Hi!!

My name is Rhonda and i just recently signed up to this beautiful forums! I have a ton of questions.

I have high blood pressure 150/100 taking 2 pills for it. Now it reads like 130/80 but would like to stop taking all of these pills. My fasting blood sugar is 99.

My Cholesterol is like this TC is 162 my HDL is 42 and my LDL is 78 as my VLDL is 40. My Triglycerides is 204.

Now i want to go on the atkins diet to im prove my HDL and lower my triglycerides. And lower my blood pressure and get my blood sugar level down more.

But....I also have read upon the Pritikin diet and the Dean ornish. Which is like 70% carbs! But its like good carbs that dont make your blood sugar spike up like a damn machine!!

So which one is better the low fat/high carb or the high fat/low carb?

I mean If you go to www.pritikin.com you go to success stories and you read upon many saying that their cholesterols went low and their blood pressures were perfect! SOunds like a dream come true! But i need MEAT LOL!

Thats why i want the atkins. Cause i cant give up meat us southern people ill tell ya that we need meat!

So which one should i choose? Atkins or Pritikin/Ornish?

I mean the pros and cons are

Atkins Pros: Lovely food, never hungry, lower tryglycerides.
Cons: Raises cholesterol too much, bad breath, some mood swings?

Pritikin/Ornish Pros: Fruits and Veggies! Good success stories
Cons: Hard to stay on, dry skin, no MEAT!

Now with Cholesterol Ornish has stated in his book that in his diet your HDL goes down but your LDL goes down even further! he had this anology that HDL is the garbage trucks and the LDL is the garbage so with low LDL less garbage trucks!

I have read many people complain about their cholesterol going sky high on the atkins diet!! I dont want that! But i want to give the atkins a try.

So my questions are:

I have read people here bashing Ornish and Pritikin saying that it is bad for you....WHy is it bad for you? Can i get some more info on that?

If Pritikin and Ornish dont work how come on their websites there is people saying their success stories??

Did Atkins really die of his own diet? What was the cause of death?

And finally which one should i really choose!?? Atkins or Pritikin/Ornish? I want Opinions and maybe your opinions can help me out!!

Thank you lovely people take care!

Rhonda
Down south chik!

Hullo Rhonda, welcome!

First of all, Dr Atkins died from a head injury. No way you can blame his diet on that. Unfortunately, some nasty people have been spreading rumours ever since that he died from heart disease, but the cause of his death is a matter of public record. He slipped on an icy pavement and suffered a fatal head injury.

Should you go on a low fat or a low carb diet? Um, did you really think anyone on a low carb board would tell you to eat a low fat, high carb diet?

I strongly believe that eating low carb is much, much healthier than low fat, high carb. Why don't you check our Success Stories?
I would also suggest you have a look through our Cholesterol forum.
The only time Atkins/low carbing raises cholesterol is when it raises HDL.

As for the bad breath, that is only when people are in ketosis, and can simply and easily be remedied by drinking plenty of water.

HTH!

Rosebud

Thank you for such the warm welcome rosebud!


Well the reason i ask is low fat better than low carb or vice versa is because my Step father had high cholesterol and normal blood pressure but like 15 lbs overweight and had to get bypass(SP?) for his heart arteries. And that scares me because ive heard many say that high cholesterol is not linked with heart disease and im just confused! My step dad by the way is doing well on a low fat diet but he gets kind of hungry at times and has mood swings when i vist him even when i havent seen him in a while!

But what about the success stories at pritikin.com? LIke you hear of peole getting their cholesterols down to 120 and their blood pressure drops to like 110 over 65 and 73% of diabetic people are OFF insulin while on the Pritikin DIet!!

IT just so CONFUSED!! LOL....i dont know what do to! One day i hear cholesterol is not linked wit heart disease the next day my step dad has bypass cause of high cholesterol. People here have high cholesterol but feel great!! I dont know what to make of this!

I just want to hear low carbers opinions on low fat diets and why you "FEEL" so secure about low car diets...

This kind of subject is so interesint keep posting please! I need more INPUT LOL!

Rhonda

A low-fat diet has left many folks chronically hungry and counting the minutes until their next meal. In addition, eating loads of carbs will raise your blood sugar so that more insulin must be produced to deal with the excess sugar -- this causes great mood swings in lots of us who are sensitive. I remember biting my husband's head off many times over little things and his saying, "Will you just eat something?!!" to try and get me back to a decent mood. So...

As a fellow Southerner, I say go with Atkins. Commit to a very clean 2-week Induction period and see how it goes. You will see a very encouraging loss during that time period and you will also have an energy boost afer (about) day 3-4. Both boosts to keep you going. In addition, there is no reason whatsoever to ever be hungry. When you're hungry, EAT. Just make sure you're eating from the Approved list of foods for Induction.

