high caloric food, like butter.

That is, snacking on butter, alone, is not a “page 4” sanctioned activity.

Dr. Westman is all about simplicity, which is sustainable. You might want to check out his Heal Clinics, where you can get a copy of his Page 4.

(Liz Ellen) #40

I think you’re being a little unfair in selectively pulling out one sentence from my response, but I am certainly not an expert. Nor have I met Dr. Westman – just watched a lot of his videos online.

He is the person who assuaged me that I wasn’t going to die on keto. So many of the “keto experts” online seem to just be selling you something or spouting dogma without discernible roots in science or exeprience. Dr. W has been doing this a long time and has the Duke academic medial center credentials.

Were you a patient of his, or did you meet him at a conference? He seems like a smart, kind man.