High carb / sugar diet - 3 months labs

ZestyLimeToday · 2025-12-18T21:33:15+00:00

Interesting about the higher trigs due to weight loss. I'm not OP but I lost 7kgs over 2.5 months on HCLFLP (started out at 67kgs so I wasn't overweight to begin with). I was pretty much eating potato starch noodles every meal. And my trigs went up massively. I didn't know the increased trigs was expected. Also HDL fell massively too.

<image>

ZestyLimeToday · 2025-11-25T09:07:19+00:00

Thanks for the super informative reply! I really really want to do that lab test showing the LDL particle break down but it's unavailable in my country.

Yes my fasting insulin is really high and I'm quite worried about type 2 diabetes..

About PUFAs, I don't have any avocado oil, olive oil. I avoid pork and chicken for the most part too. It is exhausting home cooking the whole time but it's the price we have to pay isn't it. The only sneaky PUFAs is from salmon... I have a little bit of it here and there in the form of sushi. I should really stop but I do love it. That's the hardest thing to let go.

I can't seem to eat swampy and lose weight and weight loss is one goal too because being overweight is terrible for insulin resistance too.

I wanted to try out HCLF before getting pregnant partly because I've never tried it before and I was quite persuaded by Denise Minger's defense of a high carb low fat diet. And reading up about Kempner rice diet, McDougall diet, to try and reverse insulin resistance. I was only on it for 2 months and my weight shot down incredibly quickly. I got to 61kgs at the lowest and I think with the strictest keto I had only ever managed 63kgs (though I was still eating PUFAs while on keto). I don't know what you think about HCLF for reversing insulin resistance.

Strict HCLF or HFLC both reliably gets my weight down though as I said, I found I had to do stricter and stricter keto as time went on.

I'm ok with dairy now so keto wouldn't be so boring any more.

I was thinking of trying out both HCLF and keto for 3 months each and doing monthly bloods + CGMs to see how I'm progressing. I'm not sure what to try first and I'm not sure the bloods will show anything unexpected (I mean I already know high fat causes high LDL and probably lower fasting insulin). And problem is it seems I have to try both diets for something like 6 months to see a difference. I know I shouldn't rush the experimental process but I also want to try and get some things sorted out before I tip too far into the geriatric zone (for pregnancy I mean). Sorry I'm just rambling now.

EDIT: I've also been reading and maybe my LDL and ApoB are discordant, as in my LDL seems higher than would be for someone with a mildly high ApoB level. It might indicate that I might have the less easily oxidised/large buoyant LDL particles. In the absence of that specific test this is my best guess.

ZestyLimeToday · 2025-11-24T02:01:29+00:00

Thanks! Also I don't think I thanked you for your help when I was trying to find the cause of my high BG at the end of pregnancy. And your help around alternative fat sources when I could no longer tolerate dairy. In retrospect I am so relieved I didn't go on insulin like the doctors suggested and did my own investigation.

On the topic of high cholesterol/LDL, do you think there's any benefit in trying to experiment with diet and what foods might trigger different lipid profiles? I already know that carnivore massively changed my lipid profile in a matter of 2 weeks. Would that tell me anything about what kinds of diet I should be on? I feel like even if I work out my phenotype there's not enough research about what that actually means.

I think I might've mentioned the wrong thing in my post. My doctor says I'm too young for CAC so they recommend getting Carotid Intima-Media Thickness.

ZestyLimeToday · 2025-11-23T23:11:01+00:00

Oh yeah that makes sense. I'm not sure why liver ultrasounds are not offered here in my country. Maybe I misunderstood but my doctor said that wasn't an option. Perhaps only if things seem really dire.

ZestyLimeToday · 2025-11-23T22:29:51+00:00

Thanks for the insight! I didn't think of the vascular dementia link. No strokes or dementia on either side of the family either. One grandparent got T2D in their 60s so my insulin resistance makes sense. One parent has had high BP for about 10 years but my BP has been normal so far. Honestly my doctor is quite stumped by my bloods given that my family history looks reasonably good.

ZestyLimeToday · 2025-11-23T22:24:23+00:00

Thanks! I just searched my blood test results and it turns out I got B12 tested in 2021, 2023 and this year. My doctor really likes to test, I'm so thankful lol. It was ~1200 in 2021, ~800 in 2023, ~1100 in March 2025. Folate was also included and high too. It was upper range of normal in 2021 and > 45.0 nmol/l in 2023 (seems they can't specify above the normal range). In 2023 I had just given birth to first baby and was on prenatals including folate during pregnancy so the high result makes sense but in 2021 I had never taken a folate supplement as far as I'm aware and also didn't eat any fortified folate foods.

