I've been on a low fat diet since having a high cholesterol test in November. I admitt to being over weight and not working out like I should. I started exercising every day and the low fat diet. I've lost 15 pounds and feel alot better. I got my new results today and was hoping of course for better numbers. I'm wondering if low carb diet would help me ? Oh and would adding fish to my diet help as well?
November 02-
Total=260
HDL=47
LDL=171
Triglyceride=209

Feb 03-
Total=211
HDL=37
LDL=126
Triglyceride=238

I'm a non smoker, 29 yrs old, no family history and my BP usual is around 106-112/60s-low70s. I've never had a high reading before..but have only been overweight the last 2 yrs. My Dr never seemed as concerned as I was (I'm a worry wart.) She believes I just needed to lose weight , change my diet and exercise. Any advice would be great. Thanks!!

Your total cholesterol and LDL may be lower, but this is not an improvement over your prior test. Your triglycerides went up (bad) and your HDL went down (also bad); your HDL/Total went from 5.3 to 5.7 (you want that ratio to go down, not up).
Adding fish or fish oil to your diet will definitely help get that HDL back up again along with some other healthy fats such as olive oil and butter and low carbing will help get those triglycerides way down. Lower triglycerides and an HDL over 50 are thought to be very protective against heart disease.
Have a read through this forum. You may find a lot of information to help you make your decision, but if you do decide to give low carbing a try, I'd suggest that you wait about 6 months before having a recheck to give your system time to adjust. A temporary increase when beginning low carb is normal, but after a few months it usually settles down and shows improvement over beginning numbers. Good luck!

Hey thanks for the info! I wasn't very happy with my new numbers. I've been coming here to the board and just reading for awhile now, but I still have some research to do on low carb dieting. I'm going to try it and see what happens.

FYI, my total cholesteral didn't change much for almost a year and the LDL pretty well stayed the same, but my triglycerides/HDL ratio changed dramatically, which means my 'risk' factor went from above normal to well below normal. In September my latest readings showed my LDL dropped 33 points! Plus the continuing changes in my trig/hdl brought my total down to 209 which result was my doctor stopped badgering me to go on a statin drug. (I'd been fending him off for months about that)

kjturner,
Glad to hear your numbers are better. My Dr hasn't mentioned meds to me. She really believes in trying the diet and exercise route. Hey I'm originally from Georgia myself. Thanks for the reply.

Sounds like you might just have a good doc there....