Keto Diet For Person With High Cholesterol – “My skin cleared up. I was able to focus a lot more. I actually have more energy.” – Awilla Rodriguez
Awilla Rodriguez has always eaten a relatively balanced diet and exercised. But despite that, her genetics were catching up with her.
Keto Diet For Person With High Cholesterol
With a family history of high blood pressure and high cholesterol, plus worsening stress, she found her markers were elevated for both — even in her 20s.
The Keto Diet And Cholesterol: Is Eating Low Carb And High Fat Really Good For Your Heart?
At age 27, her doctor had put her on medication for hypertension, running in the range of 160-190 (diastolic).
“My blood pressure has gone up in the last few years,” she says. “I knew it was a problem. It’s in my family. It started to get louder and louder as I went through nursing school.”
Then, while pregnant with twins, her blood pressure normalized to the point where she didn’t need to be on medication.
In the months following the birth of her twins, Awilla felt lost. She had gained 50 pounds during the pregnancy and no longer felt like herself – especially with the stress of caring for infant twins plus her six-year-old daughter.
Keto Food List: 221 Keto Diet Foods (+ Keto Cheat Sheet)
She signed up for Beach Body and at the same time began researching the ketogenic diet. But the demands of the diet gave her pause. Coming from the Dominican Republic, Awilla knew giving up carbs would be difficult.
“I’m Spanish and keto means no carbs,” she says. “And guess what we eat every day? We eat rice like crazy.”
The ketogenic diet limits carbohydrates while focusing on healthy fats, which puts the body in a metabolic state called ketosis. With ketosis, the body burns fat for energy and converts fat into ketones in the liver.
Several studies have shown that a ketogenic diet can help regulate blood sugar and insulin levels and help with heart disease, cancer and inflammatory disorders such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.
Low Carb Vs. Keto: Which Is Better?
Her daily diet typically consisted of banana bread along with coffee – with lots of sugar and cream. Then she ate fried plantains with eggs and sausage. Then lunch and dinner would be rice with meat.
Instead, she chose to focus on what she COULD have instead of what she couldn’t. Keto would allow her to have high quality meats, eggs and all the vegetables she wanted.
At the same time, she started working out four to five times a week – doing Beach Body right in the living room during her babies’ naps.
Awilla collected recipes and went all in with the keto diet. But before she saw progress, she had to endure what is called the “keto flu.”
Ketogenic Diet Health Benefits
“When you start keto, it takes all the water out of your system,” she explains. “You get so dehydrated. If you don’t drink enough, you get very cranky and have bad breath. You detox your body from carbs and sugar. You’re a miserable person for a week or two.”
She also had to learn to count “macros,” which refers to the macronutrients that are in our food’s fat, protein, and carbohydrates. In order to adhere to the allowed macros on the keto diet, Awilla had to track them carefully.
“Instead of salmon without the skin, you choose salmon with the skin,” she says. “Or instead of chicken breast, you go with chicken thighs.”
Her family mostly eats what she makes. She now makes bread with coconut or almond flour, which her children enjoy. She sweetens such recipes with erythritol or monk fruit. But she makes rice and beans for her children.
Low Carb Diet Not Tied To Adverse Ldl Cholesterol Levels Inspite Of High Saturated Fat Levels
Within a week, Awilla began to lose weight, and within a month she saw a number of positive improvements.
“My skin cleared up. I was able to focus a lot more. I actually have more energy,” she says.
And unexpectedly, her cholesterol dropped from over 200 to the 140s—despite eating a high-fat diet.
With this progress, she stays on the diet most of the time, with a few breaks at Christmas or when she went back to the Dominican Republic on vacation.
What Happens To Your Body When You Start The Keto Diet
Now Awilla passes on her experience and knowledge through her blog and by coaching other mothers who want to start a keto diet. For them, she gives a few tips.
If you found this story helpful, you might also like Oklahoma Father’s Depression, Digestive Problems Go Away With 30-Day Vegan Diet Challenge.
The information on this site is for educational and inspirational purposes only and is not intended to replace the advice of qualified professionals. Keep in mind that what works for one person may not work for another. Always consult your doctor before starting new approaches or treatments. Some links on Rebuilding My Health may be affiliate links. This means that we may receive a commission – at no additional cost to you – if you make a purchase using these affiliate links. Rebuilding My Health is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates program. Learn more. Even if you are at risk for cardiovascular disease, you may still be a candidate for the popular diet.
