Hi from Casey — 5 months in, confused about cholesterol

Welcome. HDL often drops when u cut fast. Mine went 55 to 43 at week 12, then recovered after a month at maintenance.

How fast are you losing? 18 lb in 16 weeks is about 1.1 lb/week, not crazy, but lipids can lag.

I'd care more about those than a temporary HDL dip.

I had the same HDL drop but my trigs didn't move. Fatty fish twice a week helped mine, but that's just n=1.

Did you change fats when you started? If you cut eggs or olive oil, that alone can move HDL.

I dropped eggs for a while and my HDL went 48 to 39. Reintroducing them brought it back.

Deadlift 315 is doable at 3x/week if you're consistent. What's your current pull?

Adding double-overhand holds after deadlifts took me from 225 to 275 in 10 weeks.

The trig/HDL ratio is worth watching. 118/52 is 2.27, 98/40 is 2.45, but one draw can swing a lot. I've had my HDL move 8 points between two draws a week apart when I was cutting hard and sleeping badly. The trig drop is the part I'd trust more. I also saw my fasting glucose drop from 101 to 92 when I added daily walks, similar to yours. For me, the waist measurement was the slowest to move even when scale weight fell fast. What's your waist trend? I'm curious because your goal is under 36.

Common surprise: one set of numbers on its own doesn't tell you much. The part people forget is timing — retesting after 6-8 weeks at maintenance is what makes a result readable, versus reading too much into a single snapshot.

Common surprise when someone's tracking labs alongside the scale: a 41F going 205 down to 188 over 14 weeks can watch HDL slide from 58 to 47 right alongside it, and that's usually the number that spooks people. The doc generally isn't worried, though — trigs fall too, and trigs are the number they actually care about.

Getting ot 7.5h dropped my resting HR 6 bpm and made lifts feel easier.