<p>I’m starting to lean towards a supplement for fiber. An apple is 5g. My high-fiber bread is 5g. A banana is 3g. The thing is my RDA is 24g and having to eat 5 servings of apples and bread isn’t in the cards for me. I think that I would like to go with an apple or banana and one or two slices of bread so I need something to make up the difference.</p>
<p>I am thinking of dumping the protein bars too - they are effective - very filling, good balance, but there’s more sugar than I want in them. I guess that’s so that the taste isn’t awful.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, she has done years and years of breast-stroke laps. I understand that the breast-stroke kick is hell on your knees. It’s also been years since she’s done any land-based exerice, so she probably has the kind of comprehensive stiffness/lack of mobility/muscle strength that I did out of the gate last year. My knees have improved dramatically.</p>
<p>Plus, I gather that the joint pain side effect of these statin cholesterol drugs can be severe for many people. </p>
<p>In any case, it’s hard to watch her walk right now. She’s clearly in pain.</p>
<p>It’s hard to get as much fiber as “they” recommend. Probably the biggest challenge while watching carb intake. I just eat a lot of the high fiber/high carb veggies: lima beans, etc. I also have been taking about 6 grams a day of psyllium husk fiber supplement. I prefer the capsules (six = 3 grams, twice a day), but I’m trying the powdered version (1 tsp in water = 3g). They put sugar in it to make it “taste good”. Not sure why they bother because it still tastes lousy and I really don’t want the superfulous sugar.</p>
<p>I’ve also been taking 5 g a day of fish oil. It will be interesting to get my lipid profile results this week. I suspect that my HDL “good” cholesterol will be through the roof. It was already pretty high last fall.</p>
<p>idad, encourage your wife to ask her doctor about adding a supplement of Co Q-10 for the joint pain, although it sounds like your wife’s pain is pretty severe.</p>
<p>I don’t know and that’s not a question that I’m going to ask! I’m just trying to complement her and encourage her on the weight she has lost.</p>
<p>I doubt that she has a firm number in mind. I never dreamed that I would be able to lose 80 pounds. At the start, losing 25 pounds seemed like a big hill to climb. I think her ultimate goal is to get off some or all of the diabetes, blood pressure, and cholesterol meds. It will be a long term effort.</p>
<p>I second the CoQ10 and I use Essential Fatty Acid supplement. </p>
<p>In the past I really suffered with joint pain. </p>
<p>Good luck to her - by the way - if my DH said some women who he “knows” from a college forum suggested a supplement for me I would tell him to go take a hike.</p>
<p>I stay out of it. I actually encouraged her a couple years ago to can the cholesterol meds altogether. The evidence that cholesterol is even a risk for women is so tenuous.</p>
<p>I suspect that she is highly insulin resistant and would be a fantastic candidate to improve all of her health markers with a low carb diet.</p>
<p>Ain’t that the truth. I told her a couple years ago that I had “heard” that swimming breast stroke all the time is hard on the knees (something that can be confirmed in about five minutes with Google). She said I was just stupid, that swimming was good for her knees.</p>
<p>I have come to the conclusion that you really have to be an active (and skeptical) participant in your medical care, especially when it comes to the benefits and side effects of chasing every symptom with another prescription drug.</p>
<p>^^ What iDad said. My recent cholesterol test came out at 278. HDL 158 and LDL 101 for a 2.75 ratio. A few years ago (before I lost some weight) I was higher than that and briefly went on meds. I decided “no way” and ditched them. The jury is totally out on the whole cholesterol thing- especially if you don’t have tons of risk factors.</p>
<p>Breast stroke is bad for your knees. I used to swim with a masters’ team and there was no question about that.</p>
<p>Eat lots of low calorie leafy vegetables, which are recommended for any type of diet ideology.</p>
<p>If you are not on a low-carb diet, beans and lentils have high fiber. (And their carbs tend to be slow digesting, which is generally desirable in most situations.)</p>
<p>I’m not sure it would be humanly possible to eat more salad (and brocolli) than I eat and it still doesn’t total up that much in terms of fiber. I’ll have to double check to make sure LiveStrong is recording all the fiber from lettuce. Fiber is sometimes missing from the nutrient breakdowns. </p>
<p>Lentils, split pea soup, lima beans, chili (with beans). Those are all good ways of increasing fiber intake dramatically.</p>
<p>I think you must have those reversed. HDL (good cholesterol) must be 101. That’s off the charts high – a fantastic number. You are the perfect case. Based on “total cholestorol”, they would want to put you on statins, even though there is no link between total cholesterol and heart disease in women.</p>
<p>However, the ratio of HDL to LDL is a apparently a much better correlation and your ratio is excellent.</p>
<p>You are a classic candidate for a real donnybrook with your doctor on cholesterol medication. I would say “no thank, you”.</p>
<hr>
<p>Low carb high fat diets tend to produce:</p>
<p>a) low Triglycerides (good)</p>
<p>b) high HDL (good)</p>
<p>c) lower blood pressure (good)</p>
<p>d) higher LDL cholesterol (bad, except that it tends to be good big fluffy LDL and not bad small dense LDL).</p>
<p>Down another two pounds from last week. Overall loss this time around: 10 pounds from March 30 to May 3. Overall tour: 245 -> 212 -> 229 -> 201 -> 215 -> 205. The last leg has been the easiest on the downside through mountains of stress during the last four weeks.</p>
<p>It’s mainly due to LiveStrong and low carb. If I wasn’t using those, I would have gained weight this past month because of all the stress. That’s a pretty stark difference - lose ten pounds or put on a few. It’s scary to think about.</p>
<p>Thanks for the heads-up. They’ve been leaving this thread alone, which is much appreciated. Particularly on this exercise stuff, a video is often worth a thousand words.</p>
<p>That is likely overstating the case for low carb diets.</p>
<p>Any diet that produces loss of body fat will result in a, b, and c above (and may lower LDL as well). Of course, compliance and long term commitment is tough for many people, with any diet (including low carb). Exercise also helps b and c.</p>