floramaria wrote:
Just one suggestion: Remember that restaurants are in the service sector! Low carb and keto diets are extremely popular now and in every restaurant where I have asked, and that has been many, I have been able to substitute additional serving of vegetables or a salad in lieu of the starch. The server is there to make sure your dining experience as enjoyable as possible (and thereby get a good tip). I regard requests for substitutions as an opportunity for the server and the chef to shine in the customer service area and am never shy about asking.
In a restaurant where I was dining with friends and there was literally nothing that I felt came close to meeting my needs/desires, I was prepared to just have water and a side salad. I explained my dilemma to the server, who relayed my concerns to the chef. The meal he prepared for me was the envy of the table. Not on the menu and absolutely delicious. That was a rare treat, once in a lifetime perhaps, but just my way of conveying that in most places, I think the policy is that they want to feed you and have you leave happy, so it is worthwhile to ask for what you want!
Hi Floramaria,
Thanks for your input and yes, I always look to add vegetables or substitute. Most of the restaurants around here have very few selections of vegetables that we can have (they count mac and cheese as a vegetable) and it's always the same ones, broccoli or potatoes in five different ways! I don't eat corn (GMO issues) and I thought Gundry said we couldn't have peppers, tomatoes... And I get so sick of broccoli as a restaurant choice because I eat it probably 4-5 days of the week at home.
It's getting so that I just don't trust much in restaurants anymore. I bring my own olive oil which I've verified really is pure olive oil, because I don't even trust that when you ask if they have just olive oil that it isn't one of the adulterated ones.
I guess I am still confused about what to eat, because we aren't supposed to eat saturated fat since Gundry says we aggressively oxidize it and my oxidized cholesterol and ApoB and other bad markers for CVD are high. I miss CHEESE! I can do without all the other dairy and without bread and without sugar. Don't you sometimes wonder if our taste buds (mine screams for cheese and cream in my coffee) are telling us what our bodies need? I cannot get near the 1200 mg of calcium we are told we need without it, yet my doctor's mantra is NO DAIRY! I mean, once we are eating clean carbs/high good fats/no sugars/no refined carbs, I wonder if my desire for some cheese is my body's way of telling me I need it? I worry about my lack of calcium and bones/heart!
And one more thing -- we are told to eat a Mediterranean diet. But Mediterranean diets have pasta, have potatoes, have beans, all things I thought we weren't supposed to have. It's such a struggle every day to find variety and flavor in foods we are allowed. At restaurants, even some things that appear healthy, I find myself saying, "Can't have that because there's cheese in it" or "Can't have that because it's made with butter" or "Can't have that because it has bread crumbs in it" -- it is exhausting.
See? I am still confused about what I can and can't eat. And made more frightened of everything by my high lipids and ApoA-B ratio! Julie G thinks I am being too strict, but I am afraid to loosen up a little by letting myself have a little cream in my coffee or an ounce of cheese here and there. Now my doctor has me worried about having a heart attack or stroke. Or maybe it's my own head that has me worried about that.
Here are my lipids with an "I" next to the ones I've improved and a "W" next to the ones that got worse on my last labs:
Total Cholesterol -- 289 "I" still high risk
LDL-C ------------------220 "I" still high risk
HDL-C -----------------59 (was 60) optimal
Non-HDL-C-----------230 "I" still high risk
Triglycerides --------110 mildly elevated
Triglyceride-HDLC ratio ----1.9 (supposedly optimal) and much better
LDL-P -----------------------2030 "I" (down from 2589) still high risk
VLDL-P ---------------------343 still high risk
IDL-P -----------------------48 don't even know what this is
Lp(a)P-----------------------117 "I" still high risk
ApoB------------------------137 still high risk
ApoA------------------------146 "I" optimal
ApoB/ApoA-1 ratio-----0.94 "I" still high risk
sdLDL-C--------------------57!!!! WORSE (last was 35)
Didn't I read somewhere that losing weight could drive up the sdLDL-C and not to necessarily jump off a bridge in that case? Please say it's so....
hs-CRP --------------------------1.9 "W" was 1.4 still mildly elevated
Fibrinognen--------------------575 "W" was 509 still high risk
Uric Acid------------------------7.1 (she has me on a tart cherry extract supplement and an extract from pineapple for this) She said this is gout!
So given those bad CV risk factors, how can my:
Lp-PLA2 Activity (vascular inflammation) be optimal at 175 now, down from 325, high risk???? I don't get how all this goes together and she doesn't really explain that.
Barbara