Am I in "starvation mode?"

I was going to chime in, but I see a couple of you got this already.

Okay, so I'm being taught false information in my nutrition course. Lovely. My professor (a registered dietician) has said over and over again that the body does not need the added cholesterol from outside sources because our body makes enough and that excess is baadddd!

My professor said high fat isn't bad, but it should be from nuts, oils, and fish, not cows, pigs, etc.

My ideas, some of what I do: breakfast: 2-3 scrambled eggs. Use olive oil to coat frying pan. You can even put in a thin slice of cheese (one thin slice). You can chop up a little baby green onion or saute some mushrooms, green pepper if you want to jazz them up. Sprinkle in some Chia seeds, a tsp of crushed flax seed. Skip the toast. Another breakfast might be oatmeal or quinoa with a tsp of flax, chia seeds, berries, raisins and a little agave if you need it sweeter. Quinoa is a complete protein. Chia seeds have protein too and lots of omega 3s...very good and will add a little variety. You can make quinoa a breakfast food or fry up and add a little onion, green pepper, garlic, mushrooms, olives, tiny bits of broccoli and use it instead of rice when you feel like you really need something like that.

Snack between breakfast and lunch if you feel hungry, otherwise save it for afternoon snack: 1/2 cup of walnuts or almonds, pistachios....whatever nuts you like. Have a piece of fruit or 1/2 cup of berries if you like. A stalk of celery with a tsp or 2 of peanut or almond butter makes a good snack. Just don't use a ton of peanut butter. Have sardines or kippers a couple times a week, either for a meal or a snack. Other than the salt, they're very good for you.

Lunch and dinner ideas: Home made soup that has meat or beans, legumes, lots of veggies, herbs....something like that. But homemade. Don't use processed foods.

Big green salad full of other veggies besides lettuce. I'll put in spinach (mostly spinach instead of lettuce, cut up carrot, yellow squash, cauliflower, red/green peppers, green onion, jicama, (fantastic stuff) maybe some bok choy or celery...something like that, tomatoes and sometimes half an avocado, maybe a sprinkling of nuts, sunflower seeds, chia seeds. Then I may or may not add some shrimp or salmon, a little blue cheese dressing, even though it's fattening because I love it.

Or...a piece of baked chicken or some other meat. Have wild Alaskan salmon 2-3 times a week if you can afford it. Or do something with the canned. It's cheap and you can make it into things or add to salad.

And lots of vegetables. Don't use creamy, fattening sauces, at least not often. Lots of vegetables make you feel like you're getting a lot of stuff, the variety is good and the fiber fills you up. Plus, they're loaded with vitamins and anti oxidants etc. Very important for any diet. I have vegetables with every meal....almost always and sometimes the vegetables ARE the meal. They're always the main part. If you don't like them, get use to them and try different kinds. They're essential to good health. And there are all kinds of ways to fix them.

Stir fry some vegetables and throw in a handful of shrimp or chicken, tofu...whatever protein you like. Skip the noodles. Have them once in a while for a special treat, but don't make noodles, rice, pasta, bread something you have to have because those things make you fat and aren't necessary at all. Go ahead and make up some stir sauce of your own...easy. Not the healthiest thing, but you gotta make your food taste good. You can use agave nectar instead of sugar for a lower glycemic index....it might help some.

I use olive oil instead of butter for things because it's better for you....like brush it on a boiled potato and add some herbs. I don't eat many potatoes, but some because they are good for you, especially sweet potatoes or yams.

Don't eat chips, cookies, candy, pop, fast food (NEVER)...processed food...something someone else already made and packaged with a lot of sodium and chemicals. Just ask yourself, when you want these things, "do I want that? Or do I want to be healthy?" You will lose your cravings in a short time if you load up on vegetables, good quality protein and some fat. You can definitely spend a Saturday cooking up some stuff and freezing it in small containers so you have ready made meals.

Look for healthy desert ideas that aren't too fattening.

I think it's great that you're working on this. Just don't let yourself feel deprived by eating too little. And don't do anything that you don't think you can do forever....within reason. There are some things we just have to give up sometimes in order to be healthier.

yes, there is a growing amount of information that is showing that your registered dietician professor is in fact wrong on this topic. Funny because my nutrition classes 20 years ago were off the cholesterol bandwagon already at that point. at least jumping off.

Well, it's a lot like vets, really. They don't know anymore than what was forced down their throats. Or they just don't care.

Go figure.

This IS pretty new to be fair to your prof. And its pretty radical.. but when you realize the food pyramid and the lipid hypothesis (the idea that saturated fats were bad) was a POLITICAL decision back in the day and the current scientists were an the whole against it...

Think about it, humans all through evolution would get most of their fat from animals. Why would we have evolved to eat a diet full of fats we wouldn't get much if any of? Its like dog food nutritionists who come up with corn filled diets for dogs. They went to school too

As I said I believed as you did, till I started looking into the biochemistry and metabolism aspect and was shocked. Nutrition studies are some of the worst IMO. One of the main studies back in the day that was used to show cholesterol was bad used rabbits. An animal that would NEVER eat saturated animal fat! No matter how much cholesterol they fed to omnivores or carnivores they couldn't get the same results...

So, should I stop taking my cholesterol medicine?

Is there anything wrong with my diet ideas? I don't eat a lot of animal fat...some of course, but I think it puts weight on me. My daughter cut out butter and mayo for a short time. That's all she did differently and she lost 10 lbs quickly.

I know they're a good thing, I just grew up in the 80's, so everytime I think about eating them, I picture my stomach turning into this:

Actually possibly Carrie.. If its a statin.. the president of one of the big pharma companies said it was possibly harmful and none of those drugs had ever been proven to lower risk of heart disease. Check the stuff you are taking.. see if it has that little disclaimer.

