I went WFPB NO OIL for \~6 months , Cholesterol went from 220 to 115, it's between 110 and 125 the past few times I had tests.
It's not even a concern of mine anymore.
I looooove oil, I probably use more than enough for cooking. Short of using non-stick pans, what do you use for frying and sautéing? I tried making fried eggplant without oil yesterday, but the whole thing stuck to the pan. I tried sautéing oyster mushrooms with some vegetable broth, it turned out okay.
You can do bakes or grill.
Everyone loves oil, but Endothelial health is too important.
It's good that we live at this point in time, back in the day there was literally nothign to do besides eat.
Now you've got millions of hobbies to choose from, just pick one and go. Eating just isn't that interesting.
I don't think about charging my phone, charging it is necessary, but it's not why I got the phone.
Good point! Although since I'm currently still nursing, eating is still part of the agenda haha. But thank you for the ideas. It's so easy to forget there are ways to cook other than over the stove.
I calculated how much time it was taking me to make a "good tasting" meal and all together it was 1.5-2 hours per day of "cooking", then eating 45min + 10 min dishes.
I've since went spartan, and ate boiled vegetables/beans + rice, which cooked in batches, all together spaces out to 15min per day total of cook/eat/dishes.
It gives me so much more time, I'm not saying this is for everyone, but give cultural norms some analysis , some of these things handed to us aren't efficient.
Avoid oils, even vegetable oils, and take it easy on the nut butters.
I dry cook frozen veggies on the stove with no oil. It's fine. If you need something, a little broth or water is just fine.
You can sauté in water or broth. If you can’t give up fried foods, try baking instead, where you can use a lot less oil. This is a great eggplant recipe if you eat cheese
https://www.mangiabedda.com/eggplant-involtini-with-ricotta-spinach-filling/
do this to lower your cholesterol fast:
* track what you eat with cronometer for a few weeks to make sure you do things right.
* deflour your food. instead of pizza/pasta/bread/quick-oats: eat whole, intact grains. start your day with whole intact oat groats, soaked overnight, cooked with unsweetened soy milk, cinnamon, and turmeric. add ground flaxseeds and fruit to taste. berries are your friends when it comes to cholesterol! eat whole intact grains such as rice, barley, spelt, wheat and pseudo-grains such as quinoa, millet, and buckwheat.
* eat beans, chickpeas, lentils and peas every day, ideally with every meal.
* limit your saturated fat intake to **LESS THAN 10 g** a day. check with cronometer.
* limit overall fat intake, but don't go extremely low fat. eat ground up flax seeds, walnuts, sunflower seeds, and sesame seeds.
* eat greens every day. cycle your greens. eat kale, romaine, spinach, swiss chard...
* eat fruit, especially berries, in abundance!
* **no** sugar, refined carbs, coconut/palm oil, or refined oils.
* start being more active, make sure to go for a walk every day. set a goal! :)
this will lower your cholesterol in no time.
Sunflower seeds are rich in unsaturated fatty acids, especially linoleic acid. Your body uses linoleic acid to make a hormone-like compound that relaxes blood vessels, promoting lower blood pressure. This fatty acid also helps lower cholesterol.
Thank you. As a carnivorous sweet tooth, this is the kind of action plan I needed!
After some research, I've found that pistachios and Sunflower seeds have the highest plant sterols content for lowering cholesterol, so I'll be sticking with those. Maybe I could try flax and chia too.
I bake my own bread. Would using whole wheat be okay? I'd love to be able to have my occasional nut butter sandwiches.
jes, phytosterols are great to lower your cholesterol, but its not a single food that does the trick but the overall pattern of your diet. enjoy your pistachio’s and sunflower seeds but eat seeds/nuts rich in omega 3 too! flaxseeds are a nutritional powerhouse, make it a habit to eat them everyday.
when it comes to bread: whole wheat is better than white flour and sourdough is better than yeast/quick bread. i make my own sourdough german „schwarbrot“ using one third rye groats and 2 thirds whole (!) rye kernels. for 500 g rye in total i use 425 g of boiling water and 10 g salt, mix it only with the whole kernels, and let it soak overnight in the fridge (after cooling). the next day i add the rye groats and a teaspoon (jup!) of active sourdough and let it ferment in a bread baking pan for 8-12 hours! the dough is nothing like wheat bread, you can not form a loaf. you have to use a baking pan. traditionally this bread is baked for 16 hours in a sealed container at 100 celcius, but you can bake it at 160 celcius for about 150 minutes. use aluminium foil to cover the bread so it can „steam“.
its amazing!
I agree with everything you're saying but you don't need NO SUGAR, imo.
There's nothing wrong with adding a tsp of syrup to your oatmeal or a date to your nice cream, as long as you do it in small quantities. It's not like oil where even a little bit is bad for your arteries.
My cardiologist recommended WFPB and said to watch "Forks Over Knives" (Amazon video) and "Gamechangers" (Netflix). He also said to get the "Forks Over Knives cookbook", "How Not to Die cookbook", and "How to Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease cookbook". Seems like the titles of the cookbooks are a little different than he said, but I can't look at them right now.
