Sticking to carnivore despite weight stall - cholesterol question

carnivore

#1

I’ve been keto for years and lost a lot of weight and kept the BS under control, but I guess I started getting lazy and let carbs creep in. Back to almost 200 pounds on my 5’4" frame, and the BS numbers were hitting the 120-137 mark consistently every morning. I decided to go carnivore, which eliminates almost all of those sneaky carbs. My body is so carb sensitive, just looking at popcorn can shoot my glucose up! /sucks to be me

My main goal is to manage the blood sugar - T2 diabetes killed my mom, grandma, aunt, and I have siblings with it, as well. It’s ravaged the maternal side of my family.

I’ve been about a month on carnivore, lost about ten pounds and now I’ve hit one of those brick walls. The weight isn’t dropping, but at least my morning BS numbers are coming down. I’m watching a ton of videos from the “experts” in the field, and am trying to find what works for me. I think I’m going to cut back on the fat and see what happens.

My labs just came back, and my cholesterol numbers are much higher than I thought they’d be. I’ve already told the doc there is no way I’m ever taking a statin, and we had a discussion about my diet and my goals - to solve the problem and not just mask the symptoms. She’s actually curious and is going to look into the diet herself. At least she’s not like my last doctor, who tried to strong arm me into statins! We both agreed that since I’m going to give this 90 days before I start to get too worried, I’ll go back in January for more labs and we’ll go from there. In the meantime, I’ll keep educating myself, and I hope she does, too.

My mother was on thyroid meds, btw. My thyroid has always been a concern, since my weight has been a problem for most of my life. My skin has always leaned towards the dry side and I’m missing the outer half of my eyebrows, for so long that I can’t remember when. I do however, have a luxurious head of hair.

Any feedback on my lab numbers and suggestions would be appreciated (first numbers are from April, second numbers are from October, 2024). Anything that is out of normal range I’ll mark in parentheses:

Labs - CMP (whatever that means)
Glucose 89, 97
BUN/Creatinine Ratio: 29(h), 33(h)

Labs - HgA1c: 6.1 (h) / 5.9 (h)

Labs: Lipid Panel:
Cholesterol, Total: 214 (h) / 326(h)
Triglycerides: 67 / 86
HDL : 60 / 77
VLDL : 11 / 13
LDL Chol Calc (NIH): 143 (h) / 236 (h)

Labs: TSH Rfx on Abnormal to Free T4
TSH: 3.080 / 4.640 (h)


(Robin) #2

Your labs look ok to me.
While you’re hitting a brick wall on the scales, do you see your clothes getting looser? I came to view stalls as a natural part of the journey.
Sometimes it seems like our bodies find a nice weight to rest at
(maybe a previous set-point) and will eventually start losing again.
That’s why I like measuring hips, waist, etc instead of focusing on the scale.


(Alec) #3

My opinions:

  1. Ignore all your cholesterol numbers, all irrelevant. Cholesterol does not cause CVD. If you are concerned about CVD for whatever reason go get a CAC scan done: reasonably cheap and measures the actual disease, not some discredited proxies.
  2. If there is any of them that has any signal to take notice of it’s the trigs… yours is lovely and low. So no problems.
  3. Your HBA1C is slightly too high, and therefore you need to stick with a very low carb diet: carnivore is good.
  4. Thyroid: are you taking iodine as a supplement? If not, I suggest you do.
  5. Weight: I would recommend sticking to carnivore for the long term: keep eating fatty meat and eggs. Please be patient. Your body can take its own sweet time getting the healing done. I would not reduce the fat… eating animal fat is lovely and healthy, and it is what we should eat (with protein of course) almost exclusively. It is what we are built to digest.

Hope things go well… good luck!
Cheers
Alec


#4

Yes, been taking two drops daily for about a week now. Thanks for responding.


(Alec) #5

My recommendation is to take at least a milligram per day. The recommended daily intake is 250 (ish) micrograms. There are reputable experts on this that recommend 50milligrams per day for anyone with thyroid issues (200 times the recommend daily intake). The doctors I have listened to have said that any excess will get just excreted out and it’s not dangerous. I take a middle ground: more than the RDI but much less than the mega dose suggested.


(Bean) #6

If you can, have a full thyroid panel done. Personally, I don’t convert thyroid well, so I can have a normal TSH and still need natural thyroid hormone.

How long have you been stalled?


#7

So you don’t stall at all yet just see no weight changes since a few days? That’s fine. Even weeks are fine. It’s not a linear thing.

If you guess the fat is too high, you can cut it back if it’s comfortable enough for you. It’s my method now too as I KNOW I tend to eat too much fat to lose fat. But just because you don’t see results in a very little time (in my eyes, you lost a lot of weight in a month, it’s superb. of course IDK how much of that is water), you shouldn’t change anything. If you can eat whatever you like and get results, do that and I may envy you a tiny bit :smiley: So, just continue, enjoy your woe and you will see if results will keep coming. I see no reason for a change yet.


(Bob M) #8

Are you a woman? Your results seem more “womanly” to me (higher HDL for instance).


(Marianne) #9

Wow, you found a unicorn! I just get a rash of blank from my doctors. You may find your cholesterol (especially LDL) is high. You may also find that your HDL is favorable, as is your ratio. Those are what I concentrate on concerning my cholesterol health.

Good luck to you.


#10

Yes, and menopausal.


(Robin) #11

My sympathies. Thankfully I am well past menopause at 70.
There are benefits included with the gift of a long life.