Disappointed in cholesterol test results

Mbeth

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I got my cholesterol checked today, and I was disappointed that there wasn't much change since I've stopped eating meat and dairy products. While I'm doing okay, I'd really love to get my numbers in the optimal range. In the past week or so I've really cut out oils, so I know continuing with that will really help. And I'm still eating a couple of eggs a week from my own backyard chickens, so I'm sure that's contributing as well. I've been mostly meat and dairy free for all of 2019- maybe it just takes longer for things to change?
My test results from today are:
Total Cholesterol: 175
HDL: 57
LDL: 105
Triglycerides: 69

And my glucose was 103, which surprised me as well. :confounded:
 
I have tried to figure out eggs. There is so much contradictory data out there.
One thing I tried to figure out is what is the optimal number of eggs to eat each week. and there are reports that put it from 0 to .... i can't remember.... maybe 12?

There is nothing necessary or essential in eggs so best bet is to err on the side of caution and not eat any.

Also Bite Size Vegan has a great article on video on how eating backyard chicken eggs is not vegan. Her advice, leave the eggs alone.

My best advice is to try not eating eggs for a year and try to go more oil-free and see how your numbers change.
 
Leave the eggs behind. and eating more raw will help. Use virgin coconut fat as butter replacement. It's a nifty medium chain fatty acid, it helps with cholesterol and type 2 diabetes. Minimize processed stuff. Snack on dates or raisins when you crave sweets. The body is quite slow to adjust sometimes, be patient. Eat slowly, stop when you are full, put the rest in the fridge, and don't forcefeed yourself breakfast. It's better to wait until you are hungry. Give your body time to process your food. When it is ready for more it will tell you.
 
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Thanks. I guess I just saw and read so many testimonials where people drastically changed their cholesterol levels in a matter of weeks, and I thought I'd see the same thing. Cutting out eggs is doable, though I think coconut oil has been part of my problem. I haven't used butter for years and totally bought in to the coconut oil benefits, but the more I'm learning about oils the less I feel they are necessary for any reason.
 
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Thanks. I guess I just saw and read so many testimonials where people drastically changed their cholesterol levels in a matter of weeks, and I thought I'd see the same thing. Cutting out eggs is doable, though I think coconut oil has been part of my problem. I haven't used butter for years and totally bought in to the coconut oil benefits, but the more I'm learning about oils the less I feel they are necessary for any reason.
If you think about it, oil is a very highly processed food - definitely not what nature intended. And it's all fat, and only negligible nutrient value. My motto - if you wouldn't eat it straight (aka, drink a shot glass full of oil, as an example), you shouldn't be eating it at all. ...And yes - ditch the eggs!
 
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Thanks. I guess I just saw and read so many testimonials where people drastically changed their cholesterol levels in a matter of weeks, and I thought I'd see the same thing. Cutting out eggs is doable, though I think coconut oil has been part of my problem. I haven't used butter for years and totally bought in to the coconut oil benefits, but the more I'm learning about oils the less I feel they are necessary for any reason.

I forgot how long you've been mostly vegan.

If i remember right the testimonials included in books like Eat To Live use months not weeks as a unit of time.

Although there is an argument that virgin coconut fat is better than other processed oils, its still fat - and it contains almost 100 calories and 10 grams of fat per tbsp. And all the fat is saturated fat. Olive oil contains only 2 grams of sat fat.

There is no minimum RDA of Sat fat. Our bodies will make whatever we need (we do have a min requirement for fat in general). I have read some articles that talk about how some kinds of fats help reduce cholesterol. But I didn't really follow or understand the science. What I do know is that ALL of the WFPB Doctors agree that eliminating fat - like from oil - is the best thing to do. It would be interesting to see what they say about eggs. But i have a vague memory of Dr. Greger (or maybe it was Mic) doing a video knocking coconut oil.

And @TofuRobot
I agree with your conclusion but you know I'm a nitpicker. "Extra Virgin" oils are technically not "highly processed" or even "refined".

Not to get off topic but I can't help myself.
We really shouldn't have too many issues with processed foods. You pull a carrot out of the ground, wash it, cook it - and it is now processed. The oatmeal you had for breakfast went thru at least 5 processes before you ate it. Our issue is with refined foods. Food that have had (good) things removed from them. You peel the carrot and its now refined. But that oatmeal isn't refined. Nothing good has been removed. Turning wheat into flour is a process. But until you remove the bran it isn't refined.

Technically extra virgin oil isn't refined. There was nothing "good" in it to take out.
 
And @TofuRobot
I agree with your conclusion but you know I'm a nitpicker. "Extra Virgin" oils are technically not "highly processed" or even "refined".
Well, oil doesn't grow on trees... ;) Anyway - I stand with Dr. Greger et al who say NO oil.
I've gotten so far away from using oil that I'm super sensitive to it now. The other day I picked up a box of "Beet Crackers" from Trader Joe's. Forgetting (like a Dummy) to look at the ingredients. These are CHIPS, shaped and packaged like crackers. The second ingredient is oil! I ate a few before I noticed that (and just about the time I was about ready to gag). I gave them to my son (who I can't seem to get off of oil, sadly).