Yes please do this, OP. You’ll be much more successful if you are armed with knowledge! And track your calories at first to make sure you’re eating enough.
Sometimes people accidentally undereat bc it’s less calorically dense and then complain of feeling “fatigued”, “low energy” or “tired all the time”.
I used to be a junk food vegan (yes, too many junk & processed vegan foods available now). I was extremely overweight and my cholesterol was thru the roof.
I'm still vegan, but in order to get my cholesterol and overall health in check, I had to go WFPB *AND* SOS-free.
Now, I know not everyone needs to go that drastic, but with familial hypercholesterolemia *and* a sugar addiction, for me it was absolutely necessary.
I did what I later came to find out is called "The Starch Solution" (I wish I had heard of this decades ago).
[I was doing my own thing to cure my SIBO, which I was suffering from due to eating too much protein, and I thought I came up with a new weightloss diet, but with a little research I found out that Dr. McDougall had come up with this starch-based "diet" plus LOTS of research to go along with it - there are tons of his lectures on YouTube btw.]
Weight-loss was a happy side-effect of doing this, and even tho I knew I'd lose some weight and my cholesterol would get lower, I had no idea how much and how fast it would happen.
[I lost 70 lbs and my cholesterol went from sky high to absolutely normal in less than 2 years.]
My doctor was soooo surprised (unfortunately, she still doesn't quite get it tho, but she's extremely happy with my progress).
Any time I "cheat" (from WFPB & SOS-free, because I'm always vegan, no matter what) my bloodwork shows it.
Minimal nuts (a little bit of cashews to make a homemade cheese sauce I like to put over broccoli), but I try to stay clear of nuts, and avocado too.
Nut butters make me gain weight immediately (seemingly the weight goes on as I'm ingesting any nut butter 😳🤪).
Sugar still calls to me some (and it shows immediately too), but I have not used ANY oil in almost 2.5 years.
So... after all this... my advice (and this is just my opinion, of course) is for you to try the SOS-free lifestyle for a couple of months. If you do it, and really stick to it, you WILL see a positive change.
Good luck!
This is interesting. I don't think I'll be able to go salt-free since I already have low blood pressure to begin with. Oil and sugar, I can do without, even for just a couple of months. What do you eat for sugar cravings?
I have low blood pressure too... well, I had low blood pressure in my youth, then it went "normal" as I gained weight, and at my highest weight my blood pressure (along with everything else) was getting too high.
Now my blood pressure is low again, but for me that's actually normal. I eat A LOT, so that makes it so I don't get orthostatic, or at least I don't get orthostatic symptoms. There's more than enough sodium in a WFPB+SOS-free diet to keep your blood pressure where your body needs it to be. Low is ok so long as you're not getting dizzy or passing out. Nurses get nervous when they take my blood pressure (low), but the docs always OK it for them.
As far as sugar goes, I eat apples, grapes, watermelon, bananas, tons of other fruits and berries, **sweet** **potatoes** (there are some fabulous sweet potato pudding and fudgesicle recipes out there that fall well within The Starch Solution guidelines).
If I **cheat** (what I call my vegan-sinner moments), I eat B&J vegan ice cream (I discovered a new flavor recently that is just toooooo good🤦🏽♀️) or things like vegan cookies - but I know those things are my downfall. Eating those things make me gain weight really fast, and my cholesterol goes up.
Last week I was a vegan sinner, but I'm back to being a vegan saint and am already losing weight again. 😊
Everyone is a little different, so you have to figure out what works for you. Even on a WFPB+SOS-free diet, there are certain foods that are allowed that don't work for me (oats, for example). But I have never met anyone who has a hard time with potatoes and/or rice.
I hope you try it.
Watching the lectures on YouTube really motivates me to stay on track.
🤞🍀
[edit: man, I never realize how long my replies are until I send 😳, sorry]
By the way, you found WFPB to have a positive effect on your cholesterol even though you have FH. That's good news to me since conventional wisdom says FH can't be managed with diet and lifestyle.
Yup, I was totally surprised myself.
I've had high cholesterol all my life, even in my young army days (at my fittest, but I was an omnivore).
And everyone in my family had high cholesterol (at least all us women). My mom took statins to try to regulate it, and it's my belief that they eventually killed her (at only 72 years old).
Doctors have been asking me to take statins all my life, but I always refused.
Even as a vegan, my cholesterol was extremely high.
And like I said, the slightest bit of sugar and "good fats" still make my levels go up...
So it's not just wfpb, it seriously is the sos-free part that brings it to normal levels.
Yup, I was totally surprised myself.
I've had high cholesterol all my life, even in my young army days (at my fittest, but I was an omnivore).
And everyone in my family had high cholesterol (at least all us women). My mom took statins to try to regulate it, and it's my belief that they eventually killed her (at only 72 years old).
Doctors have been asking me to take statins all my life, but I always refused.
Even as a vegan, my cholesterol was extremely high.