Also it lowers intelligence as it causes the brain to shrink!! Some studies are saying no woman should be on statins and the like. As I don't have that issue I haven't looked into it, just read things on the periphery. If you want I can dig up some of the info.

Yes, I've heard it can make one a little foggy in the head. I'm already like that anyhow, so I better watch out. Another thing it can do (I think) is cause peripheral neuropathy. My Mom had a stroke and has been on a statin drug (Lipitor) and hasn't had another episode. I know that doesn't prove anything. But I think lots of people are on this stuff and they may have had a heart attack or stroke, but then never do again.

My cholesterol is very high without a statin drug. It does bring it down into what they consider a normal range. Actually one part of it isn't quite low enough. And yes, it doesn't matter what I eat, it's always high without the drugs. I know cholesterol is normal and necessary, but if it's too high, doesn't it clog up the arteries and doesn't that prevent blood and oxygen from getting to all the body? If not, then what is it that is clogging the arteries if it's not fat or cholesterol? They do see that arteries are blocked and they do see that it is a fat substance, do they not? How does it get there?

it does absolutely clog ateries. But it only does so because they are damaged. Smoking causes inflammation of vessels, they get damaged, when they get damaged, they must be repaired, cholesterol works well for that. Eating trans fats will cause ateries to become 15% less elastic than normal vessels. When that happens, they don't contract and expand to regulate BP like they should and they get damaged, and must be repaired. Cholesterol patches work well again.

Cholesterol by itself and cholesterol that isn't being oxidized by inflammation in your body isn't going to do anything harmful to your body. It's just going to be there doing it's thing. providing building blocks to cells and hormones, making your brain, transporting stuff in blood etc. It's when we create an internal environment that causes damage, that cholesterol becomes "bad" when really it's always doing exactly what it is supposed to be. if it's 300 or 150 if you're not damaging yourself internally it won't matter. It doesn't just precipitate out of your blood and stick to vessel walls, though that's what public policy makers and drug makers would like everyone to believe.

can I ask what high is? 30 years ago 250 was normal for a woman at 60 or 65 years of age. Today they say it has to be 180 or less. It takes thousands of people taking statins everyday in high risk groups to stop one and half heart attacks.

In the meantime people are having strokes, yes too low of cholesterol leaves you much more suceptible to strokes than too high, getting permanent muscle damage (rhabdomyolisis), brain damage not to mention the billions and billions spent on them every year.

There is no evidence that high blood cholesterol causes the plaque to build up. But it is a part of it. The plaques are the bodies way to try to deal with damaged arteries. No the cholesterol doesn't damage the arteries.. in fact the current theory is the constant high carb diet we now eat is doing a lot of the damage! But what the cholesterol does when you have damage is to try to cover damage.

This is very simplistic, and there is something about oxidizing the LDL.. there is also bits about how good cholesterol reverses this...

The long and the short of it is that they really don't know. They thought they knew, but as loads of people have heart disease with low LDL and vice vesa the link is not nearly as clear.

From what I HAVE read about statins... if there is another drug for lowering your LDL I would at least look into it. A recent study (this year) has shown that it increases a womans risk of type 2 diabetes almost 50% and

So, if the internal environment or the arteries is bad (from smoking or eating too much sugar or whatever) then, one must stay on statin drugs, right? Or else the cholesterol that is intrinsically harmless becomes harmful. Do I have that right?

If your high blood pressure or cholesterol is genetic, then it really has nothing to do with your diet. But they have lowered the "normal" range, and definitely increased the "need" for statins, that apparently don't work. Cholesterol actually does help repair your arteries and other blood vessels, though, as has been said. It's kind of like someone blaming high crime on police, because they see police. It's blaming a side effect, rather than a cause. Sadly, there are many, many causes for high cholesterol and blood pressure.

Exactly this. Cholesterol doesn't clog your ateries by floating loose in your blood stream and sticking to the walls. This is false.

Your blood vessels have 3 layers and the cholesterol builds up between the layers on the interior of the vessel. Over time the vessel accumulates enough cholesterol that it become occluded. It is suggested that people eat a lower fat/lower cholesterol diet, but at that point your diet is pretty moot. Your vessels have been damaged by smoking/high blood prerssure/diabetes/etc.

Not exactly.. lol. And I personally would look at different options. If you have the damage and the genetics you can take all the statins you want and you are still at risk as your body will still make it. On the other hand it seems if you eat lots (and don't have the 'bad' genes) your body doesn't make more. Ie just like eating lots of protein doesn't automatically mean you will build more muscle.. other factors have to play a part. The cholesterol you eat is broken down, those building blocks make both the good and bad cholesterol. Statins just reduce the liver's ability to make it.

I wouldn't say so If you change your internal environment, your body does heal. Slower than when you're young, but it will heal. Unless of course you still want to smoke and eat lots of sugar, in which case it won't matter. If your levels are 150, your vessels are still damaged and your body is still going to fix them and the low levels of cholesterol are still going to oxidize and potentially cause problems. Same as if it was 300.

Statin drugs disrupt the process of your liver in its production and recycling of cholesterol. they also deplete your body of coQ10 which is an important cofactor for many many reactions in your body, most noteably in the muscles of your hear kind of ironic

Here's a video about Statins/Fatty Diet/Cholesterol:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6FtUDEpGKc

If you have Netflix, I would suggest Fathead. It isn't a perfect documentary, but it's fun and interesting and it puts a lot more into perspective. Sort of like 101, and something you can build upon.