Hi from Patricia, 47, protein muffin lady

2026-09-26 16:13

Hi all — Patricia, 47, dental hygienist outside Columbus, mom to two teenagers who eat like locusts. I've been tracking food, sleep, and dog-walk steps since March, and mostly lurked here because the lab-number threads make my eyes glaze over, no offense to the lab people.

My username is because my freezer is roughly 60% protein muffins at any given time and my family has stopped asking questions. Down about 20 pounds, which I only really noticed when my scrubs got baggy and I could walk the dog up the hill without stopping to pretend I was checking my phone.

Still figuring out the constipation thing (sorry, TMI, nobody warned me) and how to actually want to sit down and eat dinner with everybody. Glad to be here.

2026-09-26 17:29

The HDL drop caught my eye too. Mine did something similar when I dropped 20 lbs fast, then it crept back after I stopped eating super low fat.

2026-09-26 17:37

How fast was the weight loss? 11 lbs in 6 weeks is quick enough to move lipids.

2026-09-26 18:56

That HDL change is pretty normal with fast loss.

2026-09-26 21:56

SHBG dropping from 29 to 19 stands out more to me. Any thyroid or insulin changes?

2026-09-27 00:02

My SHBG fell on TRT too, but my HDL didn't rebound until I was eating more olive oil and nuts.

2026-09-27 01:49

Wait, olive oil and nuts fixed it? Mine is still low two years later.

2026-09-27 11:51

I get why the HDL number is freaking you out, but six weeks is such a short window. My first set of labs after changing my routine looked worse across the board: HDL down 10, LDL up 15, ALT up 8.

I retested after another eight weeks with the same diet and training, and most of it moved back toward baseline. The only thing I changed was not testing after a heavy squat day and getting consistent sleep.

Not saying your case is identical, just that one early draw can be really noisy. The trend mattered more than one scary panel in my case.

2026-09-27 13:23

Agreed on the snapshot point. Labs at 8 weeks looked scary, the next round was boring. One frame, not the whole movie.

2026-09-27 14:49

Did you use the same lab both times? My HDL came back 8 points different just from a 10-hour vs 14-hour fast.

2026-09-27 18:30

Heavy squat swrecked my ALT once. Retested after 3 rest days and it was fine.

2026-09-28 01:16

So would you wait another 6 weeks before worrying? I'm in a similar spot at week 5.