sup all.

every 6 months i go for bloodwork with lipids panel due to having a family history of heart disease. the last 4 of those months i was experimenting with a plant-based diet that was extremely low in fat and saturated fat. my hope was to reduce my total cholesterol from 132 to <100, and my goal was to see if a big change in my diet could have any influence over the role a genetic condition may have whatsoever.

Lipid Panel With LDL/HDL Ratio
Cholesterol, Total - 131
Triglycerides 35
HDL Cholesterol 36 (low)
VLDL Cholesterol Cal 7
LDL Cholesterol Calc 88
LDL/HDL Ratio 2.4

I see my total cholesterol has not changed at all, and the only significant changes were my HDL cholesterol is now marked as low. As far as other results that have changed, my calcium serum and urinalysis pH were borderline high, whereas 6 months ago they were normal.

conclusion: genetics win. total cholesterol dropped by 1 point, so the change in diet didn't even benefit me a little bit as i'd hoped. i've felt no different on a low-fat plant-based diet than i did eating clean with animal products, same energy levels same weight consistency etc. i'll have to look into the pH and calcium thing.

This post was edited by Wretch on Jul 1 2015 02:19pm

...while a one-person study isn't any way conclusive this *is* interesting.

Thanks for sharing.

whats ur height and weight?

how often do u lift?

cardio?

what supplements do u take if any?

just curious

You can compare to my lipid panel. I eat whatever I want, and gained 60 pounds during wife's pregnancy last year, and lift/cardio several times a week. Supps include creatine and fish oil amd whey

uhh my understanding is that if you want to improve your cholesterol, you have to eat reasonably high fat (60g+). so it makes sense that eating low fat doesn't improve your cholesterol. eat some olive oil / avocados / almonds.

This post was edited by carteblanche on Jul 1 2015 10:22pm

Diet doesn't influence much except in extreme intake cases. Exercise is a much better predictor of health

5'8 142lbs, lift 4 days a week, about 40mins of cardio a week. and i take krill oil, glucosamine, and black cumin seed oil.



well at least i've got that going for me! still though, if a certain diet can help me out even a little bit with these numbers, i'd like to find out what it is.



this makes sense, and i'll definitely be getting plenty of healthy fats for the following 6 months. such an extremely low fat diet turned out to be totally counter-productive in lowering my HDL. it wasn't a wise choice at all

This post was edited by Wretch on Jul 2 2015 03:45pm

Probably not tbh. Diet doesn't influence cholesterol very much. You could lower TG by taking in less fat but you can also just exercise. Exercise will likely improve all aspects of a blood lipid panel compared to what your baseline is, especially cardio work. The only thing is I don't know whether the values you posted there are already influenced by exercise or not

Oh god

exercise has been constant and pretty consistent for the past few years. the only changes are during the winter i work out 6 days a week while not working, and during spring/summer/fall when i do work a physically demanding job, work out only 4 days a week.