Agree, at this point hasn’t that been pretty thoroughly debunked? But there do seem to be links between saturated fat consumption and cholesterol?
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It hasn’t been debunked.
It seems that there are researchers out there for whichever diet one chooses.
I avoid Keto myself, because of the stress it puts on internal organs.
I know it works for some people, especially if they stay on it.
There’s a difference between a high saturated fat food and cholesterol rich foods.
For example, butter and fatty pork (i.e. bacon or pork butt) are high in saturated fats (and of course cholesterol) but egg yolks while high in cholesterol is not necessarily high in saturated fats. Most of an egg’s total fatty acid composition is monounsaturated (approximately 38%) and a further 16% is polyunsaturated and only 28% is saturated .
And generally speaking, ceteris paribus, dietary cholesterol has very little effect on blood cholesterol. Of course, there will be exceptions, esp. for people who are at risk of cardiovascular disease - they generally should limit their intake of dietary cholesterol. But those people are really the exceptions that prove the rule that dietary cholesterol have very little direct effect on blood cholesterol. At least not a 1:1 causative effect.
While I am always hesitant to offer anything remotely akin to medical advice on a free-for-all forum like this one, I always live by this mantra for myself when deciding what foods to eat or not eat.
Focus on what to include in your diet and less on what to exclude because if you prioritize the former you will ensure proper nutrition and overall health, which is what our end goal should be, no matter the “diet” we are on.
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That was my point. And “very little” may be close to zero.
IIRC, some of the original research Atkins and others used to create keto diet plans was done on returned polar explorers who had subsisted for long periods of exploration primarily on animal fat. The medical establishment lost its collective mind that these people could be healthy on that diet. Many experts claimed it was only the extreme physical exertion that made it possible, so an experiment was done where subjects were confined to bed and fed… only clarified butter. Their cholesterol levels were shockingly normal.
I really would like to avoid a debate on the causal effect, if any, of dietary cholesterol on blood cholesterol on a forum like this, especially as because a topic like that is certainly out of my lane.
My only point is that recent scientific studies, peer reviewed no less, including meta analyses (the gold standard) seems to indicate that dietary cholesterol is not a significant contributor to blood cholesterol.
Rather the main culprits of high blood cholesterol are saturated fats and genetics.
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It’s funny, but most people (not necessarily the folks that you know per se) who say they are on the “Keto diet” are really not on a Keto diet.
A true Keto diet is something like 75% fat. The goal is to get 70–80% of your daily calories from fat, 10–20% from protein, and 5–10% from carbohydrates. That’s really fucking hard to do. You’re basically eating sticks of butter chased with spoonfuls of avocado and lard.
What most people are doing when they say they are on the “Keto diet” is they are eating low carb, but high protein and low to moderate fat. So it’s more like 50% daily calories from protein, 40% from fat and 10% from carbs, which is a lot more doable. Thick cut of ribeye, chased with a big head of iceberg lettuce and some tomatoes and you’re good to go. But while more palatable and sustainable, that’s not really Keto in the truest sense.
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Yep. I’ve a friend whose chol was high so he switched to a very low cholsterol diet, to no effect. Then he switched to strictly plant bssed and in 6 months went from 250-ish to about 180.
@ChristinaM - I’ve read studies indicating a gentle evening stroll to destress can have a significant impact on reducing overall TGL, lowering LDL, and raising HDL. I’m not certain but i think the impact on total chol was less, but still worthwhile. Some connection between stress hormones and retaining lipids.
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Wow! That was pretty good! 
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Sometimes I just get totally punch drunk and stop spewing out constant nonsense.
It’s rare, but it does happen once in a while.
I’m like a broken clock. Twice a day, I sort of sound coherent.
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I’m aware. I wasn’t confusing them.
That’s what I was trying to say. Minus the Latin 
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Not a regimen but rather a lifestyle adaptation, husband and I have been observing portion control for some 6+ months with a result of our each dropping around 25 pounds. It started when he misunderstood an NP who said he had reached “overweight” at 25.1 BMI. He took it as “obese” and started serving himself at mealtime, cutting portion size to about a half cup of any part of a meal. Not wanting to appear piggish alongside him, I did the same. We did not change or delete any food from our usual menus. After the first week, never hungry, and the pounds simply dropped. At this point, I can eat only, am sated after, small portions and don’t look for snacks between meals or after dinner. Seems to work for us. And we have no cravings since we eat anything and everything, just smaller amounts.