...I must be one of the few people on the planet (vegans, especially) who don't eat oatmeal. I don't know why, really. It's really too much work, and it's never hot by the time I'm ready to eat it (after adding all the necessary 'components'). By itself, it just tastes like cardboard. *shrug
 
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For me oatmeal is the canvas on which to paint all the foods I love. Frozen cranberries in it while cooking and flax meal added close to the end. Turmeric and hemp seeds sprinkled on top joined by berries, banana, maple syrup and walnuts. Using steel cut oats makes it thicker and therefore retains the heat while eating it and normally we have toast w/peanut butter on the side.

My stand on oil is "little to none" - I would far rather have those calories in fats like tahini, avocado or nut butters. Just before I changed my diet over I was eating a ton of coconut oil and olive oil and not only was eating it making me nauseous but I lost about 25 pounds almost immediately after cutting the oils out.

Emma JC
 
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I forgot how long you've been mostly vegan
So I’ve only been mostly vegan since the start of 2019. But I’ve been what I thought was a very healthy eater for over 10 years. Looking at it objectively now, I think I have been consuming a lot more oil than I thought I was. And when I do eat junk food it is fried food rather than sweets that appeal to me. I have no problem leaving a cake or ice cream untouched, but an open bag of chips is a major weakness for me. Having things like that in the house is a rarity, though, but maybe I need to be even more aware of how much I really am eating it.
I’ve read Dr. Fuhrmans books and a few others like his, so I feel like I have the information- just need to put it into practice better.
 
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[...I must be one of the few people on the planet (vegans, especially) who don't eat oatmeal. I don't know why, really. It's really too much work, and it's never hot by the time I'm ready to eat it (after adding all the necessary 'components'). By itself, it just tastes like cardboard. *shrug[/QUOTE]

IF you are ever of the mind to try it , you might like whole oat groats. If you care to eat any cooked whole grains plain, whole groats are easy to fix. I use the overnight method and microwave them in the morning to warm. Of course, I eat it plain and have my fruit on the side, then again, I like raw buckwheat groats as a crunchy cereal or topping.
 
... I’ve been what I thought was a very healthy eater for over 10 years...

Join the club. I think we are all like that.
One of my gurus, Colleen Patrick Goudreau, in an introductory podcast said something like this:
When I talk about veganism to others they almost always say they eat very little meat. Then I challenge them to write it down. Its typical that they not only eat meat (or eggs or dairy) every day but also at almost every meal.

For the rest of us, it's typically oil. or salt. or sugar.
To paraphrase and mangle Socrates, A meal plan unanalyzed is not worth eating.

I went full on WFPB last summer. Since then I have been slipping. Oil, salt, and sugar are the things that creep into my diet when I'm not looking.
 
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...I must be one of the few people on the planet (vegans, especially) who don't eat oatmeal. I don't know why, really. It's really too much work, and it's never hot by the time I'm ready to eat it (after adding all the necessary 'components'). By itself, it just tastes like cardboard. *shrug

Have you tried overnight oats, eaten cold like a cereal? I almost always eat oats cold with soy milk, cinnamon, sunflower seeds, raisins, maple syrup, flax meal, etc. Also, since you prepare it the night before and pop in the fridge, they are just ready to eat (add berries the next morning, or even nuke the overnight oats if you insist on them being hot).
 
We really shouldn't have too many issues with processed foods. You pull a carrot out of the ground, wash it, cook it - and it is now processed. The oatmeal you had for breakfast went thru at least 5 processes before you ate it. Our issue is with refined foods. Food that have had (good) things removed from them. You peel the carrot and its now refined. But that oatmeal isn't refined. Nothing good has been removed. Turning wheat into flour is a process. But until you remove the bran it isn't refined.

Technically extra virgin oil isn't refined. There was nothing "good" in it to take out.


Refining also means that you are removing a single (or select few) material from the food matrix. Concentrated lipids in a bottle is refined simply due to the fact that it is not incorporated in the food that it came from. Too much to go in to here, but our uptake of lipids is much slower when it is still integrated in to the cell membranes and other structures of the cells vs when it is refined (removed from the food). There also seems to be some effects from other compounds in food that help affect uptake, but that is more to do with carbohydrates (blood sugar spikes less with fruit juice than with fructose water, for instance, even with the fiber removed.).

Regardless, I need to get back to a whole foods diet, been "treating" myself to too much seitan and refined junk lately. I just ate a giant seitan steak tonight for dinner, made from a whole cup of vwg. Thank the FSM that I am not gluten intolerant...
 
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For what it is worth, dietary cholesterol is not the only factor affecting blood cholesterol results. I learned this on my last blood test, having at that time been vegan for around a year.

