I'm only posting because you quoted me.mjr wrote: ↑25 Oct 2021, 10:55amTotal cholesterol and even LDL measurements from NHS tests are crude and not the whole story but it's not a bad rough rule.RRSODL wrote: ↑19 Oct 2021, 5:37pmThere is your problem controling your glucose levels. Cut down carbohydrates, eat your green leafy salads, adds more fat to your diet in the form of extra virgin olive oil, grass fed butter, oily fish like salmon, mackerel, olives, avocado.
Stress will rase your glucose levels, [...]
If your ratio of total cholesterol to LDL is below 3 then you are OK.
People differ and adding fat will work for some people but others will find their body reacts by increasing cholesterol production. It's all about finding the right balance for oneself but current tests don't really help to do that. NHS tests are either crude or too expensive to do often, whereas home tests are even cruder.
On diet, I'd suggest adding leafy dark greens, pulses and handful of nuts (almonds, walnuts, cashews seem good), and try to switch from high salt oatcakes to porridge, especially if you can make it with high oatbran for the beta-glucan which seems to help lower cholesterol. I don't recall anyone suffering a downside from it except a few where it was fairly obvious
Another problem with worrying about diet or frequent testing is that stress never seems to help, as several posts above correctly say.
Don't be fooled by the "healthy" options like brown bread or brown pasta, they might have more nutrients / slightly lower GI but they are still carbs.Oatmeal is another food that I love but sadly it spikes my glucose big time.
Adding fat to the diet doesn't raise your glucose much at all, hence the suggestion. Fat does increase HDL but not all HDL is bad, in fact HDL is necessary for the inmune system, sex hormones, etc, however, oxidized HDL is bad and blame glucose for that. By the way, the human body makes HDL.
Almonds and cashews are rather high in carbs, a better choice is macademia and pecans.
I was going to say something on the 'high salt' but this video explains it much better than I could https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kXZo0hSHDoY
And this on HDL https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cH_tk6Bn0 ... Mg&index=1 this doctor is a fellow cyclist and inspired by Chris Frome.