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Thanks for those replies. I wanted to add that I cooked up some barely this morning. Great idea!! Glad you found hour answer in the niacin too. I had the higher enz for about 2 yrs with my fatty liver, but this WOE has cured it, and I am sooo very happy about that. the liver is nothing to fool around with. I have known of too many with liver cirrhosis and it is a painful slow death. So not want to depress anyone with that concept but it is the honest truth.
Have a good day to all!

This is a very informative post! Have saved it to my favorites so I can keep re reading so it will sink in. Thanks

here is a link for chow down. it is on hulu

http://www.hulu.com/watch/172558/chow-down

Didi

didi Thank you for the suggestion to watch "Chow down". For me it was good reinforcement of information from "Forks to Knives". It was good to see it from the individual struggles and successess! Found the take from each doctor very interesting as well.

I have been following this lifestyle for 5 months, 15 days as of today. I have blood drawn and tested twice since I have been eating a starch based diet. The past 3 years leading up to my physical in 2011 my TC numbers were on the rise. To be honest, they weren't to the point where my doctor wanted to put me on medication, but if I continued down that road statins would be in my future.

July 26, 2011
Weight: 216 pounds
Chol: 263 mg/dL
Trig: 269 mg/dL
HDLC: 37 mg/dL
Chol/HDLC Ratio: 7.1 H
LDL: 172 mg/dL
Non-HDLC: 225 mg/dL

December 20, 2011
Weight 193 pounds
Chol: 199 mg/dL
Trig: 210 mg/dL
HDLC: 37 mg/dL
Chol/HDLC Ratio: 5.4 H
LDL: 120 mg/dL
Non-HDLC: 162 mg/dL

March 26, 2012
Weight 183 pounds
Chol: 175 mg/dL
Trig: 208 mg/dL
HDLC: 34 mg/dL
Chol/HDLC Ratio: 5.1 H
LDL: 99 mg/dL
Non-HDLC: 141 mg/dL

I had my most recent blood work on March 26, 2012. I know it's more important to read the overall TC, which is 175, the LDL (bad) is now 99 down from 120 (which is down from 172) when I started eating this way. The HDL did drop 3 points from 37 to 34, but that could be accounted by the overall drop in the TC number.

I couple this improvement with a 33 pound decrease in my weight from 216 pounds to 183 pounds in this time period. I am still struggling to get my triglycerides down, which dropped only 2 points, down to 208 as of my last blood test.

Still I hold a positive outlook that I will be able to reduce my TC even further and improve on the Trig number by cutting out the alcohol that I believe is the cause of this elevated numbers. I am also working on increasing my weekly cardio workout to lose that last 9 pounds I have set as my target weight.

I still follow the diet very closely. No meat, no dairy and no oils. It has been tough, but I have been very dedicated to improve my health and lifestyle.

Good going stoumi! Hope my numbers move like yours!

Just out of curiosity were you totally 100% oil free during that 3.5 years? By that I mean not even eating foods that say "fat free" on the label but have oil listed as an ingredient? And not eating out where there might be hidden oil in foods?

Thank you, I just watched it. I thought it was very good but I do wish they had not made it look as though the food was not tasty and that it is very expensive to eat this way. My husband often remarks on how much he loves the food we eat and how he really doesn't find it to be that much trouble to prepare the food. We both cook. And usually our meals are fairly simple. I think someone could watch it and decide this way of eating is too much trouble, too time-consuming and too expensive and decide not to try it. Otherwise, excellent movie.

Spiral, When reading this post again I realized that you recommended the documentary Chow Down first, so thanks to you too. Watched Forks over Knives twice and got hubby to watch it too.

I just bought a small bottle of vegetable oil. I had to. I could not get the tape off myself from the sticky patches that the cardiac monitor leads were attached to. The tech suggested using oil which did work.

I do not miss fats and oils at all. Using less salt is a struggle.

It is amazing that people on the same low fat, no meat diet will not all just zip down to under 150 right away. A big mystery. The vegetarian society of Hawaii had a cardiologist speak, who is himself a vegan, who said he has a 97 year old patient whose cholesterol is above 260, whose ldl is high and hdl low. He told her not to worry and thinks she will be ok. The object is to live well into your twilight years in relatively good health then quietly fall asleep. If only each of us knew the unique way to do it for ourselves.

Didi

Supposedly, niacin can raise HDL by 15%-35% and can lower LDL, but this has been disproven by a few studies, as well. However, seeing as it's only a B3 vitamin, it really can't hurt to try it, right?

I have long sad history of cholesterol--usually high 280s. Many years of various statins, including terrible dehabilitating muscle pain, and I said NO more! My lowest TC on statins never went below 186. Niacin made me flush. I started on McD about 6 years ago and although I lost 80 pounds, I have never succeeded in getting my cholesterol below 200 except once.

That was a special push one month trying "everything" at once and got it down to 165. Here's what the "everything" included:
Beans for every breakfast and every lunch daily (plus kale or other greens) and steel cut oats w/ berries at every supper. Up to 5 miles walked (fast!) daily. A tsp cinnamon; tablespoon ground flax; 2000 mg slow release niacin; red yeast rice; no coffee, lots of water...there may have been something else but can't remember now.

I had tried all of the various elements at different times...except for the large quantities of beans. When I went back to regular plan (beans often but not for breakfast; oatmeal for breakfast, not supper; no niacin or red yeast rice) and walking only 1-2 miles a day, my tc jumped right back between to 220.

I then had to quit walking for exercise (for over a year) due to injured feet and cholesterol runs between 200 and 240, in spite of taking the red yeast rice and/or niacin. I think exercise may be a crucial element for me.

The doctor said the beans kept the cholesterol traveling out of the body and that hard exercise workouts were necessary too. One doctor told me not to worry about the TC number as long as I wasn't putting anything into my body that would hurt my endothelial cells...so I try not to worry about it, but just keep eating right.