For every person talking about the ketogenic diet, there is another warning about the bad effects on your heart. The concern is that a very high fat, moderate protein and very low carbohydrate diet will create a subsequent rise in cholesterol levels, which in turn can increase your risk of heart disease.
Everything You Need To Know About The Keto Diet
The concern is certainly valid. On the keto diet, you eat up to 80 percent of your calories from fat each day and stick to 20 to 50 grams of net carbs, a term used in popular diets including keto and Atkins but not officially recognized in the medical community. (To calculate net carbs, subtract fiber and sugar alcohols from the total carbs per Atkins.) All of this means you’ll be eating a lot of fat per day, and to meet that quota, that might include unhealthy choices like butter, coconut oil and animal fat. These are all sources of saturated fat, which have been linked to poor heart health, according to the American Heart Association (AHA). (The point of keto is to switch your body from a carb-burning state to a fat-burning state, called ketosis.)
But the effect of keto on heart health is not as straightforward as it sounds. In fact, the keto diet may not have as harmful an effect on your cholesterol as previously thought.
“When you review the data, a few things are clear. When you look at population studies and clinical trials, the effect of the keto diet on lipids is modest,” says Daniel Soffer, MD, an internist and lipidologist at Penn Medicine in Philadelphia. Dr. Soffer is a member of the National Lipid Association, an organization dedicated to addressing lipid issues.In October 2019, the National Lipid Association released a position statement on low-carb and very-low-carb, ketogenic diets and their relationship to lipids and published it in the Journal of Clinical Lipidology (PDF). Most commonly, he says, research shows that keto produces modest reductions in triglycerides, modest changes in heart-protective high-density lipoprotein (HDL or “good”) and minimal changes in low-density lipoprotein (LDL or “bad”) levels. Some studies, the review notes, show an increase in LDL on low- or very-low-carb diets. (However, long-term studies are lacking.)
Whether those numbers — especially HDL — go up or down depends largely on the quality of your keto diet. “One problem is that there is no single ketogenic diet. There are different ways to follow it, and some people are careful about the types of fat they eat, while others are not,” says Soffer.
Pros And Cons Of The Keto Diet, According To Health Experts
To his point, a previous article noted that in human studies of normal-weight and obese people, keto diets are generally associated with a reduction in total cholesterol, an increase in HDL, a decrease in triglycerides, and reductions in LDL. At the same time, other research, the review points out, shows something else: an increase in LDL or no fluctuation. In trials where LDL decreased, people ate a low-carbohydrate diet high in healthy unsaturated fat and limited in unhealthy saturated fat, the authors point out.
An earlier study included in the above article compared a low-calorie diet and a very low-carb, high-fat diet (which would constitute a keto diet) in more than 360 overweight and obese participants. Some of the participants had diabetes, others did not. After about a year, those in the keto group saw their total cholesterol, triglycerides, and LDL decrease, while their HDL increased.
To get an idea of whether the keto diet might have a negative effect on your cholesterol, consider your starting triglyceride count. According to the Mayo Clinic, triglycerides are another type of lipid in your blood that your body uses for energy; high triglyceride and LDL levels can lead to fatty deposits that tighten arteries, the AHA notes. Normal levels are less than 150 milligrams per day. deciliters (mg/dL). “About a quarter of the population has triglyceride levels above 150 mg/dL, which is the threshold to consider elevated triglycerides. That’s a large percentage of the population, so it’s not uncommon,” says Soffer.
If you have normal levels, keto is probably safe to try. “For people with normal or perfect triglyceride levels, the impact of keto is minimal to none,” Soffer says. If, on the other hand, you have insulin resistance, type 2 diabetes and/or abdominal obesity and your triglycerides are elevated – it
Keto And Fatty Liver
Diet for person with high cholesterol, keto diet good for high cholesterol, keto diet plan for high cholesterol, keto diet for high cholesterol, keto diet for cholesterol, is keto diet safe for high cholesterol, keto diet and high cholesterol, keto diet with high cholesterol, is keto diet good for high cholesterol, keto diet bad for cholesterol, keto diet high cholesterol, diet for a person with high cholesterol
