1. "Restricting carbs makes your triglycerides fall like a rock."
Triglycerides are one of the lipids that is measured and make up your total cholesterol. High triglycerides means higher total cholesterol. I am convinced that excess carbs, and not the fat in my diet, is responsible for my elevated cholesterol. My diet consisted of mainly carbs, per my doctors recommendation.
2. "Fat, especially saturated fat makes your HDL go up."
High HDL is desirable because it is the HDL that acts like a sort of "Pacman" and removes the excess LDL from your blood stream. But I was warned about the "dangers" of saturated fat, told to avoid them.
3. "Shifting from a low fat diet to a low carb higher fat diet shifts the LDL from small particles to larger particles."
If you have high LDL and it is large particles it is of little concern. But when you LDL is small particle, it is of concern, something that is now being understood. There are cholesterol tests available now that can determine LDL size, but they are quiet expensive and not available everywhere. But, if you have low triglycerides, high HDL, and high LDL, your LDL is likely the large particle.
Who knew?
I read this interesting information over at Dr. Michael Eades blog: http://www.proteinpower.com/blogs.php Take a gander if you'd like to know more. He has a post on Jane Brody whose experience is almost identical to mine. Go to http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/?p=898 if you want to read it.
I am abandoning my very low fat diet. I for one know it does not lower cholesterol. And while I initially lost weight when I replaced the fat with non-fat items, I lost because of the consequential decrease in calories. But any "benefit" was short term, and in the long term harmful. My high cholesterol of 240 rose to 300 and my weight rose as I got fatter and fatter.
Without adequate fat and protein in the diet one will be hungry and constantly craving food. At least that is my experience. If it is yours, you may want to join me in rejecting the low fat lifestyle.
Let me hasten to say here, lest you misunderstand...one does not have to eliminate carbs from the diet. There just needs to be balance in the diet...carbs should not make up more that 50% of your caloric needs....between 25-35 % should be fat, and the balance should be complete protein, preferably from an animal source. Some say even lower carb intake is preferable. But eliminating all carbs is not advisable.