Lifestyle Changes from Doc Seem Unreasonable
In the past year I (36F) have been diagnosed with high cholesterol (total 207, HDL 101, LDL 96, trig 62). My doctor told me I’m “not ready” for medication (too young) and just needed to change my lifestyle. This all seemed reasonable until the specifics started to be discussed.
I’m already a pretty active person with a decent diet. At the time of the test I’d been eating pescatarian, getting most of my fat from olive oil and avocado (maxing out at 10-12g of saturated fat daily), walking 10k steps daily, and working out 5-6 days per week (including 10-15 miles of running each week). I’m certainly not a pro athlete, but on average I didn’t think I was doing too horribly.
The diet and lifestyle the doc outlined included going low fat, low carb, and low sodium, and significantly increasing my activity level. Calculated out this means a less than 1400 calorie per day low carb, high fiber, high protein diet while increasing my cardio significantly. In order to set some goal I decided to start training for a half marathon to motivate myself to make the increases in my training schedule. The trouble is that I only seem able to maintain this lifestyle for a week or two before becoming extremely fatigued and getting light headed while running.
As a casual athlete and someone who has always cared about nutrition, the advice I received seemed extreme and unreasonable. However, I recognize that I’ve always been focused on advice for a reasonably healthy person. Is this normal for cholesterol patients? Do I just need to get used to feeling awful while training hard if I want to preserve cardiovascular health? How do you convince yourself that hopefully living a few years longer is worth feeling horrible for the rest of your life?