Atkins usually DROPS cholesterol - it dropped mine, a LOT: from 204 to 186 in the first year, and down again to 158 in the second year. HDL went up (74 to 86), and LDL went down (111 to 64), improving the ratio. Triglycerides went from 43 to 15 (all units in mg/dL). Oh, and I dropped over 30 pounds, but you don't care about that...

Weightlifting also tends to drop triglyceride and raise HDL, so you might find that it would do the trick this time. I understand that cholesterol CAN go up initially, but then goes down and stays down. Mine simply went down and STAYED down. And I eat a LOT of animal fat. Just no trans.

Make sure you keep the fats at 65% (minimum), carbs at <5%, the rest from protein (ie about 30%)

Note: your lifts may go down - my personal suggestion is to try to keep the amounts the same, but drop the reps. This should protect the muscle.

MPS - you concur?