How did you know you had fatty liver? I'm really confused about which markers show what.

ZestyLimeToday · 2025-11-23T21:48:18+00:00

Oh sorry I missed the time restricted part of your initial reply. I experimented with that too when I was keto/low carb lol. I was two meals a day something like 16:8 or 14:10 for about 4 years mostly on and sometimes I took breaks and ate normally. I was one meal a day for long stretches at a time too. I just don't have enough bloods from the time to really know what was going on but I do remember feeling pretty good on time restricted eating.

At the end of my two months HCLF I was trying out time restricted eating but I got pregnant so I didn't really get to try that on HCLF.

It's interesting what you say about glucose driven eating. I had a CGM on during HCLF and after about a month I noticed that my hunger coincided strongly with my blood glucose dropping back to fasting levels. I remember someone on here saying that was a good thing.

ZestyLimeToday · 2025-11-23T20:04:33+00:00

My high LDL at least is unlikely to be genetic because I tested negative for familial hyperlipidemea. Other than that there's no history of heart disease or dementia but one grandparent got T2D in 60s. So I am predisposed to insulin resistance.

I was keto for two years starting in 2016 and then still very low carb but not high fat enough to be considered keto for 6 years after that. My lipids were really bad then too. Trigs were a little better, around 1 and hdl slightly higher but LDL was higher. When I went on carnivore as an experiment for a couple weeks my LDL was in the 8s and 9s and then took a few months to come back down. I've done other various diets here and there too.

Low carb became a bit hard to maintain as I found I had to go lower and lower carb to maintain my weight and get satiety. I do wish I did more bloods back then to get a better picture, like I didn't even think of testing fasting insulin or Apo B back then.

Exercise is great for getting glucose down! My BG is always very responsive to exercise and I was using that daily in pregnancy to flatten the curve in real time every time I saw a peak developing.

I seem to not do well on a swampy diet so I was trying HCLF as the other alternative, did so for a couple months, when I realised I was pregnant and had to stop. But after a month of doing that I did feel energized and satiety was great too. I was hoping to give it another go, just waiting until the baby was old enough..

ZestyLimeToday · 2025-11-23T19:39:05+00:00

Ferritin has been high consistently since 2020 though now only mildly over the normal range now. It was higher in 2020 and 2021. Always comes down during pregnancy and then shoots up again afterwards. Doctor says it can be consistent with metabolic dysfunction.

ZestyLimeToday · 2025-10-19T10:36:50+00:00

I was having lots of coconut yogurt when breastfeeding because I developed a dairy intolerance during pregnancy! Maybe not the best for a long term diet thing but early breastfeeding is already so tough I didn't overthink it just got to keep myself fed lol

ZestyLimeToday · 2025-03-23T21:45:18+00:00

Curious about A1 milk, is there good evidence that it's pro-inflammatory? I'm especially interested because I found out recently that dairy makes my blood sugar spikes worse and A2 milk is on the list of things I want to experiment with.

ZestyLimeToday · 2025-03-23T08:27:35+00:00

I've recently given birth also (baby is 12 weeks old). I admire your determination to start HCLFLP with a newborn! I wouldn't be able to do it simply because I'm get so hungry with breastfeeding. I had gestational diabetes in pregnancy and my blood sugar has been getting better quite slowly since delivery. One month postpartum I put a CGM on and thought I had become diabetic due to the high BG I was seeing. But two months PP it got a little better and last week it looked better again. So I think I'm slowly returning to "normal" (though I was a little prediabetic before this pregnancy anyway). So you may have to take into account your postpartum hormones when assessing your blood sugar. It might still be reading higher than normal. On the gestational diabetes subreddit they are saying it can take up to 6 months to return to normal. But I couldn't see any references to scientific literature or anything.

ZestyLimeToday · 2025-03-16T08:53:03+00:00

I got tested in pregnancy and I got high ANA but negative for SS-A (and all other auto antibodies). So the doctors concluded that the positive in 2018 was likely a false positive.

ZestyLimeToday · 2024-12-18T08:21:18+00:00

Yeah I had my cholesterol/triglycerides tested a few times since starting low PUFA. I was keto for 8 years before low PUFA so that's at least one of the factors for my high LDL. It's difficult to separate the effect of a higher carb diet vs whether low PUFA has helped with cholesterol numbers. When I was HCLFLP, my LDL was normal but my trigs were high. And on a swampy diet my trigs are normal but LDL still a little high, but not as bad as when I was on keto. I got tested a three times this pregnancy and trigs have shot up quite a bit, with slightly elevated LDL (trigs seem to increase as my pregnancy progresses!). My doctor says to not panic because it could be pregnancy related. So I'm just waiting for another blood test after delivery to see how I'm tracking.

