I’ve been doing Rolling 48s and 72s for over half a year now. Over a year ago my LDL was 114 mg/dL, total cholesterol was 188, and triglycerides were 112 mg/dL. Took a blood test last week. Total cholesterol lowered to 133 and LDL dropped all the way to 66 mg/dL. However my triglycerides rose to 138 mg/dL. Any clue as to why this may have happened, and how to lower it? Also I took the test during the second day of a fast, about 36 hours in.
A bit weird that your LDL went down and triglycerides didn’t. How are your refeeds? It might be that your body is having a hard time switching to keto. You might want to have your refeeds to be more low-carb or pure keto. Source:
“The thing that I focus on most is triglycerides. If your triglycerides are elevated, that means your body is just not adapting to the ketogenic diet. Some people’s triglycerides are elevated even when their calories are restricted. That’s a sign that the ketogenic diet is not for you. You can’t deny that. It’s not a one size fits all diet.”
There is a YouTube channel called Physionics and he looks into a lot of fasting studies. If you go to the 18:35 mark of this video he is discussing triglycerides while fasting.
From my understanding, the triglycerides are being dumped into your blood stream by your fat cells so your body can use them as fuel, so having high numbers isn’t abnormal. The study he cites shows that the triglycerides can remain elevated for months after ending a fast.
I’ll take a semi-uneducated, I’m not a doctor stab at it.
What are you eating when you do eat and what type of exercise are you doing? Triglycerides are fats free floating in the blood stream meant to be used as an energy source, I believe. So if that’s going up… you are consuming more energy than you are using? Gets complicated because if you’re fasting, you’re in a time period of caloric deficit. But the body is complex, and I want to say during a fast, the body is preferentially using stored body fat as it’s energy source.
But the body also stores glycogen in the muscles and liver. Approximately 2000 calories worth of it (which is why marathon runners hit the “wall” around mile 18, they rip through stores glycogen). And when the body has full glycogen reserves, that’s when consumed carbohydrates are preferentially transformed into triglycerides for being stored as body fat.
So perhaps you are in a chronic state of full glycogen storage while consuming excess carbohydrate when you do eat. IF you aren’t exercising, I’d recommend some sort of high intensity stuff a couple times a week. Cycling, sprinting, jump rope, burpees, kettlebell swings, etc..
I think triglycerides can be pretty volatile, especially if you were fasted when blood was drawn / last meal before the blood draw.
I recently had my triglycerides tested twice in one month (once at the start of month and once at the end). It went from 280 to 110. I was more fasted (14 hrs instead of 10) before the blood draw. Not saying it’ll be the same for you, just something to consider it can drop a lot even in the span of a month.
What’s your diet like?
I was also eating a lot more oatmeal (steel cut) when I found out my cholesterol numbers were bad, since it can be helpful. Based on this little experiment, it did help.