It's been a while since I updated this thread. The past 2.5 years have gone by fast! I haven't always been as attentive to healthy eating as I should have been, although I've always been generally low carb. Menopause did mess with my metabolism for a while and I rapidly gained 20 pounds in early 2009, but have since lost them again, thankfully. For the past month, I've tried to be strict low carb with less than 30 g carbs per day.

Here are my CardioChek measurements for February 27, 2011:
Total Cholesterol 170
HDL (good cholesterol) 29
Triglycerides 94
Calculated LDL (bad cholesterol) 122
Total Chol to HDL Ratio 5.9
LDL to HDL Ratio 4.2
Triglycerides to HDL Ratio 3.2
Weight 178.0 lbs
Waist 34.5 in
Blood pressure 117/74
Fasting blood sugar 98 (dawn phenomenon)

At this time I only exhibit 1 of the 5 symptoms of metabolic syndrome: low HDL. HDL above 49 for optimum health (in a woman). It's been the hardest one for me to get in shape and the numbers in this thread show that my HDL level is current lower than it was in mid-2008. I never got my HDL level consistently above 49 in 2008, but I at least got it into the 40s.

So, why did it go down again? I've concluded over the years that I'm one of those people whose HDL doesn't go up readily by diet and exercise alone. From early 2008 to mid 2010, I was taking the supplements niacin and pantethine to raise my HDL. In mid-2010, I decided that I was taking too many supplements in general and cut back to what I considered the bare minimum (vitamin D, krill oil, magnesium, and good multi-vitamin). I cut the niacin and pantethine. It seems that my HDL level has suffered because of this. I'm going to add them back on a daily basis and measure again in a month. HDL levels don't change fast with changes in diet and supplementation, but I hope to at least see the number moving up.