I had my cholesterol checked just before the Christmas holidays – I have a full set of blood work done every year because of some other medication I’m on, and I ask them to take my cholesterol at the same time, and (very importantly, as we’ll see) break it down into total, HDL and LDL cholesterol.

Especially because there have been a few critical reviews of my book on Amazon recently, including those saying that the theory of cutting down on saturated fat which I follow has been disproved (it hasn’t, there are just some new theories), I wanted to share my results with this blog.

I fully appreciate that there are different theories about cutting cholesterol, including eating fewer carbs or less sugar, and I have never claimed that “my” way is the only way. Maybe there’s something behind the eating plan that I use that has some kind of effect that’s not to do with fat. All I can go by is the results that I’ve achieved with the plan that I wrote down in the book with the aim of helping other people who hadn’t been given very thorough advice.

I was diagnosed with high cholesterol in early 2010 and took steps to lower it naturally which had taken effect by the time I was re-tested 6 months later.

As of December 2015, I had total cholesterol of 5.4, made up of LDL (bad cholesterol) 3.36 and HDL (good cholesterol) 2.04.

According to the HeartUK website, your total cholesterol level should be 5.00 or less (don’t panic: see below). Your LDL level should be lower than 4.00 and your HDL higher than 1.00 (for men) or 1.20 (for women).

So, and this is why it’s important to get the breakdown, although my total is slightly higher than the recommendation, this is because my “good” cholesterol rate is just under twice the recommended minimum, which pushes the total up (you can find all the info in the book, but basically some fats and also exercise work to promote the HDL levels in your blood).

What this proves is that over five years on, that’s five years of following the rules I set down in the book, my own cholesterol level came down at the beginning and has remained down. If that hadn’t happened, believe me, I’d be on the statins and withdrawing the book from sale.

You can find out more about my book and where to buy it here. The most popular buying links are Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com for paper or e-book versions, or Smashwords for all formats including epub, pdf, plain text, Sony reader and Kobo.