Nat ... Thanks for your encouragement. I've always had high cholesterol ... seems to run in the family but usually my doctors have felt that my ratio was good enough that they didn't need to worry about it. This doctor however wants to put me right on meds.

I feel great. Have almost always exercised ... now exercise at least 2 hours/day ... have low BP, low Pulse, excellent stress test and lung function tests and recently quit smoking. (so there!)

I was so happy to be able to eat my red meats again since I had cut red meats down to about once a month until Atkins. Perhaps I should cut them back again?? I was raised a midwestern cattle person ... we eat beef! Ha!

I suppose that I will cut back on the sat fats and maybe lower my fat % down. To really help things along I just got put on steroids this week (nasal steroids last week and oral this week) and am starting to gain weight back. ugh. To counteract that I was lower my carbs back down and raising my fat. Now I'm in a bit of a quandry. Suggestions are appreciated here