Just starting out my low carb adventure.

Your cholesterol may well stay the same or even fall, and the more important lipid (blood fat) measures should fall.

Did you get your cholesterol and blood fats tested before you started LCHF? Test again in 3 months and see how you are doing.

It may rise initially, but the good stuff usually gets better, so you need a breakdown of the results.

Well done on your progress.

It is a myth that eating meat and dairy will increase your cholesterol. Our livers produce the vast majority of our cholesterol as a natural process (because we need it). Only a small amount comes from the food we eat. Eggs were once declared dangerous because of the amount of cholesterol they contain. That myth has been well and truly buried. Too many carbs are the main culprits, so cutting those right down should, normally, increase your HDL (good cholesterol) and lower your LDL (so-called bad cholesterol) and your trigs should also come down. Because the HDL increases, it can often lead to a small increase in the total cholesterol, but this is meaningless. It is the breakdown and ratios that matter.

My lipids have improved significantly on each of the 4 tests I've had since diagnosis January 2014, and I have been following a low carb diet, initially with increased fats, but since early this year on high fat in order to stop losing weight. My last test in June was even better than the previous despite moving up to high fat.

Do book a test of full lipids ASAP so you know where are now, and ask for a print out.

Ketosis is caused by LCHF and it's fine. It just means you are burning mostly fat for fuel rather than mostly carbs.

Ketoacidosis is what happens when you burn fat and have no insulin or very little insulin. It is a dangerous condition that you do need to watch out for but it won't happen unless you have too little insulin and the first sign will be high blood sugar above 13 mmol /L. So test for ketones if you are above that level and feeling unwell.

Sponge89 said:

Brilliant thanks guys. Got a blood test tomorrow morning. Would they have all the results from it or just the ones they ask for?

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Oops, bit late, sorry. The last set of tests I had returned a single figure for cholesterol, which is useless by itself. My GP has agreed that next time we'll get a full set of figures. It's as well to check (in future).

Sponge89 said:

But surely with less carbs you need less insulin so I'm far more likely to get ketoacidosis?

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No not at all. Don't worry. It happens when you have a deficit of insulin vs what you need the insulin to process. So if anything it's the other way round. You should have more insulin available to prevent ketoacidosis, with less carbs competing for the insulin.

The bottom line is you should be aware of ketoacidosis but you don't need to worry about it. You don't even need to test for it unless you have high BG and feel unwell. Even then 95 times out of a 100 that won't be raised ketones, let alone ketoacidosis.