Hi, everyone,

I am still here, hiding in the background. Still struggling quite a bit to change my lifestyle, get healthy and lose the weight. Anyhow, I had a check-up last week, and I am no longer pre-diabetic--yay! So I have changed my eating habits enough to affect that. A huge relief to not be worried about diabetes anymore. No idea what I weigh now---probably close to my starting weight.

Anyhow, I still have high cholesterol. My doc has given me 6 months to try and get it down, or I may have to take a drug, which I do NOT want to do. She was not very encouraging about me lowering it, or how to go about it. Does just losing weight help your cholesterol go down? Anyone have a success story on lowering cholesterol? Thank you so much. Still here trying.

I've known many people at a normal weight with high cholesterol so I don't believe it is related to weight. I do believe it is related to diet as well as genetics.

For my husband, he had a normal cholesterol level but 3 weeks before he had his yearly physical, I stopped eating all animal products (meat, dairy, eggs). He stopped eating most of them by association. He had a dramatic drop in cholesterol when he went to have it checked at the doctors, I was amazed. Before that, I had heard that limiting or eliminating animal products would produce a lower cholesterol level and I guess I'd say it worked for him even when he didn't have high cholesterol. My own checkup is in a couple months so we'll see what happens with me.

(The book Eat to Live addresses the issue of various health issues and animal products in our diets, FYI)

Kathy so sorry to hear this. I've heard cholesterol can be one of the harder things to try and change with diet. I wish you all the success. It sounds like you've been given some great advice. Kudos for not being pre-diabetic.

I am glad your doctor has allowed you to try and lower your numbers on your own. That is originally how and why I started my weight loss journey.

According to my doctor if you can stay with these numbers, you will lower your cholesterol by diet alone. It worked well for me.

No more more than 50 mg fat per day
No more more than 10 mg. saturated fat
No more than 200 ml. cholesterol

We are not doctor's here...but, know what has worked for us. Always check with your doctor or dietician.

Sometimes, certain people have a genetic predisposition for their bodies making alot of extra cholesterol - regardless of what they eat. But, trying the low fat way is a great start.

I found a wonderful support website for folks trying to lower their cholesterol at Spark People - the cholesterol forum.These folks helped me ALOT when I first started.



http://www.sparkpeople.com/myspark/g...l.asp?gid=1135


PS - my lipid lab numbers are all in a normal range now
My triglycerides were 507 last September and in March they were 145. (normal is less than 150)

My doctor gave me the same option last fall: improve my cholesterol in 6 months or go on medication.

I started eating stuff like oatmeal, egg beaters instead of eggs, trans-fat free margarine instead of butter, olive oil, ground flax seed, more soluble fibre, omega 3 capsules, etc. It lowered my levels enough to keep me off medication.

Since my last test, I've added daily exercise. Exercise is important to improve cholesterol levels, too.

And, yes, I'm afraid excess weight/body fat can increase cholesterol levels. So can smoking, excessive alcohol, and your genes, among other things!

The NHLBI is one of many good sources of information: nhlbi.nih.gov/health/dci/Diseases/Hbc/HBC_Treatments.html

Surprisingly, many people who are anorexic have high cholesterol. The body will produce excess cholesterol on its own because it's starving. Just a little factoid. . .

At Weight Watcher meetings, I've heard many stories of people who were able to lower their cholesterol by losing weight and changing their diet. I was, unfortunately, not one of them, but I know it can be done.