The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:
-
Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.
-
Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.
-
Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.
-
Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
My keto diet came to an end as scheduled on Thanksgiving. I lost about 12 pounds in 2.5 months, so decent results but nothing world-shaking. I was strict for maybe the first half of that, then less strict.
Pros:
Cons:
So let's address the cholesterol issue. In 2020, my LDL (bad cholesterol) was slightly high, but overall fine. When I got it checked after my diet, it was 297. This is very high and concerning.
I am making an effort to reduce my cholesterol now and will get another test in a couple days. I predict a much lower LDL. I will also likely get a coronary calcium scan to see if I have any early signs of heart disease.
I was pretty upset about the high cholesterol, but it turns out it might not be all that bad. It turns out I pattern-match (almost, but not quite) into "lean mass hyperresponders". These are people who have low BMIs, high HDL, low triglycerides, and EXTREMELY high LDL.
In this group, having low BMI is actually correlated with "worse" cholesterol numbers.
This Harvard med student is very skinny can run a marathon in 2:40. This puts him easily in the top 1% of cardiovascular fitness. Yet his LDL is an off-the-charts high 400!
So how did he reduce his LDL to normal levels? By adding 12 Oreos a day to his diet. He kept his normal diet the same, consuming copious amounts of saturated fat. He just ADDED 12 Oreos to his existing diet for several weeks. His body responded by LDL dropping 250 points to normal levels.
I believe the data about cholesterol causing heart disease is of very poor quality. My instinct is that for a person with a low BMI, a high cholesterol level doesn't tell the whole story. My extremely high LDL level might be perfectly safe, even good.
But I am not willing to risk my health on this counter-narrative and so will making efforts to reduce my cholesterol by eating oatmeal and supplementing with Berberine intermittently. I predict good results, but epending on my calcification score, I might also consider statins. Unfortunately, my current doctor seems incapable of doing anything except for regurgitating WebMD, so I'm doing a lot of this research myself which is not ideal.
So most of your weight "loss" was glycogene and water associated with glycogene, not fat. Will return quickly.
No, it's not "most". Maybe 5 pounds of water weight if that.
I've been off the diet for 3 weeks. Trust me when I say that my glycogen stores are fully replenished. I've been eating like a pig. I'm still 8 pounds lighter and my waistline is smaller.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link