Cholesterol SPIKES During Fasting

If you need more proof that your cholesterol levels are NOT determined by your diet, consider the following: when many people fast, as in they eat nothing at all, they see their cholesterol levels go up. This rise is not a little jump, but it goes up a lot – in extreme cases, it even doubles!

If your cholesterol levels are determined by your diet, then why is it that when you don’t eat for days at a time taking in NO dietary cholesterol, your cholesterol does NOT drop dramatically as blood sugar and insulin do.

The only explanation for this is that our body makes cholesterol and determines its levels and not our diet.

This means that when you read my posts on eating a HIGH FAT, moderate protein, and low carb eating model, you need to understand it won’t spike your cholesterol numbers in the long run.

Does the question now become why cholesterol levels will rise so dramatically in some people when they fast?

The theory is that when people with high artery plaque levels fast, their body starts to break down these plaques naturally and as it does, the cholesterol levels in the blood can go up. Although this increase in cholesterol is literally your dangerous artery plaque being cleaned out, some people would still want to suppress this process.

This process has been proven in fasts of between 5 and 20 days that have been supervised by professionals.

Both regular cholesterol tests and angiograms (looking at the plaque in arteries) have shown that this process of plaques dissolving as a result of fasting affects cholesterol levels during and after fasting.

People who start with a low baseline of artery plaque don’t see a big rise in cholesterol levels if any at all.

People who do see an increase in cholesterol during fasting also see it return to a healthy level, often lower than when they started, as they continue the fast and even afterward.

If these people keep up with an insulin-friendly lifestyle, their cardiovascular benefits continue to improve for 6 to 12 months afterward and it can stay stable for many years, and in some cases even permanently.

Similar effects happen when people start following a “keto” diet. I believe that this is due to the same reason. Both fasting and keto achieve this spiking in cholesterol levels by dropping insulin levels dramatically and exposure AND promoting natural detox in the form of autophagy – the cleaning out of damaged cells in order to regenerate newer, healthier cells.

So please don’t fear the fast! Give it a try and if you have any health issues or concerns at all, find a professional who works in this field and they will help you make the best of it! 

If you want info on how I use fasting rotations and protocols in my programs, shoot me a direct message. 

We can do better!