I had my bloodwork done after being on Atkins for about 7 weeks and there was MASSIVE improvement in my triglycerides (which were HUGE before), my LDL and also a healthy rise in my HDL. I'm on a more even keel mood-wise than ever (not so say I'm normal yet!). I'm never hungry and I get to eat Southern Fried Chicken.

In the immortal words of Larry the Cable Guy, "I don't care who you care, that's good!"

Hi Rhonda, as Rosbud said we are low carbers. But which diet you should go on will be up to you in the end. I believe with your medical problems you should first consult a doctor. Most are going to object to any of these diets and give you their plan, but either way you should not go on any diet with medical problems without consulting with a doctor. By the way I believe that Atkins is very healthy for you, you will build the good carbs back into your diet as time goes on and will be eating healthier than you probably imagined.
Good Luck to you!
Brenda

Here, on this board, you will not find anyone who supports low fat over low carb. If we didn't believe the lc way was right for us, we would not be eating LC and posting here. On the Ornish board, the reverse is true.

Neither are good places to look for objectivity. Both are great places to read the personal experiences of people who have succeeded and/or struggled with the choice they have made.

When people ask which of the various LC plans to choose, I often share my perspective that all of them work, but that some plans are better fits than others given an individual's food preferences and lifestyle. I think the same can be said for choosing low carb over low fat and vice versa.

With that as background, make a choice and give it your all for awhile. If it turns out that the choice you make initially is not a good one for your particular needs, that choose another way to lose weight and get healthy.

I've found that Atkins has made me feel both physically and emotionally stable. I used to have horrible mood swings before LC. I was diagnosed with Depression and started taking Lexapro and my weight shot up! I had previously done Atkins and remembered how good I felt and started again. I really do feel a lot more positive. I can see how during Induction people may have mood swings, but most of the people I know said it passes within a few days. Good Luck! You could always try one out and see how it fits you!

Rhonda, it sounds like you've answered your own question. The bottom line when choosing a long-term plan is that it must be something you can stick with long-term. If getting your protein sources from low fat dairy products, soy products and egg whites isn't something you can live with long-term, then Pritikin and Ornish probably aren't the plans for you. Just like Atkins (or any other controlled carb plan), these are plans you are expected to stick with for life, not just until you get the results you wanted and then you can go back to your old eating habits.
OTOH, following Atkins doesn't mean that you have to eat all the saturated fat you can find. If the thought of saturated fat bothers you, choose fish, chicken, turkey, lean pork, whole eggs and leaner cuts of beef and fattier cuts of meat only occasionally and leave out the bacon and sausage. Use smaller amounts of salad dressings, butter and cheese. Use olive oil for cooking and add flax oil to your salads.
I personally don't believe that saturated fat is harmful when following a controlled carb plan, but there is no law that says you have to eat a lot of it on low carb to follow low carb correctly.

It seems to me that the most important thing I can say to you about low carbing is that I am never hungry longer than it takes to get to the kitchen! As a life long hypoglycemic, that is huge for me, and I never have blood sugar drops that make me a bitchy, mean, emotional mess. Nope, stable and nauseatingly upbeat, that's me.

I'll also tell you that for me the secret to keeping my blood pressure meds down to one (which I've been on since I was a size 20 at age 22) is an excercise program. Anything really. water aerobics worked, and now I've started Curves, and low and behold, my blood pressure is lower this morning than it has been in a week!

I do think with so many things going on you should talk to your dr., but do also remember that s/he works for you, and you are ultimately in control.

Different eating plans work well for different people. You need to thing about what is important to you, and what you think you can live with. Make a 6 week commitment to yourself, and give whatever you picked an honest try. If you don't feel better, then try something else. 6 weeks won't necessarily lose you a lot of weight, but it will give you some idea of health impact and sustainability.

Personally my moods swings are much better on LC. I don't have hypoglycenic episodes which made me cranky.

There are plenty of people on LC who have lowered their cholestrol. And there are LOTS of success stories on LC too!

You say your step-dad had a by-pass. You also say that you have read about the benefits of certain diets. Did you make any comparison between your step-dad's regular diet and those that you read? You also say that he is on a low-fat diet but is constantly hungry and has mood-swings. Doesn't sound from this distance that his diet is serving the purpose but then we all are our own executioners.

Cholesterol is an essential bodily nutrient that is produced from saturated fats (not veg fats) which just also happens to be highly nutritious.

Grains, seeds, nuts (possibly with the exception of those sprouted) and their products are harmful and tend to ramp-up the blood sugar-level and cause weight gain.

You may wish to read what Dr Mary Enig and Dr Raymond Peat have to say on the subject (try a search engine). An interesting site would be that of 'Weston A Price' for general information on diets.

