So I got my cholesterol test results..

[JohnnyIrish]

I've been eating fat/cholesterol like crazy this year, even more so when I switched to a high fat/protein low carbs diet in april (like eating a dozen eggs a day). Now I read the theory but I wanted to get tested to make sure I wasn't hurting myself.

The results are:

11/20/2008 Total cholesterol: 210 mg/dl
HDL 50
LDL 148
VLDL 12

Trying to get a baseline I got numbers from my 2006 test (and I don't believe I was working out at all then):
2/2006 Total cholesterol: 202 mg/dl
HDL 41
LDL 136

Now while I have been lifting about 2x week I have not been doing much of any cardio in the past few months. However since these results I haven't missed doing cardio in the morning (except on lifting days).

How bad are these numbers? From what I read online these numbers don't look too good. The ldl reading as being "borderline high". If any of you guys know more about this then I.. what do think/recommend?

 

[eaturmcts]

This is not too bad, but not too good either.
Well some things you can do;
Include more Poly and mono unsaturated fats in your diet vs saturated and trans, increase cardio, eat more fruits and veggies-> fiber is key here, some supplments such as Psyllium Seed Husk Fiber or ground flax seed will also help.

 

[kickureface]

Looks like the #s got a little worse from 06, but not a lot. What kind of junk-like foods do you eat?

 

[JohnnyIrish]

Looks like the #s got a little worse from 06, but not a lot. What kind of junk-like foods do you eat?

Once a month or less I'll have one soda
Once a month or less I'll have a drink or two of alcohol
once every 3-4 weeks I'll splurge and eat some chicken fingers with bbq sauce (with broccoli instead of fries)
I might have some fries once every 2 months or so..
Carb day I also eat some fats along with carbs (cheese steaks, burgers with a bun, pasta in a thick cheesy marinara sauce etc).
As for daily carbs I use ketchup for my meat and vanilla extract with my shakes (not mentioning the greens I eat).

If you were getting at chips, pizza, fried foods, and cookies then no I don't eat those (check that I had my first cookie in like 6 months last week when my gf got done cooking some awesome sugar cookies. I totally splurged and had like 3!! )

 

[kickureface]

what other carbs do you eat and what kind of fats do you eat?

 

[JohnnyIrish]

I typically carb up on a day on the weekend. I'll eat a bunch of pasta, burgers with a wheat bun, cheesesteaks, and wheat bread pbnj (with natural peanut butter), maybe some perogies if I'm at my gf's house with some other carby random things thrown in but those are the main stay.

As for the fats:
I typically eat 10 high omega 3 cage free eggs a day during the week days.
I also eat a ton of 12% fat ground beef (1-3 meals a day), plus chicken, turkey, or bacon.

I also take:
20g fish oil a day (broken up into 4 servings of 5 pills each)
4g vit C (4 pills)
50mg zinc picolinate
2 gnc mega mens multi

Recently been adding digestive enzymes too (when i remember to actually bring and eat them with meals )

 

[Drum&Bass]

Maybe those numbers might be bad if you were a sedentary individual but you exercise regularly. What is you BF% looking like ??

 

[simon]

From http://cholesterol.emedtv.com/hdl/hdl-ldl-ratio.html

"The HDL/LDL ratio looks at the ratio of good cholesterol (HDL) to bad cholesterol (LDL). The ratio is determined by dividing the LDL cholesterol into the HDL cholesterol. For example, if a person has an HDL cholesterol of 50 mg/dL and an LDL cholesterol of 150 mg/dL, the HDL/LDL ratio would be 0.33. The goal is to keep the HDL/LDL ratio above 0.3, with the ideal HDL/LDL ratio being above 0.4."

Your ratio went from 0.30 to 0.34. Keep on eating the way you have done and maybe someday you'll get to above 0.4!!!!

From http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=14631

"The total cholesterol to HDL cholesterol ratio is a number that is helpful in predicting an individual's risk of developing atherosclerosis. The number is obtained by dividing the total cholesterol value by the value of the HDL cholesterol. (High ratios indicate higher risks of heart attacks, low ratios indicate lower risk).

High total cholesterol and low HDL cholesterol increases the ratio, and is undesirable. Conversely, high HDL cholesterol and low total cholesterol lowers the ratio, and is desirable.

An average ratio would be about 4.5. Ideally we want to be better than average if we can. Thus the best ratio would be 2 or 3, or less than 4."

Your ratio went from 4.9 to 4.2. If you stick to your cardio, who knows, maybe you'll finally break the 4.0 barrier!!!!!


I think that says it all really...you're eating a diet high in cholesterol and saturated fat but, according to the doctors, you're at lower risk of heart disease. Yay!!

Also, your total cholesterol has increased. There are studies, which the government, doctors and pharma casually ignore, that show that people with lower total cholesterol are more likely to commit suicide, have slower movement, lower decision times, lower visuomotor speed, higher incidence of depression, higher risk of Alzheimers etc. than people with higher total cholesterol.

Fun times!

 

[JohnnyIrish]

Wow thanks Simon.. so according to your math my new numbers aren't bad. They are actually an improvement on my 2006 numbers. Nice! :woo:

 

[kickureface]

simon, you should be president of health