I am a regular reader of your blog and follow low carb diet (40g of carbs every day).

While I come across the normal BG levels, what is the accepted normal triglyceride levels if someone is in low carb? I am referring about the postprandial (PP) levels (2 hours after food)?

Mine was 283 PP when the Dr tested once and after that I have been tested only fasting. Both the time it was 95 and 119(last time). All other lipid parameters are at normal levels (both during fasting and PP).

Thanks

Venkat

I really don’t know what the postprandial levels should be. It depends a great deal on what the meal was. I typically check fasting levels, and in patients on low-carb diets those are usually under 100 mg/dl.

First-time post from a long-time devotee of your ProteinPower plan, on which I’ve lost nearly 35 pounds and have kept that weight off for nearly 6 years now. I’d like to take my weight down another 20 pounds, which would bring me to my best-health weight of 175.

My question pertains to your ending comment in the post above: “Studies have shown that increasing sat fat intake and decreasing veg oil intake helps improve liver function.”

I have no reason to believe that my liver function is impaired, but I’d like to ask your opinion of organic COCONUT OIL intake and its role (as a largely-saturated fat) in lipid profiles and overall health. My family and I love the taste when we cook with it, but there has always been a cloud over our use of that oil because of the mixed opinion about lipid effects. Anything you might add will be much appreciated. All the best…Don in CT

I love organic coconut oil. That is MD’s fat of choice to cook with. It contains a lot of good immune enhancing short-chain fatty acids that are hard to get from other sources, and isn’t damaged in the cooking process. Go for it.

My liver function tests were elevated because of eating a lot of butter & drinking 4 glasses of wine per night over a 10 year period. I have since stopped the wine and am on the Promedis liquid low carb diet to hopefully lose about 35 pounds and am under an Endocronologist’s supervision. This includes 2 Promedic drinks per day and 1 Promedic bar and a low fat (lean meat or fish or poultry, 3-4 oz per evening meal, plus veggies). Do you think that this diet will correct my liver function tests and bring them back to normal. I plan to not drink any alcohol in the future. Thank you for any info you can give me.

Sharon

It’s been my experience with many, many patients that liver function tests normalize fairly quickly once they started following a low-carb diet, especially if they decreased their consumption of alcohol as well. I don’t think your liver function tests were abnormal because of the butter – I suspect it was because of a number of other factors. Studies have shown that increasing saturated fat intake and decreasing vegetable oil intake helps to improve liver function.

Thanks Dr, Eades for all your hard work getting real information about nutrition out for us, instead of us having to try and decipher the non-sense the media presents.

I’ve had some interesting personal experience in this area. First, I do lots of stuff to promote GH release, as I’ve not merely wanted to “lose weight,” but to lose fat and gain muscle. As I said in my last comment, I’m at 50 pounds fat loss, 20 pounds lean gain for a net loss of 30.

To promote GH release I train briefly (30 minutes x2 per week) but very intensely (heavy weight, little to no rest between sets). Lots of leg and back work, i.e., the big muscles where most GH stimulation comes in. Also: fasting. And: sleep. I also do all this in combo.

My Ac1 is at 4.8, which is right at the low, yet it is not uncommon to have a random blood glucose of 110ish. In one self-experiment, I had gone 30 hours fasting when I tested: 85ish. Went to the gym, did my normal workout, then tested as soon as I got home, which was about 45 minutes after the completion of my workout. So, I’d not eaten in about 31 hours, and with a heavy workout right at the end. Random Blood Glucose came out near 110.

I had always thought this was simple temporary insulin resistance from the stress of the workout, as well as fat burning and gluconeogenesis, but perhaps the GH also plays a direct role. Anyway…

Dr, to clarify from my last, it’s not a lab error. I was first diagnosed about 5 years ago and had been on 125MCG levothroid all this time. Right around the last holidays, after about three months of really low carb and really high fat, I had lost about 20 pounds of fat, gained 10 pounds leans for a net of 10. I felt great, this is when I began employing the intermittent fasting, and I just stopped taking the thyroid meds. My weight (fat) loss really accelerated. Now, maybe that’s all or mostly do to the fasting, but it does seem odd to me. At any rate, I have no intention of going back to the meds until I drill down and find out as best I can what’s going on.

Good idea on the drilling down. If you do go on meds, it’s been my experience that Armour Thyroid (dessicated thyroid) is much better than levothyroid. Talk your doc into letting you give it a go.

Serum Cholesterol 4.8%
Triglycerides: 0.5

My weekly diet includes a whole chicken (including the skin), a couple of steaks (including the fat), 8 rashers of bacon (fried in the chicken fat saved from the fowl above), one lamb’s liver and upto 12 eggs a week. I will also eat about 8 tins of either pilchards/tuna/mackerel/sardines a week. My body fat is well under 10%.

I do not eat whole grains, pasta, rice, cereal, bread, potatoes, pastries or any goods containing refined-carbohydrate.

Your blog is one of the main sources that gave me the confidence to go down this dietary route. Many thanks.

Chris

PS I’m looking forwards to the new book!

I’m glad you’re enjoying the blog. Thanks for your support.

MRE

I’ve been waiting for 2 days for a comment I wrote in your
“weight-loss/low-carb-and-calories-2″ column to be “approved.” At first I thought it might be because you were busy and unable to get to comments to your articles, but then I see that you’ve been approving them in this topic.

Can you please approve my comment in the other column — even though, basically, it takes issue with your own comments on the topic — or should I re-post those comments here?

Best wishes,

Ellen

Hi Ellen–

MRE