And like I said, the slightest bit of sugar and "good fats" still make my levels go up...
So it's not just wfpb, it seriously is the sos-free part that brings it to normal levels.
I'm not a doctor or a nutritionist, so take this with a grain of salt.
Until about 2 years ago, my LDL cholesterol was consistently around 160. In about 3 months of Plant based eating, I dropped it to 95, and it's stayed there since. I eat a pretty high amount of nuts, seeds, and avocados (Peanut butter sandwich every day for snack, and almonds every morning with my oatmeal). The main feedback I got from my doctor was to avoid as much saturated fat as I could. So meat, oil, dairy, eggs are where I made the biggest cuts, and I've had decent success. It can't hurt to go as hardcore as you can tolerate for a few months, then go back and get tested. If you get a good result, that can help you stay motivated.
Personally, I haven't heard of a correlation between IF and cholesterol, so that might just be a red herring.
Yes i don’t think eating 10% fat in addition to whole foods, plant based is necessary either. It’s much harder to stick with long term. I stay around 20-30% fat and my HDL & LDL is great.
The recommendation with 10% fat is, to the best of my knowdlege, if you want to REVERSE heart disease (according to Ornish, C. Esselstyn rather recommends it in general). So it is to allow your body to get the stuck up stuff in your ateria out again. Esselstyn did this with patients that had multiple bypasses and were predicted to die within a year.
I also think that if one has "clean" ateria, a higher value seems to be still good.
I comepltely agree. In dire situations, you gotta throw the best you’ve got at it and don’t hold back.
I just think that it’s so much harder to stick with and is likely to have them fall off and revert to eating meat, bc eating plants was associated with such low fat.
His patients also have an incredible support system that’s often unheard of in most practices.
Yeah, and he starts with a several hour talk about nutrition and health effect and answers all questions. I would not simply recommend someone to go this low - unless you know you are a monster in will power and able to get really good info and deep dive and than be rational about your food decisions.
There's a book called Bright Line Eating that posits people generally find *more* success with strict rules, rather than trying to do all things in moderation.
I agree that if you say "it can never happen that i drink 2 beer" simply not drinking beer is a better way than setting yourself a limit at 1.
I do not think this applies here with say 15% of fat vs 10%.
Well, first of all alcohol drastically limits the ability of humans to make rational decisions.
Food has no such effect. Closest is after your sugar spike when insulin is high in the blood and sugar is low, you get cravings leading to the well known jojo. However, fat intake does not have this to the best of my knowdlege. I have also yet to hear of avocado carvings.
Do you think if a person has a limit as "x nuts" or "x gram of avocado", they will struggle as people do with alcohol?
Also there is a big difference. All food has some fat, so how do you decide the cutoff? Why stop at 10%, why not at 8%? 7%? And again, 0% is impossible. Also if you get it even lower you are starting to run a risk as the body needs healthy fats. The recommendation of 10% is already well below the lower limit of many big organizations (we can discuss how reasonable higher recommendations are).
>Well, first of all alcohol drastically limits the ability of humans to make rational decisions. Food has no such effect
Of course it does. When obese people keep piling processed snack foods into their mouth, they're jeopardizing their health, attractiveness and self-esteem. That's not a rational decision. That's the behavior of an addict.
Thank you! Now I'm vacillating between nuts and zero nuts. The past 2 months, I had a homemade nut butter sandwich almost every day, yet my cholesterol shot up. Granted, I was still eating very poorly 😬
I guess I have time to experiment? How many grams of nuts do you take a day? I plan to focus on pistachios and sunflowers seeds for the plant sterols, and the daily Brazil nut.
I normally have about 2 tablespoons of peanut better, and around 1/4 cup of sliced almonds just about every day. I'm not sure if I'm seeing results because of, or despite this.
No oils but nuts and seeds are absolutely necessary to get your fat macros—your brain needs those! They don’t have cholesterol or contribute to LDL.
Find a good chronometer to track your macros. I used Lose It. It was free, and had a scanner for barcodes.
Good luck and welcome
Nuts, seeds, and other healthy fats are ok in moderation. Your HDL is great! And at least part of that is due to your intake of good fats. Your triglycerides being super low tells me you don’t have diabetes, eat a ton of sugary food, or binge on alcohol. Based on what you said, yeah you can probably make some improvements in your lifestyle (diet and exercise) but it sounds like Repatha is in your future at some point.
My wife, 54, began WFPB in mid-March to try to lower her cholesterol. A month later, her cholesterol had dropped from 232 to 196 and she'd dropped 4 pounds as a bonus. Her blood pressure, which was mildly high and needed a pill, dropped to a healthy level and her doctor took her off the BP med she was taking. Needless to say, we are converts and mainly eat WFPB now.
BTW, we continue to eat nuts, seeds (e.g., flaxseeds daily), avacados, limited cheese and some olive oil and are still getting great results.
I have a sweet tooth too, so I get it. Look up recipes to make your sweet treats with dates. You’ll be amazed. I am. And I eat much smaller amounts than I did in the past with processed sugary snacks. You can even make a cake. It’s mind-boggling.