This is one of the things I found out:

- Even though my cholesterol and triglycerides were dramatically lowered from the previous blood test as an omni, they were still high. The reason for this (for me) is primarily down to one factor: regular consumption of alcohol. That would be more than a few drinks on an almost daily basis.

Although I can not tell you the exact mechanism, I do know that alcohol, at least to some degree, is converted back into sugar given available body nutrients and fed to cells for energy. This would account for lack of hunger at times the following morning up until sometimes mid afternoon.

Too much refined sugar plays a similar role in affecting triglycerides which in turn affects cholesterol levels.
 
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Refining also means that you are removing a single (or select few) material from the food matrix. Concentrated lipids in a bottle is refined simply due to the fact that it is not incorporated in the food that it came from. Too much to go in to here, but our uptake of lipids is much slower when it is still integrated in to the cell membranes and other structures of the cells vs when it is refined (removed from the food). There also seems to be some effects from other compounds in food that help affect uptake, but that is more to do with carbohydrates (blood sugar spikes less with fruit juice than with fructose water, for instance, even with the fiber removed.).

Regardless, I need to get back to a whole foods diet, been "treating" myself to too much seitan and refined junk lately. I just ate a giant seitan steak tonight for dinner, made from a whole cup of vwg. Thank the FSM that I am not gluten intolerant...

I suppose you are right. This was the definition of refined food I was using
"Refined Foods: a food that has had parts removed, leaving it with less nutrients than when it was whole. i.e. white rice"
https://www.heathernicholds.com/nutrition/whole-processed-refined-foods/
 
Hi everyone - l use some extra virgin olive oil for roasting vegies , and put a little bit into home made hummous ..
So , my question is - what do you use instead of oil when you want to roast ( or stir-fry) vegetables etc ? I will not use those toxic non-stick / teflon pans or oven trays ...
Also , olive oil is a big part of the Italian diet , and they , in general , apparently have good cholesterol and heart health .
( l mean the Italians who live in Italy )

Also - remember that our bodies actually create cholesterol too .. Even long-time vegans can have high cholesterol !
Yes - me .. They tell me there is a genetic component . Not to worry ... l don't pay too much attention to figures on doctor's reports .. Your mind , thoughts and attitude have a big role to play in your overall health ..

Be Love , Be Peace , Be in your heart and laugh a lot .. Then at least you will have quality of life , if not quantity ..

Blessings to all , Blissful x
 
So , my question is - what do you use instead of oil when you want to roast ( or stir-fry) vegetables etc ?
You can use just a little water. The other day I grilled some whole mushrooms and asparagus. After washing them I shook off most of the water and sprinkled some spices and herbs on them. There was enough water left on the veggies to make the spices stick. They turned out fine. I’ve done the same thing roasting veggies. Supposedly you can sauté in water as well, but I use cast iron and am not sure how well that’s going to work. The past few days I’ve been working on restoring my cast iron a bit. I think I’ve been just pouring on more oil to keep things from sticking rather than taking the time to keep a nice smooth patina on my cookware.
 
Hi everyone - l use some extra virgin olive oil for roasting vegies , and put a little bit into home made hummous ..
So , my question is - what do you use instead of oil when you want to roast ( or stir-fry) vegetables etc ? I will not use those toxic non-stick / teflon pans or oven trays ...
Also , olive oil is a big part of the Italian diet , and they , in general , apparently have good cholesterol and heart health .
( l mean the Italians who live in Italy )

As Mbeth suggested, water or vegetable stock are good alternatives to oil for sauting, I also use oil brine or pickled jalapeno brine and sometime caper brine or a combo of them.

For baking I use applesauce as the replacement or just add a bit or extra oil and in hummus I use tahini or just leave it out altogether as the beans and the veggies combine nicely either way.

I posted an article a couple of years ago, that I wrote, on this site but I can't seem to see any of my posts before 2019 so here is a link to it on my website http://cooljoy.com/fat-versus-oil.html

Emma JC
 
Thanks Emma - thank you too , Mbeth .. I'll try the water , as l love my roasted vegetables ( roast organic cauliflower - yum!) Hummus has tahini in it anyway , as the basic recipe , but oil is usually added in commercial hummus .

Otherwise , l'll keep using the first-pressed extra virgin olive oil - it is supposed to be full of good mono-unsaturated fat , as long as you're not having too much ..
I'll check out your website ..

Thank you again - have a wonderful day .. x
 
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Have you tried overnight oats, eaten cold like a cereal?
I have tried that but I'm not a huge fan of cold oatmeal. There are some crackers Trader Joe's sells that I used to like that aren't vegan because they have honey, that are made with oatmeal and seeds... I supposed I could try to re-create those... Anyone know of a good recipe or off-the-shelf alternative to TJ's gluten-free Norwegian Crisp Bread crackers w/out honey??
hat do you use instead of oil when you want to roast ( or stir-fry) vegetables etc ?
Water or vegetable stock.

And @Lou - as Dr. Neal Barnard says, "An olive tree does not have a faucet on it" :laughing:;)

(That was supposed to copy at 00:38 .... ?)
 
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