It’s July and time for my annual lab tests and a bit of an update. (Moderator-Will you please post a copy of the attached labs to the first entry of this journal so people can easily compare them – thanks)
I’ve been eating the same food as always, (Slankers ground beef mixed with a bit of their pet food to get some organ meats), however, I’ve been adding a considerable amount of fat to get the fat content consistently up above 80% of calories. I order the “High Fat” ground meat when Slankers has it available to get as much raw fat as possible, but the added fat is rendered. I render it for convenience of storage and because I do lots of pemmican demo’s and need the rendered fat anyway. The purists among you will probably be annoyed, but I’m all about convenience and living the best possible life in the real modern world rather than somehow trying to copy the exact food and lifestyle of 500,000 year old ancestors. So, rendered fat it is – at least for the time being.
Some of you know Danny Roddy and Kamali. They both live near me and we went together on some fat in the late spring and had a rendering party at my house where we rendered about 350 lbs of raw fat on a Saturday (it was a very long day….). We each ended up with about 100 lbs rendered fat and went our separate ways. Since then I’ve rendered another 150 lbs to cover both my needs for the rest of the year as well as a huge pemmican demo for three Boy Scout troops coming up next month. I also send out about 100 lbs of pemmican samples each year all over the world. Suffice it to say that I go through a lot of fat and trying to store it raw would require lots and lots of space which I just don’t have.
Back to eating: My mix is still the same at 4 lbs of ground beef mixed with 1.5 lbs of pet food. I divide this into 650 gram packages (about 1 ½ lbs) and then add 100 grams or so of rendered fat to each 650 gram package when I’m ready to eat it. This comes out to about 2,300 calories per day with about 85% of calories from fat.
I’ve gained about 10 lbs on this very high fat diet but weight has stabilized at about 168.
No problems with kidney stones since the last bout in January or early February. I started with two stones and both are still lurking just waiting for a chance to bring great misery at the most inopportune time. One stone has passed into the bladder and it is still there. The other stone is still up in the kidney area. Neither seem to have changed in size as best as can be told from the x-rays though we would need a CT scan to get an accurate picture and I’ve decided not to bother unless or until they start to move again. Just not excited about exposing myself to unnecessary radiation.
Lab Tests:
Most things are right down the middle as they have been on previous tests.
Fasting Glucose is still running right at 100 (this time it was 98, last year it was 99). Interesting that the long term very high fat diet has not dropped fasting BG levels.
HbA1c did drop from 6.0% to 5.8%. Not sure if this is statistically significant, but it did drop slightly and this may be due to higher fat and lower protein consumption.
Total Cholesterol rose from 185 last year to 190 this year. Not sure that this is significant since 5 or 6 years ago it was well over 250. Needless to say I’m happy with 190 and my doctor is amazed considering my very high fat diet. He predicted I’d be dead by now from clogged arteries eating the way I do. Don’t know about the arteries, but I can say that Total Cholesterol has dropped rather dramatically since I started this adventure.
HDL is good at 66 and LDL not bad at 108.
HDL/LDL ratio is 66/108=0.61
LDL/HDL ratio is 108/66=1.64
Total Cholesterol/HDL Ratio is 190/66= 2.9
All of this seems to be in the very low risk category of popular medical opinion, whatever that is worth.
PSA test did rise from 1.5 last year to 2.2 this year. At my age they don’t wring their hands and panic until it is above 4. I’m not overly excited with the trend, but stuck with the cards I’ve been dealt. It could be that the prostate problem could have been avoided if I’d started this earlier, but too late now. I’ve become a firm believer that some things can be avoided by good diet, but once out of whack diet alone won’t fix it.
I did ask for a 25 Hydroxy D3 test as well but didn’t get it with these results. Will have to follow up with the doc to see it was left out in error or if the insurance denied it.
Lex