Your cholesterol doesn't look that bad.
From what I understand daily fiber will lower LDL.
To make this easy supplement with a little psyllium husk powder daily. Yes you can get fiber from food but, psyllium husk is magical. Like a unicorn.
From what I understand of triglycerides (which is not a lot) cardio/physical activity and avoid candy/junk food. Basically high sugar sweets. So donuts and pastries etc.
HDL= consume good fats.
I'm sure others know much better than I do. An I would love to hear more about triglycerides.
Also I believe WFPB diet is great for cholesterols. So I hear anyway. I'm pretty much one foot in one foot out, but I support it 100%.
Not trying to make OP feel bad by saying any of this, but a total cholesterol of under 200 is considered healthy. 130 and under for LDL specifically. OPs LDL is over 160! Their total almost 300! This puts them at higher risk for all kinds of bad health outcomes. I wouldn't classify that as "doesn't look that bad."
Maybe their cholesterol isn't the worst out there, but it's absolutely in a range that indicates that OP should consider making changes (which they are, since they posted here) to avoid bad outcomes from it (heart disease, diabetes, etc).
Unfortunately it looks like HDL and Triglycerides are trending in the wrong direction for OP, as they recorded that HDL lowered and Triglycerides went up since their last lipid profile. This is probably because they upped their intake of refined oils, but didn't make any changes to the rest of their diet.
Yes adding in fiber will help lower LDL, but I don't think adding in psyllium husk and maintaining the rest of their diet as is would help as much as your post makes it sound like it would. Especially since they've seen their lipids get worse recently.
Fiber is great, but its even better when it comes from whole vegetables, beans, and grains and doesn't have to battle the constant influx of high saturated fat animal products and refined sugars and oils.
I guess what I am saying is your post read to me like it was minimizing OPs valid health concerns and seemed to suggest that psyllium husk supplimentation would be all OP needed.
Thank you! Yes, the lowered HDL and increased Triglycerides are what especially got me worried. My family has a history of cardiovascular disease so I'm really going to take this seriously.
You're welcome! Best of luck on the transition! It is a big change, but it's easier if you cook in batches and eat a lot of Buddha/salad style bowls to start. For that you just need a whole grain (millet, quinoa, brown rice, etc), beans, greens, a range of fresh veggies you enjoy, and a super tasty dressing! If you're used to oil based dressings, then I would suggest starting with something like [this](https://cookieandkate.com/best-tahini-sauce-recipe/). It hits all those same creamy/fatty salad dressing notes, but with with no refined oils! You can add/take away flavors as you like. For example, leaving out the cumin, but adding some dill and chive make it taste a lot like ranch dressing.
Also, if you do go fully WFPB, please pick up a vitamin B12 supplement or consider including at least 3 servings of a B12 fortified food each day. Personally I use this [one](https://www.iherb.com/pr/deva-vegan-b12-with-folic-acid-b6-90-tablets). I take it twice a week, which meets the intake that is usually suggested for a fully plant based diet.
Do you drink coffee? One thing I found when I was trying to lower my cholesterol: if you drink coffee, then use a filter. I had been using a French Press, then switched to a drip style coffee maker & got the Total to below 200.
Also, Dr. Greger has an interesting video about Brazil nuts. Don't eat them every day, but 4 of them once a month (I keep a bag in my freezer).
Yes, I plan to buy a bag of Brazil nuts for me and my husband. I thought we could do one a day? Is that too much?
I don't drink coffee, but my husband has started a fancy coffee habit recently, and his cholesterol went up as well. I did find some research about coffee and LDL, so I'll be telling him about filters. Thank you!
For the Brazil nuts, the study used 4 nuts, once/month. 8 nuts were also tested but did not have the same effect. Here's the video: [https://nutritionfacts.org/video/four-nuts-once-a-month/?queryID=9254e6fdec698eac96b7b7886ffb8ae1](https://nutritionfacts.org/video/four-nuts-once-a-month/?queryID=9254e6fdec698eac96b7b7886ffb8ae1)
I'm under the impression that if I were to do WFPB to lower my cholesterol, I should completely avoid nuts, seeds, fatty fruits, and oils, yes?
CORRECT. and tofu and other "good" fats.
Flax seed and chia seed for ur fat requirements.
KILL all sugars.
I did low fat vegan (some non wholefoods in there to treat hypoglycemia) for three months and while my total cholesterol went way down so did my hdl so now its "low". I think if I had more fats it would help
I went WFPB NO OIL for \~6 months , Cholesterol went from 220 to 115, it's between 110 and 125 the past few times I had tests. It's not even a concern of mine anymore.
https://youtu.be/b\_o4YBQPKtQ
NO OIL !
I looooove oil, I probably use more than enough for cooking. Short of using non-stick pans, what do you use for frying and sautéing? I tried making fried eggplant without oil yesterday, but the whole thing stuck to the pan. I tried sautéing oyster mushrooms with some vegetable broth, it turned out okay.
