Has anyone had their cholesterol checked since starting South Beach? I'm just curious...I was at a 242 before it all and haven't been checked yet after almost nine months...so was wondering how much it could be affected....

Elaine
288/225/188
SW/CW/GW

I'm writing in to say that I haven't, not that that is very useful to you. I had my cholesterol checked a couple months before SBD though so I do have some baseline. I don't remember what it was but one nice thing about my doctor's office is they have everything computerized so they can look up your history easily. I know it was within normal ranges though.

Mine has stayed the same but it was normal to begin with.

Here is what I posted in July (I had been on South Beach about 6 weeks when my blood was drawn. As a further note, I have stayed off the diuretic and cut my dose of Toprol in half.):

I am walking on a cloud!! First, I go in for my physical. Dressed I weigh 180 which is 29 pounds less than when I was there in March. Then she checks my height and tells me I am 5' 3". That is one inch more than I used to be. Don't ask me how I managed to gain height at the age of 41.

Blood pressure was 110/80. My doctor agrees to let me go off the diuretic and she will recheck my blood pressure in one month. She is very pleased with my weight loss. For now I stay on the Toprol and Lisinopril.

Then she gets out the lab results. Last time I had my labwork done my total cholesterol was 248. This time (drumroll, please) it was 181!! She was absolutely shocked. My triglycerides went from 250 before to 151 now (normal range is 0-149). HDL went from 54 to 47 (normal is 40-59). VLDL went from 50 to 30 (normal is 5-40). LDL went from 144 to 104 (normal is less than 100). She wants to recheck me in 6 months to see if I have been able to keep it down with the holiday season. I am so motivated.

I can continue to lose weight and I WILL get off all of my blood pressure medicine eventually. I'm willing to do it gradually and safely. I am SO glad she gave me the 3 months to try to lose weight before I had this labwork done. SBD is the greatest!!!

When I went to the dr. in May, I had bloodwork done and my cholesterol was normal, but on the high side of normal. At that time the dr. advised that I should cut carbs and sugar from my diet. I started SBD on May 14.

I had another medical this past Monday and the dr. was impressed by a 30 pound weight loss. He has been preaching cutting carbs to his patients, but wondered if I would get my cholesterol checked again because he wanted to see if it made a difference. Of course, I agreed because I really wanted the comparison for myself, anyway. I had that done on Monday, so should have the results at the beginning of next week. I'm hoping that it has made a difference.

Mine went down drastically too, although I don't remember the exact numbers. But it went down more on SB without taking any meds than it did when I was not on SB but taking meds. My cholesteral has always been thru the roof so I am now back on my meds and am hoping that with the diet and meds combined I might actually get to a normal range.

I also was able to stop taking my diabetes meds since I started SB.

My cholesterol has always been normal, which is a blessing, as both my parents have high cholesterol. I blame it on being a vegetarian.

However, I did have a rough time with my blood pressure because I've been on medicine for hypertension for 2 years....now that I've lost some weight, my doctor cut the dose in half, and says that if I keep it up, I won't have to be on medicine at all anymore! Wahoo!

My whole family has very bad cholesterol, genetically, so I've been lucky to usually be around 180 or 190. In the last couple years it was risen, and was at 242 before I started SBD. It is now at 198, which is great. My LDL is lower now, at 133, but my HDL fell from 78 to 55, which is bad. Not sure why that happened! My blood pressure is also better.

I'm looking forward to seeing even better results when I get farther along. I'm also watching my fat choices more carefully to ensure that I'm following the diet closely enough!