hi Liz,

Great to hear about the improved bloodwork. Re - the HDL ("good cholesterol"), levels should be between 0.9 and 2.07 mMol/L --- and for women, the closer to 2 it is, the better. Your recent thoughts to cut back a bit on animal fats, and increase the mono-unsaturated vegetable oils (esp. olive and flax) will help this as well.

Re- stopping the HRT - probably controlling Insulin Resistance with a nutritious lowcarb program will do as much, if not more, to protecting your heart and blood vessels. As for osteoporosis, there are many non-drug things you can do. Obviously, calcium supplements are helpful, 1,500 mg per day is recommended for post-menopausal women (by the way, they're looking at upping the recommended amount for older MEN as well). Make sure you get adequate vitamin D, which is needed for calcium absorption - 400 units per day. The body makes its own vit. D in response to sunlight.... a minimum exposure of 1 hr. per day is required, which means in the gloom and doom of winter, you'd be wise to take a supplement. Liquid milk and powdered skim milk are fortified with vit. D, but they're not exactly lowcarb; unfortunately no other dairy foods (cheese, cottage cheese, yogurt, cream, etc...) are fortified. So it's sunlight, supplements or nothing ..

Weight-bearing exercise, like good old-fashioned WALKING, has been shown to increase bone-density by 10%, so there's another benefit besides weight loss.

I'm assuming ? that you're past the hot-flash / menopausal symptoms stage?? If this is still a problem, you might look into soy isoflavones for relief.

Take care, and continued good health to you

Doreen