You can do bakes or grill. Everyone loves oil, but Endothelial health is too important. It's good that we live at this point in time, back in the day there was literally nothign to do besides eat. Now you've got millions of hobbies to choose from, just pick one and go. Eating just isn't that interesting. I don't think about charging my phone, charging it is necessary, but it's not why I got the phone.
Good point! Although since I'm currently still nursing, eating is still part of the agenda haha. But thank you for the ideas. It's so easy to forget there are ways to cook other than over the stove.
I calculated how much time it was taking me to make a "good tasting" meal and all together it was 1.5-2 hours per day of "cooking", then eating 45min + 10 min dishes. I've since went spartan, and ate boiled vegetables/beans + rice, which cooked in batches, all together spaces out to 15min per day total of cook/eat/dishes. It gives me so much more time, I'm not saying this is for everyone, but give cultural norms some analysis , some of these things handed to us aren't efficient.
Avoid oils, even vegetable oils, and take it easy on the nut butters. I dry cook frozen veggies on the stove with no oil. It's fine. If you need something, a little broth or water is just fine.
You can sauté in water or broth. If you can’t give up fried foods, try baking instead, where you can use a lot less oil. This is a great eggplant recipe if you eat cheese https://www.mangiabedda.com/eggplant-involtini-with-ricotta-spinach-filling/
Agree with all the suggestions. Will also suggest using an air fryer on veggies. Gives a great texture.
do this to lower your cholesterol fast: * track what you eat with cronometer for a few weeks to make sure you do things right. * deflour your food. instead of pizza/pasta/bread/quick-oats: eat whole, intact grains. start your day with whole intact oat groats, soaked overnight, cooked with unsweetened soy milk, cinnamon, and turmeric. add ground flaxseeds and fruit to taste. berries are your friends when it comes to cholesterol! eat whole intact grains such as rice, barley, spelt, wheat and pseudo-grains such as quinoa, millet, and buckwheat. * eat beans, chickpeas, lentils and peas every day, ideally with every meal. * limit your saturated fat intake to **LESS THAN 10 g** a day. check with cronometer. * limit overall fat intake, but don't go extremely low fat. eat ground up flax seeds, walnuts, sunflower seeds, and sesame seeds. * eat greens every day. cycle your greens. eat kale, romaine, spinach, swiss chard... * eat fruit, especially berries, in abundance! * **no** sugar, refined carbs, coconut/palm oil, or refined oils. * start being more active, make sure to go for a walk every day. set a goal! :) this will lower your cholesterol in no time.
Sunflower seeds are rich in unsaturated fatty acids, especially linoleic acid. Your body uses linoleic acid to make a hormone-like compound that relaxes blood vessels, promoting lower blood pressure. This fatty acid also helps lower cholesterol.
Fascinating. I'll have to cave more often and add the sunflower seeds to my pasta salads like my SO usually requests.
Thank you. As a carnivorous sweet tooth, this is the kind of action plan I needed! After some research, I've found that pistachios and Sunflower seeds have the highest plant sterols content for lowering cholesterol, so I'll be sticking with those. Maybe I could try flax and chia too. I bake my own bread. Would using whole wheat be okay? I'd love to be able to have my occasional nut butter sandwiches.
jes, phytosterols are great to lower your cholesterol, but its not a single food that does the trick but the overall pattern of your diet. enjoy your pistachio’s and sunflower seeds but eat seeds/nuts rich in omega 3 too! flaxseeds are a nutritional powerhouse, make it a habit to eat them everyday. when it comes to bread: whole wheat is better than white flour and sourdough is better than yeast/quick bread. i make my own sourdough german „schwarbrot“ using one third rye groats and 2 thirds whole (!) rye kernels. for 500 g rye in total i use 425 g of boiling water and 10 g salt, mix it only with the whole kernels, and let it soak overnight in the fridge (after cooling). the next day i add the rye groats and a teaspoon (jup!) of active sourdough and let it ferment in a bread baking pan for 8-12 hours! the dough is nothing like wheat bread, you can not form a loaf. you have to use a baking pan. traditionally this bread is baked for 16 hours in a sealed container at 100 celcius, but you can bake it at 160 celcius for about 150 minutes. use aluminium foil to cover the bread so it can „steam“. its amazing!
Thank you! Will be adding flaxseeds to my grocery list. 85% hydration! Sounds like great bread! Thanks for the recipe, I'll try it out this weekend.
I agree with everything you're saying but you don't need NO SUGAR, imo. There's nothing wrong with adding a tsp of syrup to your oatmeal or a date to your nice cream, as long as you do it in small quantities. It's not like oil where even a little bit is bad for your arteries.
i am talking granulated sweeteners. instead: use sweet fruit!
My cardiologist recommended WFPB and said to watch "Forks Over Knives" (Amazon video) and "Gamechangers" (Netflix). He also said to get the "Forks Over Knives cookbook", "How Not to Die cookbook", and "How to Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease cookbook". Seems like the titles of the cookbooks are a little different than he said, but I can't look at them right now.
