Hi Ladies,
I`m 58, post menopausal, hypothyroid. I was always pretty thin my entire life till I met my still thin DH. I deliberately gained a ton of weight during pregnancy because I was 42 when I had DS and I read that "older mothers have lower birth weight babies". It was the first time I ate with utter abandon. I lost the weight doing first WW and then switched to Atkins. I did really well on Atkins and had a ton of energy. I was 114 on DS 2nd birthday.
Since then, cooking for the family, menopause and a low throid function, and justifying eating unhealthy stuff and too much alcohol (cosmos and red wine) have caused me to get up to my present weight of 152. I`m only 5`1 and it really is too much on me. In addition we moved to Europe and I gave up eating steaks because I can`t bear to eat a steak that isn`t USDA. Believe me grass fed cattle just don`t have the same taste as grain fed. Anyway, I began cooking lots of pork (Bratwurst and Loin). I miss US comfort foods so when I am "home I bring back stuff I like". I love Skippy Creamy Peanut Butter so much that I can just spoon it into my mouth.
Anyway to make a long story short, this past year I ate a ton of Skippy and discovered that I can get little dixie cups of Ben and Jerry`s here so you do the math: Pork + Bratwurst+ Ben and Jerry= not being able to lose weight.
In addition, I went for my yearly checkup and learned that my cholesterol is 300!!! It turns out that I was also eating a product here that I thought was Benecol (slopping it on my bread everday to reduce my cholesterol) - it turns out the stuff was margarine and is loaded with transfats. They don`t do the nutrition table the same way as the US and I didn`t bother to translate it because I just said, It`s ok because it`s Benecol.
Arrrgghhhhhhh.
I`ve been travelling with my family the last 2 months - mostly in Asia. I didn`t gain any weight.
I have heart disease and stroke in my family although neither of my parents had high cholesterol.
I just got back on Wednesday and have decided that I am going to cut out all Beef and Pork, sweets, fried stuff and white sugar and flour. I searched the forums to see about a diet low in cholesterol.
I want to eat fruits, veggies and a protein at night.
I went on the Zone diet once, lost 15lbs and my cholesterol went up . isn`t that insane? So I am going to try and do my own thing.
I have been surfing the web and have found some interesting sites that I will share. I searched the forum but didn`t really find any threads dedicated to high cholesterol so I though I would begin one because somebody may be looking or look in the future.
If you have any experiences or comments, I`d love to hear them.
Thanks for reading this far,
HelenMay