EAT MOAR FAT! I'm finally GETTING it. page 98

[Miss Understood]

Whoa, you're comparing results from five years ago? That hardly tells us if Primal helped or hurt the situation. If you had results from just before going Primal, then you'd have some basis of comparison.

I don't know how Primal could jack most people's LDL and trigs. Especially trigs. Do you use FitDay or any other tracking to test out your macros? When my wife and I transitioned into Primal, we were doing VLC during the week, with our 20% on the weekends. We also were running about 3 times a week. Our trigs improved dramatically, and LDL came in line nicely.

My Trigs were a mess previously and more likely to kill me than the current cholesterol. Trigs were 294 before and dropped to 122. Still, I'd expect Trigs under 75 on 40-50 grams of carbs a day. I haven't been to a doctor in years so I agree this is no indictment of Primal eating. My cholesterol may have gone up every year since the last blood test. The point is, I was expecting nine months of eating this way to produce equal or lower total cholesterol and LDL, and very low Trigs.

[Finnegans Wake]

My Trigs were a mess previously and more likely to kill me than the current cholesterol. Trigs were 294 before and dropped to 122. Still, I'd expect Trigs under 75 on 40-50 grams of carbs a day. I haven't been to a doctor in years so I agree this is no indictment of Primal eating. My cholesterol may have gone up every year since the last blood test. The point is, I was expecting nine months of eating this way to produce equal or lower total cholesterol and LDL, and very low Trigs.

It takes time, and it does depend on your baseline. If your numbers were way out of whack, which seems to be the case, then 9 months may not be enough. The point is, your trigs are going down, and will continue to do so. There is nothing in Primal that should cause them to go up or to stagnate. There are a lot of good resources about lipids (Google Dr. Attia), and TC is not a concern IMO. As another poster mentioned, the LDL(b) is more problematic than LDL(a), but I agree that total LDL likely should be far lower, and TG should be far lower. Keep the faith.

Also, do you exercise? Clearing out your glycogen stores and eating LC should drop TGs drastically. Just some nice easy jogs a few times a week works for me, but everyone has their own thang. Kettles, body work, etc. I tend to be lazy and to drink too much wine, but I'm still moving in the right direction, slowly, surely.

[Urban Forager]

My husband TGs took a long time time to move downward and last time we checked in February they were still over 100. His LDL was also high. He was a little disappointed because we'd been eating paleo for quite some time. Then I read that you should wait to have your cholesterol checked until you reach your goal weight. He just recently moved from medically "obese" to "overweight", the thinnest I've ever seen him. He decided to not have his blood checked again until he reaches his goal weight.

[Annlee]

My Trigs were a mess previously and more likely to kill me than the current cholesterol. Trigs were 294 before and dropped to 122. Still, I'd expect Trigs under 75 on 40-50 grams of carbs a day. I haven't been to a doctor in years so I agree this is no indictment of Primal eating. My cholesterol may have gone up every year since the last blood test. The point is, I was expecting nine months of eating this way to produce equal or lower total cholesterol and LDL, and very low Trigs.

Be aware that 40-50g carb may be too much for you; rules of thumb are just a starting point from which to develop knowledge. I have a fairly low tolerance for carb, probably because I went whole hog on the healthy grains bit. There may be some epigenetic factors in there, too, but it's hard for me to tell (mother had Alzheimer's, died 11 years ago). What I have figured out empirically, with record keeping (I prefer CRON-o-Meter, others like SparkPeople or FitDay), is that I need to be below 40, and preferably below 30.

And you know what? I don't miss them ... but there is an adaptation period. Now it's easy for me to have 2-4Tbsp heavy cream in my morning chai, then nothing until dinner, which is meat and some veggies. Not too much on veggies unless it's salad, then a couple of cups is plenty. Butter and cream are a huge help, unless even fatty dairy is not good with you. In that case, coconut oil seems to help.

Keep letting us know how it goes.

[meeme]

I have a question, is anybody here sensitive to dairy ?
If so, what's your experience with mascarpone and heavy cream ?

Because I tend to tolerate butter quite well, can't eat much yoghurt or milk without feeling bad, and can't eat much cheese without having acid reflux the next day.
I want to try Mascarpone since it's mostly fat...

Thanks

I haven't tried it yet so hopefully someone here will have that experience for both of us. I've been doing well on ghee and every three days kefir made with creamy milk. I use coconut milk the rest of the time. I'm allergic to casein and (fingers crossed) have tolerated this limited kefir well. That could change...we'll see. You're doing very well by the way. Way to go!!

[KWM]

Wow, Cori-- Dr. Gegaudas is in Portland, Oregon, where both my buddy and I go for most of our medical stuff. (I have a Primal-Friendly MD in Hood River, Oregon.) We're just two hours east, up the Columbia Gorge. Good to know Dr. G's so close at hand.

[sbhikes]

I did not think marscapone was worth the money. It has almost no flavor. It melts into oil. I prefer kefir cheese or sour cream. More flavor, more versatile and cheaper.

[WeldingHank]

I have a question, is anybody here sensitive to dairy ?
If so, what's your experience with mascarpone and heavy cream ?

Because I tend to tolerate butter quite well, can't eat much yoghurt or milk without feeling bad, and can't eat much cheese without having acid reflux the next day.
I want to try Mascarpone since it's mostly fat...

Thanks

Haven't tried mascarpone, but anything other than butter gives me super acne all over my body for a week.

[excursivey]

OMG I made it to the end of the thread! I'm a newbie so this has been FASCINATING. It's only been a week. I thought it was going well but felt a little stopped up if you know what I mean, although everything still moving. Then today, um, all came RUSHING out. Does that sound like carb flu? Or at least normal? Felt a little queasy every day around the middle of the day but it always seems to pass.

[lissee]

OMG I made it to the end of the thread! I'm a newbie so this has been FASCINATING. It's only been a week. I thought it was going well but felt a little stopped up if you know what I mean, although everything still moving. Then today, um, all came RUSHING out. Does that sound like carb flu? Or at least normal? Felt a little queasy every day around the middle of the day but it always seems to pass.

Welcome to MDA! Sounds like typical carb flu to me and die off. My gut flora was sooooo incredibly messed up when I started this last november, and the die-off (micro-flora gut bacteria changing for the better) was so bad it took me three month-long tries cutting out the starches & sugar completely before I was good to go...

If you find yourself getting stopped up again (which was a huge stressor for me when I went through die-off) then take magnesium. What you don't absorb into your body is flushed out through the colon. Magnesium attracts water, so you can get the idea if you take too much. :P