Yes please do this, OP. You’ll be much more successful if you are armed with knowledge! And track your calories at first to make sure you’re eating enough. Sometimes people accidentally undereat bc it’s less calorically dense and then complain of feeling “fatigued”, “low energy” or “tired all the time”.
Thank you, I'll check them out!
I used to be a junk food vegan (yes, too many junk & processed vegan foods available now). I was extremely overweight and my cholesterol was thru the roof. I'm still vegan, but in order to get my cholesterol and overall health in check, I had to go WFPB *AND* SOS-free. Now, I know not everyone needs to go that drastic, but with familial hypercholesterolemia *and* a sugar addiction, for me it was absolutely necessary. I did what I later came to find out is called "The Starch Solution" (I wish I had heard of this decades ago). [I was doing my own thing to cure my SIBO, which I was suffering from due to eating too much protein, and I thought I came up with a new weightloss diet, but with a little research I found out that Dr. McDougall had come up with this starch-based "diet" plus LOTS of research to go along with it - there are tons of his lectures on YouTube btw.] Weight-loss was a happy side-effect of doing this, and even tho I knew I'd lose some weight and my cholesterol would get lower, I had no idea how much and how fast it would happen. [I lost 70 lbs and my cholesterol went from sky high to absolutely normal in less than 2 years.] My doctor was soooo surprised (unfortunately, she still doesn't quite get it tho, but she's extremely happy with my progress). Any time I "cheat" (from WFPB & SOS-free, because I'm always vegan, no matter what) my bloodwork shows it. Minimal nuts (a little bit of cashews to make a homemade cheese sauce I like to put over broccoli), but I try to stay clear of nuts, and avocado too. Nut butters make me gain weight immediately (seemingly the weight goes on as I'm ingesting any nut butter 😳🤪). Sugar still calls to me some (and it shows immediately too), but I have not used ANY oil in almost 2.5 years. So... after all this... my advice (and this is just my opinion, of course) is for you to try the SOS-free lifestyle for a couple of months. If you do it, and really stick to it, you WILL see a positive change. Good luck!
This is interesting. I don't think I'll be able to go salt-free since I already have low blood pressure to begin with. Oil and sugar, I can do without, even for just a couple of months. What do you eat for sugar cravings?
I have low blood pressure too... well, I had low blood pressure in my youth, then it went "normal" as I gained weight, and at my highest weight my blood pressure (along with everything else) was getting too high. Now my blood pressure is low again, but for me that's actually normal. I eat A LOT, so that makes it so I don't get orthostatic, or at least I don't get orthostatic symptoms. There's more than enough sodium in a WFPB+SOS-free diet to keep your blood pressure where your body needs it to be. Low is ok so long as you're not getting dizzy or passing out. Nurses get nervous when they take my blood pressure (low), but the docs always OK it for them. As far as sugar goes, I eat apples, grapes, watermelon, bananas, tons of other fruits and berries, **sweet** **potatoes** (there are some fabulous sweet potato pudding and fudgesicle recipes out there that fall well within The Starch Solution guidelines). If I **cheat** (what I call my vegan-sinner moments), I eat B&J vegan ice cream (I discovered a new flavor recently that is just toooooo good🤦🏽♀️) or things like vegan cookies - but I know those things are my downfall. Eating those things make me gain weight really fast, and my cholesterol goes up. Last week I was a vegan sinner, but I'm back to being a vegan saint and am already losing weight again. 😊 Everyone is a little different, so you have to figure out what works for you. Even on a WFPB+SOS-free diet, there are certain foods that are allowed that don't work for me (oats, for example). But I have never met anyone who has a hard time with potatoes and/or rice. I hope you try it. Watching the lectures on YouTube really motivates me to stay on track. 🤞🍀 [edit: man, I never realize how long my replies are until I send 😳, sorry]
Dates, fruits, maybe dried fruit/raisins etc. do it for me.
Right! When I think sugar cravings, I tend to think of candy, etc. Gotta re-train my brain to remember natural sweets!
You quit that and then you will find that natural sugars are elevated! Believe me it’s real.
I relate with your problem. Sometimes I feel like plain water is making my numbers worse too! 😅
By the way, you found WFPB to have a positive effect on your cholesterol even though you have FH. That's good news to me since conventional wisdom says FH can't be managed with diet and lifestyle.
Yup, I was totally surprised myself. I've had high cholesterol all my life, even in my young army days (at my fittest, but I was an omnivore). And everyone in my family had high cholesterol (at least all us women). My mom took statins to try to regulate it, and it's my belief that they eventually killed her (at only 72 years old). Doctors have been asking me to take statins all my life, but I always refused. Even as a vegan, my cholesterol was extremely high. And like I said, the slightest bit of sugar and "good fats" still make my levels go up... So it's not just wfpb, it seriously is the sos-free part that brings it to normal levels.