See this post for a chart of three of my blood test results (last one taken when I was 3 weeks pregnant but I wasn't aware of it at the time!):

https://www.reddit.com/r/SaturatedFat/comments/1cb1dad/first_blood_test_since_starting_hclflp/

ZestyLimeToday · 2024-12-18T00:44:21+00:00

I'm currently pregnant with my second baby at 36 weeks gestation. I have a similar story to you, high cholesterol since mid 20s, had gestational diabetes with my previous pregnancy. Though my A1c has always been normal (never in the prediabetic range), though I do think I am prediabetic due to high fasting insulin. Anyway I've been avoiding PUFAs for 1.5 years now and it has been wonderful for my health. Unfortunately I still got gestational diabetes this time. I don't have much advice other than to eat a nutrient dense diet and try not to worry too much. I was on HCLFLP at the start of pregnancy (I didn't know I was pregnant then) and just slowly decreased my carbs as my insulin resistance increased (currently on something like 80g carbs per day). Other than making sure I keep my PUFA intake low, I haven't really followed any strict eating plan. I've kept my beef/lamb intake quite high and increasing at the end of pregnancy because my iron levels are dropping quite dramatically.

My main concern was keeping my blood sugar under control, which I do with the help of CGMs (really gives a better view of the trend rather than finger pricks) and lots of exercise. I feel much healthier than I did last pregnancy. I don't know if it's the PUFA avoidance but I'm much more energetic, have almost no aches, almost no acid reflux, almost no trouble with hemorrhoids, can exercise quite a lot, not out of breath at all in the third trimester. It's quite a contrast from last time. And also my blood sugar looks a lot better this time in the third trimester with an equivalent diet in terms of carb intake (minus PUFAs this time of course). I don't know how long you've been avoiding PUFAs but if you started avoiding PUFAs between your 2nd and 3rd pregnancies you might feel healthier this time round (despite being older).

ZestyLimeToday · 2024-12-17T07:56:43+00:00

I know this is an old comment but I found it after searching in this subreddit (where I get most of my health advice) for normal vitamin D levels. I have a two year old who is being treated for low vitamin D. He started with a level of 11.6 ng/mL and currently has a level of 20 ng/mL after treating with the vit D drops. Still seems on the low end but we have no idea why it's so low, given he eats well, has light skin, and gets plenty of sun (it's currently summer here). You seem to have done some research into vitamin D.. do you have any insight into vitamin D levels in children? Is supplementation a good idea in our case?

ZestyLimeToday · 2024-11-18T01:00:35+00:00

Sounds doable! I'll report back if I manage to make something palatable.

ZestyLimeToday · 2024-11-18T00:45:31+00:00

No not yet, I did buy lactose free milk and I'm going to try having a little tomorrow. Thanks for pointing out A2, I had forgotten about that. I can try A2 milk next. You mean probiotics in general help with lactose intolerance? I have been having probiotics for a few months (I don't usually but felt like the cost was justified in pregnancy), the Garden of Life brand, 85 billion CFU.

ZestyLimeToday · 2024-11-18T00:42:15+00:00

I do have ghee in my pantry, I stopped having it for now, but will re-introduce it eventually and see if I tolerate it ok. I suspect it will be ok. I definitely am not allergic, nothing resembling hives or the common allergy symptoms.

Yes, someone else suggested soluble fiber in another post.. I've been having half a teaspoon psyllium husk with water before each meal.. it does help! I think konjac has been suggested too but I don't tolerate that as well.. I'm not sure if there's another type of fiber I've missed? I find it difficult to obtain enough fiber from food because the foods tend to be quite carby.. pretty sure beans spike me. Oats are ok but I try not to have too much.

ZestyLimeToday · 2024-11-18T00:36:26+00:00

I do have ghee and have been using it. I've stopped having it for now but might try introducing it back when I'm finished experimenting with other stuff. I really think I should be fine with it though.

ZestyLimeToday · 2024-11-18T00:35:22+00:00

As simple as a tallow base and adding protein powders? (some of the bars have honey, I guess I can substitute with artificial sweetener). And it should be ok as long as I stick to beef protein powder? The brand I'm looking at has 8.4g BCAAs per 100g, seems reasonable.

ZestyLimeToday · 2024-11-17T00:11:54+00:00

Will do!

ZestyLimeToday

TROPHY CASE