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Portion control and regular exercise/sport are also our key “regimen” - everything else seems to be more based on publications which driven by the need to generate results to get the next round of funding and is nearly always based on irrelevant small clinical cohort (or just correlates animal data to human data)
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This may be true of “modern” keto dieters, but when I started Atkins back in 2000, a truly high-fat, moderate protein, low-carb approach was espoused. I tracked my macros pretty religiously during that time and usually landed quite naturally (i.e., without TRYING to eat a lot of fat) around 65-70% fat, 25-30% protein and 5% (or less) carbohydrate (no more than 20g or 80 cals worth of carbohydrate on a typical caloric intake of 1,800-2,000). Granted, I took Atkins’ advice to choose fattier cuts of meat to heart, and didn’t hesitate to add butter/cheese/salad dressing to anything I felt like adding it to, but I didn’t have to go out of my way drinking butter coffee or eating “fat bombs” to hit those macros.
There was, however, a backlash against the “Fatkins” diet - hence the rise of lower-fat, low-ish carb regimens like South Beach and the modern-day keto. Those macros were never effective for me in terms of weight loss. Others’ MMV.
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Yes… it took some effort, but I had to convince my brain that I was bored, not hungry. I forced myself to go do something (constructive) and not just watch TV.
Watching cooking shows or videos on youtube seem to trick my brain into thinking I was hungry and needed to snack.
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I’ve been thinking a lot about this, why are so many Americans so FAT? For one thing, we drive everywhere, not enough walking.
So many food ads on tv, gooey, cheesy foods on instagram.
I grew up drinking just cokes, never water. I’ve since learned that carbonated beverages expand your stomach, with a bigger stomach, hunger increases. With bariatric surgery, your stomach area is greatly decreased.
I think sodas and fast food joints are the cause of a lot of these issues. And SNACKS. Americans are big into snacking.
Coke in glass bottles is my drug of choice, I have about one over ice about every two months (better than several times per day when I was growing up!)
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Portion control? What is that?
Seriously, though, my weight/body fat percentage plateaued at a reasonable figure back in the day and no matter how hard I worked out, how much cardio I did, I could not get below a certain weight and get my body fat below 12%. Yeah, it was a long time ago.
But the point is that the thing that got me past the plateau was that I threw out all my 16 ounce tupperware containers (I make large batches of stews and soups and freeze individual portions) and replaced them with 12 ounce containers. No matter how often I told myself to fill the 16 ounce containers only 12 ounces high, I always overfilled them. After a month of 12 ounce portions I reached my goals for weight and body fat. It was night and day after I reduced my portion size.
Probably because I will eat anything that I put in front of myself and clean my plate when I am done.
Which is a timely reminder for me since I am battling weight again, but this time it is at a much higher level.
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Even a goulash of durian and nattō?
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Menopause and big portions.
I walk 3 to 5 miles a day. I’ve been checking in with a dietician monthly since 2018.
I found out in Feb that I’m around 50 percent fat. I found out in April that I have to cut back on salt, saturated fat and meat for one health condition. I found out on Monday than I need to cut back on carbs and refined sugar for another health condition.
I’m cursing Chowhound and Chow Meetups right now. I had managed to get myself to a healthy weight in 2006, around the time Leff sold CH and it became more addictive and user friendly. This led to monthly meetups in Toronto, then groups of friends who would meet up to try restaurants. Potlucks. Cake Day . Waffle Day.
I wouldn’t have enjoyed nearly as many carbs, and maybe I wouldn’t have packed on the 40 lbs I’ve gained since 2006, if I hadn’t used Chowhound as a social network.
According to my endocrinologist, walking for weight loss is an urban myth. It’s great for your heart, but not so much for losing weight.
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Really ? There are scientific papers out which show (again as with most such papers on a relatively small number of participants) that walking is actually quite helpful in weight loss (but also depends on speed and length of walking) - I would be curious to the papers your endocrinologist can cite for his argument
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