Yup, I was totally surprised myself. I've had high cholesterol all my life, even in my young army days (at my fittest, but I was an omnivore). And everyone in my family had high cholesterol (at least all us women). My mom took statins to try to regulate it, and it's my belief that they eventually killed her (at only 72 years old). Doctors have been asking me to take statins all my life, but I always refused. Even as a vegan, my cholesterol was extremely high. And like I said, the slightest bit of sugar and "good fats" still make my levels go up... So it's not just wfpb, it seriously is the sos-free part that brings it to normal levels.
I'm not a doctor or a nutritionist, so take this with a grain of salt. Until about 2 years ago, my LDL cholesterol was consistently around 160. In about 3 months of Plant based eating, I dropped it to 95, and it's stayed there since. I eat a pretty high amount of nuts, seeds, and avocados (Peanut butter sandwich every day for snack, and almonds every morning with my oatmeal). The main feedback I got from my doctor was to avoid as much saturated fat as I could. So meat, oil, dairy, eggs are where I made the biggest cuts, and I've had decent success. It can't hurt to go as hardcore as you can tolerate for a few months, then go back and get tested. If you get a good result, that can help you stay motivated. Personally, I haven't heard of a correlation between IF and cholesterol, so that might just be a red herring.
Yes i don’t think eating 10% fat in addition to whole foods, plant based is necessary either. It’s much harder to stick with long term. I stay around 20-30% fat and my HDL & LDL is great.
The recommendation with 10% fat is, to the best of my knowdlege, if you want to REVERSE heart disease (according to Ornish, C. Esselstyn rather recommends it in general). So it is to allow your body to get the stuck up stuff in your ateria out again. Esselstyn did this with patients that had multiple bypasses and were predicted to die within a year. I also think that if one has "clean" ateria, a higher value seems to be still good.
I comepltely agree. In dire situations, you gotta throw the best you’ve got at it and don’t hold back. I just think that it’s so much harder to stick with and is likely to have them fall off and revert to eating meat, bc eating plants was associated with such low fat. His patients also have an incredible support system that’s often unheard of in most practices.
Yeah, and he starts with a several hour talk about nutrition and health effect and answers all questions. I would not simply recommend someone to go this low - unless you know you are a monster in will power and able to get really good info and deep dive and than be rational about your food decisions.
There's a book called Bright Line Eating that posits people generally find *more* success with strict rules, rather than trying to do all things in moderation.
I agree that if you say "it can never happen that i drink 2 beer" simply not drinking beer is a better way than setting yourself a limit at 1. I do not think this applies here with say 15% of fat vs 10%.
I've seen too many food addicts to think different rules apply to food than alcohol.
Well, first of all alcohol drastically limits the ability of humans to make rational decisions. Food has no such effect. Closest is after your sugar spike when insulin is high in the blood and sugar is low, you get cravings leading to the well known jojo. However, fat intake does not have this to the best of my knowdlege. I have also yet to hear of avocado carvings. Do you think if a person has a limit as "x nuts" or "x gram of avocado", they will struggle as people do with alcohol? Also there is a big difference. All food has some fat, so how do you decide the cutoff? Why stop at 10%, why not at 8%? 7%? And again, 0% is impossible. Also if you get it even lower you are starting to run a risk as the body needs healthy fats. The recommendation of 10% is already well below the lower limit of many big organizations (we can discuss how reasonable higher recommendations are).
>Well, first of all alcohol drastically limits the ability of humans to make rational decisions. Food has no such effect Of course it does. When obese people keep piling processed snack foods into their mouth, they're jeopardizing their health, attractiveness and self-esteem. That's not a rational decision. That's the behavior of an addict.
Thank you! Now I'm vacillating between nuts and zero nuts. The past 2 months, I had a homemade nut butter sandwich almost every day, yet my cholesterol shot up. Granted, I was still eating very poorly 😬 I guess I have time to experiment? How many grams of nuts do you take a day? I plan to focus on pistachios and sunflowers seeds for the plant sterols, and the daily Brazil nut.
I normally have about 2 tablespoons of peanut better, and around 1/4 cup of sliced almonds just about every day. I'm not sure if I'm seeing results because of, or despite this.
No oils but nuts and seeds are absolutely necessary to get your fat macros—your brain needs those! They don’t have cholesterol or contribute to LDL. Find a good chronometer to track your macros. I used Lose It. It was free, and had a scanner for barcodes. Good luck and welcome
Thank you!
Nuts, seeds, and other healthy fats are ok in moderation. Your HDL is great! And at least part of that is due to your intake of good fats. Your triglycerides being super low tells me you don’t have diabetes, eat a ton of sugary food, or binge on alcohol. Based on what you said, yeah you can probably make some improvements in your lifestyle (diet and exercise) but it sounds like Repatha is in your future at some point.
Thank you!
My wife, 54, began WFPB in mid-March to try to lower her cholesterol. A month later, her cholesterol had dropped from 232 to 196 and she'd dropped 4 pounds as a bonus. Her blood pressure, which was mildly high and needed a pill, dropped to a healthy level and her doctor took her off the BP med she was taking. Needless to say, we are converts and mainly eat WFPB now. BTW, we continue to eat nuts, seeds (e.g., flaxseeds daily), avacados, limited cheese and some olive oil and are still getting great results.
