Good...Bad...Good?

I was thinking about how we often double and tripled check our health and wellness choices, and sometimes we act purely on a feeling or observation after making a change.  I often catch myself wanting to have ‘factual’ or scientific evidence when I feel like something is working and will quickly start fact checking what I am doing. 

If you are fairly current with general wellness scene you will have a hard time finding a ‘global consensus’ on any one element of health or food.   I caught myself falling into this trap this week when I was questioning if all the butter I have been eating is good for me.  I read this article where this person got a wellness screening before and after starting ‘bulletproof’ coffee (something I drink on a daily basis).  His bad cholesterol shot through the roof, and although his good cholesterol rose, his HDL/LDL ratio was worse than before.  He concluded that this is not a good idea on a daily basis.

Now of course, I start to panic and think, “Damn I am probably ruining my heart with this breakfast routine”.  I started to look around for information to ‘support’ what I was doing and found some folks who anecdotally improved their HDL/LDL ratio with butter.  But the consensus wasn’t universal.   

Did I stop drinking coffee?  I thought about it and decided that everyone’s physiology is different.  That I feel great drinking this coffee, and I don’t have any evidence yet to determine if it’s a good decision in the long run.  When I get my WellnessFX profile done in last March, I will be interested to see how my numbers look.  It’s great to have a way to use science to verify your health choices, but I also think it’s important not to be overly obsessive. 

Being overly obsessive about labs and numbers is a good way for you to never feel comfortable with your choices.  I think it’s best to stick to a plan for a few months and compare against things you have done in the past.  Do you feel better?  Do you look better?  How are you sleeping? How is your energy?  How about lab results?   Sometimes our body can take a while to really adapt to any change; maybe 1 month on ‘bulletproof’ coffee wasn’t long enough for the body to adapt.  Maybe if he went for 3 more months, things would have gotten worse.

I think my take away is to keep doing what feels right and check with ‘numbers’ to make sure what I’m feeling isn’t going to hurt me in the long run.

Some links I was perusing when researching about cholesterol:

http://paleodietlifestyle.com/cholesterol-is-not-bad/ (no citations...take it as it is)

http://renegadewellness.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/cholesterol-mortality-chart.pdf (chart correlating cholesterol with mortality...can't find dataset of the chart...take it as is)

http://www.marksdailyapple.com/how-to-interpret-cholesterol-test-results/#axzz1shNljE68 (Reading lab results)

http://paleononpaleo.com/paleo-cholesterol-testing/ (story, personal experience)

People that say this shit is bullshit (read and draw your own conclusions of course):

Chris Kresser

Mark Sisson

Chris Masterjohn

Peter Attia

William Davis

Kurt Harris