Go figure….

So, eating an overwhelmingly carnivore (meat based) diet for more than five years, feasting royally on eggs and real butter and cooking in bacon fat, how wrecked are my lipid numbers? Funny you should ask, because this morning the doc drew blood again and the results showed up in my inbox this afternoon:

My cholesterol came in high: 215 total. BUT of that, the HDL was 111; the LDL-C was 94; and the triglycerides were all of 48. So all of the ratios were in “normal” range, and even on the lower side. The most astounding ratio to me was the Trig/HDL, which came to .4. Optimal range there is .5-1.9. Some insulin resistance shows as 2.0-3.0. Significant insulin resistance is above 3. I’m sitting just slightly better than the perfect range!

It gets even more interesting if I share that this lipid profile was run just six months ago. The doc wanted them rechecked because she didn’t like what she saw at all: You see, in February, my total cholesterol was 390. My HDL was 83. My triglycerides were 155. My LDL was 275. Six months later the triglycerides were down by 100 and the LDL by 181. How did that happen? Statins, right? WRONG. I refused to take them.

Still eating overwhelmingly meat, cheese, eggs, and so on, and no cholesterol lowering medicines, the numbers came into perfect ratios. One thing did change, and I suspect it’s huge (suspect, because after all,  post hoc ergo propter hoc is a logical fallacy). Back the first week in June I gave up coffee (regular or decaf.) . For a number of years we made our coffee without a paper filter, using a pour over. I loved the rich taste, but it was causing me some other health issues. So I just dropped it entirely. We already knew about pour over coffee elevating triglycerides, but the total effect on dropping it has been nothing short of astounding. And with the coffee, I’ve stopped alcohol except for when I receive the Sacrament. Crazy, isn’t it? I can’t wait to hear what the doc says about THESE results. 

About the coffee, it was sad to give it up as I’ve drunk it since I was a kid. But my body was giving me signs (which I won’t go into) that it needed to go. So go it went. But thanks to my sister-in-law, we’ve discovered brewed cocoa and enjoy that now and again. It’s 99.9% caffeine free, and doesn’t seem to have any of the negative impact the coffee did (but it’s only now and again because it is way more expensive).