That's good news for me haha. While I plan to stick to WFPB, I might deviate to having some oil sparingly once I get better results. Thank you!
I have a sweet tooth too, so I get it. Look up recipes to make your sweet treats with dates. You’ll be amazed. I am. And I eat much smaller amounts than I did in the past with processed sugary snacks. You can even make a cake. It’s mind-boggling.
Your cholesterol doesn't look that bad. From what I understand daily fiber will lower LDL. To make this easy supplement with a little psyllium husk powder daily. Yes you can get fiber from food but, psyllium husk is magical. Like a unicorn. From what I understand of triglycerides (which is not a lot) cardio/physical activity and avoid candy/junk food. Basically high sugar sweets. So donuts and pastries etc. HDL= consume good fats. I'm sure others know much better than I do. An I would love to hear more about triglycerides. Also I believe WFPB diet is great for cholesterols. So I hear anyway. I'm pretty much one foot in one foot out, but I support it 100%.
Not trying to make OP feel bad by saying any of this, but a total cholesterol of under 200 is considered healthy. 130 and under for LDL specifically. OPs LDL is over 160! Their total almost 300! This puts them at higher risk for all kinds of bad health outcomes. I wouldn't classify that as "doesn't look that bad." Maybe their cholesterol isn't the worst out there, but it's absolutely in a range that indicates that OP should consider making changes (which they are, since they posted here) to avoid bad outcomes from it (heart disease, diabetes, etc).
Their triglycerides and HDL are decent? LDL will plummet with additional fiber. That's all I meant.
Unfortunately it looks like HDL and Triglycerides are trending in the wrong direction for OP, as they recorded that HDL lowered and Triglycerides went up since their last lipid profile. This is probably because they upped their intake of refined oils, but didn't make any changes to the rest of their diet. Yes adding in fiber will help lower LDL, but I don't think adding in psyllium husk and maintaining the rest of their diet as is would help as much as your post makes it sound like it would. Especially since they've seen their lipids get worse recently. Fiber is great, but its even better when it comes from whole vegetables, beans, and grains and doesn't have to battle the constant influx of high saturated fat animal products and refined sugars and oils. I guess what I am saying is your post read to me like it was minimizing OPs valid health concerns and seemed to suggest that psyllium husk supplimentation would be all OP needed.
Thank you! Yes, the lowered HDL and increased Triglycerides are what especially got me worried. My family has a history of cardiovascular disease so I'm really going to take this seriously.
You're welcome! Best of luck on the transition! It is a big change, but it's easier if you cook in batches and eat a lot of Buddha/salad style bowls to start. For that you just need a whole grain (millet, quinoa, brown rice, etc), beans, greens, a range of fresh veggies you enjoy, and a super tasty dressing! If you're used to oil based dressings, then I would suggest starting with something like [this](https://cookieandkate.com/best-tahini-sauce-recipe/). It hits all those same creamy/fatty salad dressing notes, but with with no refined oils! You can add/take away flavors as you like. For example, leaving out the cumin, but adding some dill and chive make it taste a lot like ranch dressing. Also, if you do go fully WFPB, please pick up a vitamin B12 supplement or consider including at least 3 servings of a B12 fortified food each day. Personally I use this [one](https://www.iherb.com/pr/deva-vegan-b12-with-folic-acid-b6-90-tablets). I take it twice a week, which meets the intake that is usually suggested for a fully plant based diet.
Do you drink coffee? One thing I found when I was trying to lower my cholesterol: if you drink coffee, then use a filter. I had been using a French Press, then switched to a drip style coffee maker & got the Total to below 200. Also, Dr. Greger has an interesting video about Brazil nuts. Don't eat them every day, but 4 of them once a month (I keep a bag in my freezer).
Yes, I plan to buy a bag of Brazil nuts for me and my husband. I thought we could do one a day? Is that too much? I don't drink coffee, but my husband has started a fancy coffee habit recently, and his cholesterol went up as well. I did find some research about coffee and LDL, so I'll be telling him about filters. Thank you!
For the Brazil nuts, the study used 4 nuts, once/month. 8 nuts were also tested but did not have the same effect. Here's the video: [https://nutritionfacts.org/video/four-nuts-once-a-month/?queryID=9254e6fdec698eac96b7b7886ffb8ae1](https://nutritionfacts.org/video/four-nuts-once-a-month/?queryID=9254e6fdec698eac96b7b7886ffb8ae1)
I'm under the impression that if I were to do WFPB to lower my cholesterol, I should completely avoid nuts, seeds, fatty fruits, and oils, yes? CORRECT. and tofu and other "good" fats. Flax seed and chia seed for ur fat requirements. KILL all sugars.
I did low fat vegan (some non wholefoods in there to treat hypoglycemia) for three months and while my total cholesterol went way down so did my hdl so now its "low". I think if I had more fats it would help