I love the new web site! Hopefully the forums will pick up the slack from the mailing list being so restricted.

I have some questions about cholesterol. In the 2/94 newsletter article Health Care Professionals Talk About Overcoming Overeating:

So what happens when we eat those foods with fat and they taste good and we DO want more? What if eating them makes us feel GOOD, especially after eating a very restricted food plan for so long? Dairy and fats are very addictive. I've been off and on (mostly on) the same no-added fat vegan food plan President Clinton is now on for about 20 years now. But all periods of restriction are interspersed with some sneak eating and mini-binges, and when I go off-plan my binge foods aren't sweets but meat and dairy. And they make me feel good!

But the only "signals associated with disease process" from eating these foods would be found in lab work or from having chest pain from a heart attack. There's no dizziness or blurred vision a few hours after eating certain foods like with high blood sugar, no affordable at-home test one can take after eating each meal to keep track of cholesterol levels like there is for a diabetic. We only know where we stand after expensive doctor-prescribed blood tests. In the diabetes essay from another newsletter the Snickers Test is mentioned. It's also emphasized how vital frequent testing is in legalizing foods. You can't do that with cholesterol.

I'm at a loss as to how to do OO with high cholesterol, either the having or prevention of it. Help!

Hi, Sparticles!

SO glad you're enjoying the new site! I'm really excited about it and look forward to more people utilizing all the resources here to connect with each other for support!

I'm not a professional - so hopefully someone who is will see your post and respond as well...! But all I can say is that once I started really implementing this approach, my intake of "everything" went down (it took a while - not an immediate change - but once I'd convinced myself I was NOT going to restrict ever again) - and my cholesterol actually dropped from 246 to under 200 and has pretty much stayed that way for 15 years now!

You're right in that cholesterol isn't as easily monitored as diabetes (which I also have) - but I have a feeling that the more in tune with your body you get and the more assured you get that you're in this "for the long haul" and won't just revert back to "dieting" (in ANY form!!) - then things will settle down and you'll eat a fairly "balanced" variety of foods "naturally" (without it being a struggle or something you have to enforce from "outside" means like RULES)!

Take care!

- Jacki

It's so hard when *every* doctor's visit (and I have one today) I get "reminded" how important it is to avoid just about everything except veggies. Last time he even told me to stop eating fruit because my triglycerides went up a whopping 1 point over the "normal" reference range. I'm sure I'll need to have more labs drawn this week and go back for results next Monday and get the speech all over again, probably both days.

But I did tell my husband that as soon as the labs are drawn to be prepared for some real foods to make an appearance in the house again. He already gave me his wish list for Christmas dinner! LOL

GOOD for you!!!

I believe you'll find the FREEDOM from doing things this "new way" will be so exhilarating - for both you AND your family(!) - it will be SO worth it!

I have learned to just politely nod at doctors when given a "lecture" of the dieting variety and just know inside that I know what's best for myself and that if I were to try to restrict like they suggest I will only end up way worse off than before - when they start seeing that what you're doing is "working" you'll start hearing things like, "I don't know what you're doing, but just keep doing it!" I've heard that many times - sometimes I go into the OO explanation and they're interested in it - other times I know it's a brick wall and I just don't even get into it...

I was lucky Monday. This is a teaching office and usually there are a half dozen of nice young student doctors doing their rotation on any given day. For the first time in ages the receptionist asked if I would mind having a student doc see me. There's an option NOT to have one? Cool! No, not today - let me see the doctor directly. Next week when I come back I'll gladly let a student practice on me.

After a few minutes the doc comes for me and brings me directly into the examining room. No weigh in, not even a blood pressure reading. I get right into how he left the room 3 months ago without going over the rest of my lab work and didn't give me directions on what to do about the falling vitamin D level, that I took it upon myself to increase it. He apologized profusely (We've known each other since high school and worked together for years at a local hospital) and we reviewed the last set of lab work.

He said he was *happy* with the last set of cholesterol numbers, especially since he knew how stressed out I had been caring for an elderly relative who is now in a nursing home (Also his patient so he KNOWS what I've been going through). He said stress can raise cholesterol numbers, cause the vitamin d to drop, even prevent weight loss no matter how little a person eats. This was the same set of labs he saw last time and told me the trigs were too high. Monday he shrugged them off saying they were pretty good. (sigh) Why is he so different when students aren't hovering around?

He asked about my blood sugars, as they can rise with stress, and I told him how I do monitor it at home because of a family history of Type 2 diabetes but my numbers have been fine. He ordered an A1C to check for himself and I mentioned how I did the A1C at home twice now and gave him my numbers. He was pleased with the numbers but admitted he was unaware such test kits were available for home use. I told him at-home lab test kits are out there for just about *everything* and the lab tech, who overheard us as she walked by, hollered out that I was right, that those kits really cut into all the labs' profits, but come in handy for people without insurance or who don't *want* certain things made official on their chart because then their insurance companies would raise their rates.

He then ordered a slew of new labs, none of them the cholesterol I was dreading, and off I went to the tech to have them drawn. I go back on Monday to get the results. Just routine stuff like chemistry and blood count, a repeat of the vitamin D to see if it's still dropping or going back up, and a repeat of the lupus test because the last one showed positive but weakly so. He said that, too, could show positive because of stress. Now I'm not dreading getting those results next week. He finally understands! LOL

Yay, that's GREAT news, Sparticles!! So glad it went so well

(I need to find a clapping hands smiley to put on here!!)

Feel free to keep us posted!

I can relax now - it's over. My vitamin D level is improving but still not great. His advice, besides taking more of the vitamin pill and getting more sunshine? Eat more. Add more fatty fish and the occasional egg to my meals. He said there's no need to keep to such a strict vegan diet if I don't want to. He added he didn't know HOW I was able to keep it up as long as I *did*, that *he* would never be able to last one day on the food plan I've been following for a number of years.

Now to actually allow myself to do that. It's going to take time. I did buy some foods that I haven't had in ages, like canned tuna and sardines. Isn't it weird that foods most of the world consider healthy are FFF for me? LOL

Oh, absolutely!! And I remember "weird" things like finding out that hot dogs raised my blood sugar way more than ice cream!! Our bodies are so unique, and this is a wonderful opportunity to get to know them