Three and a half weeks ago,  my wife and I started a paleo version of
the Atkins diet and quickly got into ketosis.  Out of curiosity,  I had a
blood draw last week and found that my total cholesterol had dropped from a
prior reading of194 to 162;   my HDL (good cholesterol)  rose from 45 to 53
and the LDL bad) fell from 135 to 86.  However, my triglycerides rose from
67 to 115 (still within the normal range but higher than I wanted to see.
I had not been advised to fast  and had just had a  breakfast of ham and
eggs:  perhaps that explains the triglyceride bump.  I had a draw yesterday
aster fasting overnight and will see what happens.
    I thought this may be of interest since I had spent the two weeks
eating less than 20 grams of carbs per day and lots of meat, fat and eggs.
I would not propose that everyone would have the same metabolic reaction
but the diet indicated to me that I must be somewhat insulin resistant and
I will continue to restrict carbs although am now in the phase of gradual
reintroduction of carbs.
    A side note re the blood work;  my cpk (creatine kinase was 955 which
is several times normal;  this is a muscle enzyme and fractions of it can
be skeletal, brain or cardiac specific;  i.e.,  the cardiac fraction lifts
after an MI and the skeletal fraction after a muscle injury or surgery.
Strange auto immune diseases can also raise it although I had no symptoms.
Heavy exercise can raise although,  in the days prior,  I had done some
light weightlifting,  played an evening of tennis and went skiing for a
couple of hours for the first time this season.  Does anyone know if
excercise alone  could have caused such a rise?The result also could have
simply been a lab error or due to hemolysisi of red cells in the sample.  I
am having it repeated.
    Rick