Cholesterol and Triglycerides

[warnerd]

Christina mentioned in another thread about my drastic drop in cholesterol and triglycerides and her husband's difficulty reducing his. Not to start a debate, but I wanted to let her know that I feel strongly that my progress was/is greatly enhanced by fish oil supplementation. I also eat a fair amount of flax seed and nuts. When I lost 60 lbs and ate minimal fat and protein, the numbers weren't near as good. When I went to a high protein and high fat diet, I basically went against the heart association?s recommendations. I ate a lot of red meat, 4% fat cottage cheese and a couple of eggs a day. But I introduced "good" fats (fish, flax, olive oils and nuts) in my diet. I swear if I continued on the heart association's diet, I would have ended up being a diabetic with all the bread, rice, potatoes and pasta. My wife is a long distance runner and thought for sure my numbers would be thru the roof with the "diet" I was on. She was quite perplexed when my numbers were better than hers. I also drink copious amounts of green tea. My concern is that when I go to a MV with Coumadin I'll have to figure something else out. Just thought I'd share. daw

 

[LUVMyBirman]

How wonderful! Congratulations!

Trying to figure out natural alternatives for lowering cholesterol induced by another medication that assists my heart of all things! Slowed my metabolism to a screeching halt.

So...your saying the flaxseed and fish oil helped? Was this before or after you started your diet?

Being on Coumadin...I am going to stick with what works, start my exercise program and take the Flaxseed. There was one with 250mg of additional Omega-3. Wonder if that one would serve better?

Thank you for posting your findings. Again, great news!

 

[warnerd]

Gina, after losing the 60 lbs, my numbers were good (and MUCH better than before the weight loss) but just inside the ranges. 185 for cholesterol and 150 for the tris. Then I put on 30 lbs of muscle while eating what the heart association says are big no-nos. Quite a bit of saturated fat. It was almost an Atkins diet but I didn't restrict the carbs as much as they suggest. In the mean time I tried to add all the good fats I could. Fish, flax, olive oils and nuts. My numbers reduced drastically.
I was hesitant to post because it is my understanding that these are not recommended if you are on Coumadin according to my cardio. My own experience seems to prove this. I was on Coumadin for about 6 months post surgery. After appetite returned to normal, I tried to add salad back into my diet. I eat spinach instead of lettuce and I've always added ground flax seed because I enjoy the nutty flavor. I assumed the Vit K in spinach would off set the blood thinning properties of the flax. I was wrong. My next Protime indicated a significant increase in the thinning of the blood and I was told to quit eating the flax
My beleif is that I eat enough fish oil, flax and drink enough green tea that I wouldn't ever need Coumadin, but that's not convential thinking according to modern medicine.

Bottom line, for a majority of people diet and exercise will bring chol and tris into normal range. I thought I would make the suggestion to Christina since her husband had tried the conventional methods and his numbers were still high.

Good luck.

P.S. I failed to mention that I do take a large amount of fish oil. I had to go to a concentrated liquid otherwise I would be taking maybe 20 of the gel tablets/day.

 

[bvdr]

Gina,

Are you referring to your beta-blocker? I was put back on one this week and I am really concerned about my metabolism slowing way down.

 

[labguides]

fish/ fish oil

fish/ fish oil

Our daughter is not to eat fish or take fish oil a month prior to surgery. We forgot to ask the surgeon why?