Meat Overdose

[pgarcia]

My wife is worried:

As a type II diabetic, I have put in my order for Dr. Bernstein's book, but I haven't received it yet. Like most people I know very little about the Atkins regimen, or low carbing in general.My wife is scared to death that I will start eating more protein than many small countries in eastern europe, and the number that will kill me first will be my cholesterol, rather than my a1c.

Has anyone out there jumped in too enthusiatically and seen a hugh jump in their bad cholesterol?

I will know more about low carbing once I read Dr bernstein's book, but I am curious about this.

IN God We Trust.....Semper Fi :wave:

[razzle]

it actually can happen to a small number of people, but it's rare, rare indeed.

sorry to be blunt, but what your wife thinks she knows about cholesterol is mostly wrong. We have no idea what the relationship between serum cholesterol and CV disease is. The triglyceride:HDL ratio can predict heart attacks to a certain degree, but that hardly means there's a clear causal link. (It may be that people genetically predisposed towards high triglyceride levels also just happen to be genetically predisposed toward heart attacks and the correlation is random.)

Look up Ravnskov's site on "The Cholesterol Myth" to get some interesting truths. For instance, did your wife know that it is LOW, not high serum cholesterol numbers that are associated with heart attacks in women over 60? Bet she didn't! :) Did she know that only 20% (or less) of our blood cholesterol comes from the foods we eat? Most is manufactured by the liver, and can only be manufactured in the presence of high levels of insulin.

Most people who eat LC see a significant drop in cholesterol and (even moreso) in triglycerides. at one point in my life, my cholesterol was 212, my tri's (as I recall) 179. Now, eating 18 or more eggs every week, I'm at 169 total chol, 72 tri, HDL is 67 of my total, putting me at a 1:1 tri:HDL ratio. Not many people get such numbers...in fact, I'd say only genetically gifted people and LCers do. (In fact, I've known women who dropped to 120-130 cholesterol on LCing and had to start eating more carbs as fruit to get it up--that's a dangerously low level.)
We've discussed this before in many posts. Try doing a search for "cholesterol" and see what you find of interest! And definitely read Ravnskov's website, and ideally his book. :)

HTH

[wbahn]

This diet (any of the LC variants) will almost certainly have a HUGE favorable impact on all of your blood numbers and many other things as well.

It sounds too good to be true - and that is one of the classic warning signs of snake oil. But if you read books like Protein Power you will get a good lay understanding of the role that insulin plays in so many modern diseases and how LC controls insulin and therefore those diseases.

The key to this not being snake oil isn't that insulin is somehow arbitrarily linked to so many health woes. It's not coincidence at all. We have a society that has let its insulin production get out of control and there are a number of ill things that result. If it was some other hormone that was rampantly out of control then we would see a different set of problems, many of them apparently unrelated on the surface, and getting that hormone back under control would have similar miraculous results.

[alto]

Hi, Paul! If you do that search razzle recommended, you'll probably come across lots of posts with the message "great numbes!" "cholesterole down!" "My doctor's so pleased at my new cholesterol numbers."

Reading that can be very reaffirming :) When I first started LC, I'd read all the naysaying, and had friends who gasped and looked away when I said no to bread because I was LCing. I'm sure we all do -- and I recognize in your case that your wife has genuine concerns about your health. Reading this forum, and all the posts from people who are doing just fine, thank you, and feeling much better than they did pre-LC was a great motivator.

Good luck to you! You'll feel better after you've read the book, too :)

[Debi Warne]

As a diabetic you will see your blood sugars coming down and stabilizing on this WOE -- mine started responding in just a couple of days.

I think it might be good for you to go in and get beginning bloodwork done on your cholesterol and glucose, along with blood pressure. That will give you something to compare with after you have been on this a month or so.

My blood sugar dropped from a 10 to 7.2 in only a couple of months and my triglicerides dropped in half and the doctor said he felt sure my others would continue to drop and normalize.

You won't feel the swings of high to low sugar you did before and you'll feel more energy -- that alone is a plus. If you are on any meds you may not see the weight come off as fast, but be sure and take beginning measurements too -- As we were working through my meds I didn't lose any weight, but lost 6 1/2" -- even the doctor noticed and said, what are you doing?

Keep us posted on how you are doing --

Debi

[pgarcia]

Thank You, Thank You, Thank You....... :

Of course, the response that I will most likely get from her is: "Who the heck is this Razzle character? One of your low carb friends? What do you think they will say?" :) Are low-carbers shadowy unsavory people who hang out on the corner under the streetlight? Is this the price that you have to pay for going against the commonly held dietary wisdom? The rebels of the dietary world?

I don't want to over-react now, but I look forward to adding eggs to my diet where for the last 30 years I have been told to stay away from them. Bacon sounds good too.

Do you indulge in red meat for protein, or stay with poultry and fish? I love fish, this is going to be good, with grill season coming back. Yum-Yum

Thanks for the web-site. Gonna go there now to see what's up.

In God We Trust.....Semper Fi :wave:

[alto]

Red meat is now a green light food :) We unsavory lowcarb types eat it all the time in our little low carb dives in the low carb end of town ;)

Do you want to hear the best part? Butter. Real salad dressing, like, with olive oil in it. For general health reasons do NOT eat margarine, or any processed oil. It's got something called trans-fatty acids in it which, some writers feel, is the root cause of all the world's ills.

You're going to like this book :)

[wbahn]

Originally posted by pgarcia
Are low-carbers shadowy unsavory people who hang out on the corner under the streetlight?

Hey, I resemble that statement! :D

See, you know us better than you thought already.


You can also do this - which is what I did before I started LC - I went out on the Internet and tried to find solid, researched backed claims for both pro and con. Guess what, I could find site after site telling me all the bad things that a low-carb diet WOULD do, but I couldn't find a single site that was able to tell me any of the bad things that a low-carb diet DID do. On the other hand, I had no problem finding site after site with specific numbers showing actual improvements in people's blood glucose, cholesterol, triglycerides, blood pressure - you name it.

[imready]

So little time! This is why I love this forum! It makes such sense! I, too, am a Type II Diabetic and my last HbA1c was 7.8 in February. May sound good, but it went up in a matter of three months from 6.8! It's been as low as 6.2 and as high as 11.3 (when I was diagnosed about three years ago). I am eager to have the test done again in May to see how it has changed. I really want to get off of some meds. That's one of my major goals. Another has already been met--I FEEL GREAT!

I am reading Dr. Bernstein's book now and I like what he says. I have read several books on LC-ing now, and the basic premise is the same for all, but there are little differences in the particulars of the ways of eating. It just shows you that you can choose the way that makes the most sense to you. I chose Atkins because I felt that I would benefit the most from it at the time. This may change in the future, but I am happy with my decision now.

I like what alto says. Go on red meat, butter rules! And there are health benefits to eating this way! I never felt as satisfied or on the right track as I do on this LC WOL. Some people may benefit from HC/LF, but I just don't fit in there.

I just had to get in on this! Thanks for letting me ramble!