Hi, Rhonda.

Just first a word of caution, don't stop taking your BP meds suddenly. They need to be eased off.

Secondly, I too have been diagnosed with high BP and given two meds. After reading about the beta blockers and taking a couple and experiencing the yuckiness, I opted out of that one. So now I am just taking the diuretic and will end that after I finish this prescrip.

One of the things I noticed before I started atkins again, was that my BP and my heart rate would go through the roof when I ate a high carb meal.

Also, with your fasting sugar at 99 it is almost a certainly that you are insulin resistant, and low carb is the best way to go to beat that. And insulin resistance can in, and of itself, cause high BP.

Plus low carb will reduce your triglycerides almost immediately.

You mentioned about high cholestarol. Excuse me if I am repeating anyone here, but my step dad started atkins BECAUSE he had high cholestarol. It is well known on these boards that Dr Atkins diet (or LC in general) is good for your heart, simply because you cut out a lot of the bad cholestarol, and replace it with plenty of the good type.
His cholestarol went from seriously dangerous to completely normal in 6 months.
Everyone (who knows nothing about LC) is worried about the affects of "all that fat" but in reality, it is better eating the right kinds of fat, than kill yourself with all that low fat stuff.

While I'm no expert on the cholesterol thing, I wanted to share my experience with both low-fat and low-carb.

Low Fat:

- could never last more than a week or two, would lose maybe 6 pounds or so and then quit because it was too hard
- ate lots of diet foods, such as Lean Cuisine meals, low-fat cookies, diet salad dressings
-felt tired and hungry all the time
-felt deprived
-would lose weight, only to regain it and MORE within a month, making the "diet" worse than not dieting at all..b/c it increased my weight over time
-headaches from being so hungry
-low energy
-grumpy and sort of bummed out most of the time...the diet made me feel like I couldn't enjoy myself..everything was such a struggle.. and I was forcing myself to eat things that tasted like cardboard all the time

Low Carb:

-almost three months into it now
-have lost almost 30 pounds
-I've eliminated trans fats from my diet
-I eat 3 cups of vegetables every day (lots of spinach and broccoli)
-I don't buy much in the way of processed foods, but rather..whole foods from the dairy, meat and produce section of the grocery store
-I eat the "good" fats, such as fish and olive oil - and here I think the ratio of good fats to the so-called bad fats is the important thing
-I never feel hungry or deprived
-I have much more energy..and it's a nice calm sort of energy
-with low carb, I know I'm going to reach my goal, and I have a pretty good feeling about being able to keep it off, because I find the food really good and I don't feel deprived like I did on low-fat.
-I don't feel like I'm being held hostage by my "diet" and I can enjoy myself without feeling like I'm on some sort of "works program" or what have you.

So...the point needs to be made...the diet that one can stick to is probably better than one that is a real struggle.

This being said, I am not sure about the cholesterol situation, but I'm trying to learn more about it.

I wanted mention a couple of things that might be relevant to heart healthy eating..

- I found these wonderful eggs, called "Omega 3 eggs", real eggs, but very high in Omega 3 because the chickens are fed flax..they taste the same as "regular" eggs

- I eat a lot of fish

- I eat a vegetable with every meal, including breakfast (spinach in an omelette, cherry tomatoes with poached eggs etc.) - how many people do you think actually eat veggies all the time?

- I use cheese as a condiment more than anything else...so I buy the nicely flavoured cheeses to grate onto my salads or onto hot steamed broccoli

- I eat spinach salad almost every day, topped with avocado and olive oil & vingegar dressing

Doesn't sound so "un-healthy" now does it?

Good luck with your decision, and best wishes in correcting your cholesterol situation.

I agree with Citruskiss and the other posters that you need to find a diet plan that suits your dietary preferences. For me, low carb allows me to eat the foods I love, and it has been great for my cardiovascular health. Like you, I was skeptical of this way of eating because I believed the medical establishment. But while eating according to the food pyrimid, my weight skyrocketed, my cholesterol became elevated (high bad cholesterol/low good cholesterol) and I developed high blood pressure. Prior to starting on Atkins I had a complete physical and bloodwork. After a few months on low carb, I lost most of the excess weight, my blood pressure returned to normal, and my bloodwork improved dramatically (lower LDL, higher HDL, lower C-reactive protein, etc). My physician looked at the numbers and said to just keep doing whatever I'd been doing- that my health had improved dramatically. The weight has stayed off for over two years and my cardiovascular health continues in great shape. Hopefully your results will be similar. Be sure to do the bloodwork in advance and after a few months to reassure yourself (and to show to skeptical friends who are sure to warn you about the dangers of low carb).