Recent Lipids Panel

I just wanted to share my most recent lipid numbers. This has been almost a two-year journey for our family. The initial numbers were taken while we ate the Standard American Diet, you know, high-fat and high-carb, lots of processed foods, but even still, we've always tried to eat healthy, working in a good amount of vegetables. To better our numbers, my husband and I were advised to eat more cheerios, increase our whole grains, and reduce overall fat and calories. We did. As you can see from the second column, after only two months on that low-fat, high-carb diet (lots of refined carbs), our numbers got worse! That's really where our journey to better health began. We were confused and wanted some answers! We read, a lot, and started discovering some very interesting information that went against conventional wisdom; against everything we've been taught about healthy eating; maybe fats weren't all evil; maybe grains aren't so heart healthy. We slowly started changing the way we ate...initially doing away with HFCS, reducing our sugar intake, reducing refined carbs, eating more fats, more vegetables. And we started feeling better, we started losing weight. We were amazed! But we were doing everything wrong, right?  We were eating LOTS more fat, more meats...surely this couldn't be happening, but it was. So we kept digging, trying to figure out why this was all happening.

Fast forward to today...we are in better health than either of us has ever been. Check out the column on the far right. It's my best yet. I feel we've mostly got this thing figured out (as far as eating habits) and are in the right direction. We eat real food. Plenty of healthy fats, including animal fats (mainly from grass-fed/pastured/wild animals), coconut oil, real (clarified) butter, olive oil, nuts/butters. We eat as much clean meats as we can afford. We eat lots of fresh produce, organic when possible. We've eliminated dairy after finding it just doesn't work for us. After getting to comfortable weights, we've increased our total carbs (mainly starches), but these starches still come from whole foods (potatoes, beets, carrots, bananas, etc.). We occasionally eat a little parboiled rice (pure starch). We eat very little added sugars, mostly on special occasions like birthdays, and we try to limit it to local raw honey and pure maple syrup. We eat minimally processed foods, and we cook as much as possible from scratch. Do we cheat or treat ourselves? Absolutely! Just this past weekend, after months of trying to re-create a real pizza crust, we realized that once in a while, we are just gonna have to get the real thing. So we did, and we enjoyed it! We knew going into it that we'd have some negative side effects, but that's what we really wanted, so we did it. When we splurge on wheat or sugar, we usually suffer stuffiness, stiffness, bloating, etc. But, we have to live a little, too. Life is way too short to never eat pizza again. We will have the occasional splurges...not a weekly or even a monthly thing. Just when we really want something in particular. Truth is, we love the way we eat, we love the way real foods make us feel. When we cheat, we feel like crap. That's enough motivation for us to keep our indulgences to a minimum.

Another important thing to note here, is that I've not exercised this entire time. I do believe it is beneficial to overall health, and I do plan to get to work on that. I don't know that I'll be doing any Crossfit anytime soon, I figure I'll just start with some basics and see how it goes. Wish me luck!