The Cholesterol Conundrum by Silvi Honey

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The Cholesterol Conundrum

A lot of us who have adopted a low carb and intermittent fasting lifestyle, lost the excess weight, and reversed a myriad of metabolic diseases, proudly waltz into our doctor's office for our annual checkup… only to be reprimanded (in my cased yelled at!) about our cholesterol numbers and subsequent "best thing since sliced bread" statin drugs lecture (ugh!!).

Megan Ramos, Clinical Director for Dr. Fung's Intensive Dietary Management has mentioned how fasting temporarily raises cholesterol. Also, there is a lot of evidence that elevated LDL *does not* increase the chance of heart attacks or strokes… in fact there are many other factors that do increase the probability of heart attacks or strokes… but of course, they cannot prescribe statins for them, so they are rarely discussed. But I digress.

Megan Ramos certainly is aware of this fact. But she created a workaround for those that want to appease our doctors. (Me, I just got rid of my statin-pushing, yelling doctor, in favor of a more open minded one). Nonetheless, I was curious about the Megan Ramos protocol for bloodwork, so I shared it with my new doctor, and he was excited to see how it would turn out.

So here is Megan Ramos' protocol:

For five days prior, eat three low carb meals per day. Do not fast more than 14 hours per day. On the day/time of "the poke" make sure that you have not fasted more than 13.5 hours, so from 12.5 hours to 13.5 hours from the last meal is ideal.

Any time we fast past 14 hours, we're going to have higher lipids in our blood. That's the way a metabolically healthy body is supposed to work.

Why it works:

When we fast, the first thing that happens is that we empty out our glycogen stores in our liver. After that, we start mobilizing stored fat for energy. To put it simply, that stored fat ends up in your blood to be carried to where it is needed.

Also, the "normal" ranges for these lipids are based on people who eat 3 to 5 times a day, and normally do not fast more than 13 hours a day. So, if we want results like them, we must eat similarly, only very low carb.

In my previous bloodwork of September 2021, I probably had been fasting for at least 18 hours, since I normally eat dinner at 5pm, and I think I went to have blood drawn after 11 am, after the morning rush so I didn't have to wait. Unless I had fasted the day before in which case, I would have been fasting for 42 hours.

Additionally my friend and co-founder Dianne Tiedemann Veniot, along with Yvonne Broadwater-Seitz of my FB goup Intermittent Fasting & Low Carb Women had heard to skip the black coffee that morning, so I did that as well. Here are my results. They speak for themselves. Keep in mind I have not changed my diet or exercise, and my weight has been the same (23 BMI) for over two years.

Written by Silvi Honey
Admin and co-founder, Intermittent Fasting & Low Carb Women a science-based support group for women who want to lose weight and gain health.
Published: October 15th, 2022

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