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Started McDougall style diet last October. Things are going well, weight down from 192 to 169 (5' 9", 65 year old male.) However weight stabilized around the 169-170 mark for the last two months but still have about 5 lbs belly fat. But that's another topic.

Yesterday I went for my annual physical and got the results of blood work for the first time since starting McDougalling. Total cholesterol down from 230 to 167 (was hoping for 150 but....) and HDL down from 33 to 27 and LDL down from 152 to 69. That adds up to only 96 so there must be some other kind of cholesterol that makes up the other 71 points??? I didn't notice this until after I got home so couldn't ask my Dr. about this.

BUT...this is the issue... my triglycerides went UP from 220 to 354???? Any ideas what's happening here? My doctor wants to recheck my blood count in three months to see if this is just a fluke, if my body is just making some kind of adjustment or cleansing, or if it's possibly a pre-diebetic situation. Anyway, that was an unexpected and disappointing result!

The triglycerides are factored into the TC number. I'm not sure exactly what the formula is (perhaps someone here will know) but they are factored in.

Have you been eating a lot of fruit? Sugar can raise triglycerides.

But almost always when one loses weight one's triglycerides go up temporarily--has to do with burning stuff off I think (again, someone else may have better info).

I would keep on keeping on, watch the fruit (and other sugars of course!) intake, and check again in 6-12 mos. You're doing great-- cholesterol looks good!

Here you go: how to calculate total cholesterol: http://www.livestrong.com/article/29765 ... l-formula/

Here's Dr. McD on triglycerides: http://www.nealhendrickson.com/mcdougal ... erides.htm

And another good one that might help you: http://www.drmcdougall.com/misc/2005nl/050200purisk.htm

If you were not fasting your triglycerides would be greatly affected and could easily have been that high. If you were fasting, is it possible that you had been eating more sugary foods, fruits, breads, or alcohol than you normally do. The HDL would be your good cholesterol part. That cholesterol number you don't want to be low.

As Dr. McDougall has said, this is hogwash. No need to worry about HDL as long as your LDL is low--HDL is only there to clearn out the LDL so with low LDL you don't need much HDL.

Thanks for the replies. ETeSelle, thanks for the links, they were interesting.

I'm not really worried about my HDL being only 27 since my LDL is only 69. I'll look into how to get my triglycerides down, then my total cholesterol will be under 150. The blood draw was after fasting more than 12 hours.

By the way, last summer I had to go to the doctor's office because of some injury and it was my doctor's day off so I had to see another doctor at the clinic. He looked at my cholesterol numbers (then 230) and asked me why I wasn't taking statins. Long story short, he came right out and said my ONLY choice was either to take statins or get heart disease. He was rather arrogant about it. What an idiot. (He thought I was the idiot!) Glad he is not my regular doctor!