My cholesterol is REALLY high - can i fix this?

That is very high. If you've been on that diet for a year, it really should have come down by now, unless it was ridiculously higher before you started and it is in fact on the way down, in which case that should be visible in your next test.

I wouldn't panic yet. See what the test in a few weeks says. Don't faff about with fasting or any of that nonsense before hand as you want a realistic reading. If it's still very high, then it's likely going to be a specific issue causing it, or genetic. In which case I'm afraid you should accept the statins.

Someone mentioned your thyroid earlier, that's also worth a check. It's very surprising how many issues that little bugger can cause! And I'd ask for the antibody test, rather than just the tsh test they do on the standard blood tests, as that doesn't show everything.

I might be showing my ignorance here about statins but with a cholesterol reading that high and a diet that doesn’t look as if it can be improved too much why would you not consider using medication to lower it.
I know there is some controversy about Statins but would have thought that in the OP’s case the benefits of taking one would outweigh the risks of not.
OP’s diet looks pretty good to me and perhaps because I’ve been taking a statin myself for a couple years without any obvious side effects I struggle to understand why anyone would want to restrict their diet to such an extent that they end up eating things they don’t enjoy much and lots of very low fat products with an often dubious product list .

Have there been any past heart problems in your family? I’d make a guess this could be a genetic disorder where your body doesn’t process cholesterol. Possibly hormonal too? PCOS can cause high cholesterol. I would maybe look deeper into other medical causes rather than diet

Apparently pears are good for lowering cholesterol.

You need statins. Don't be afraid of the overblown bad hype around them; most people tolerate them fine and they work.

That level of cholesterol (be it total, HDL, LDL, vldl or whatever) is highly unlikely to be due to diet. If I was your doctor (and yes. I used to be a doctor pre retirement) I'd be looking at other cardiovascular risk factors, testing your blood again to rule out lab error, and referring you to the lipid clinic if it's still high.

If you have a gene for one of the inherited forms of high cholesterol, your children (if you have any) will be eligible for testing too. You would need to be seen in the lipid clinic to find out about this.

Fasting prior to the blood test makes very little difference to cholesterol levels btw. It can affect your triglyceride levels - they are another potential risk factor if raised, but it's perfectly possible to have high cholesterol levels but normal triglycerides (or vice versa!)

This thread has just answered something I was puzzled about! I had lifesaving and life altering surgery last month. Before the surgery I had perfect cholesterol levels and a week after the surgery they weren’t perfect! As in the bad ones were high and the good ones were low! I thought it was because I was taking a lot of calcichews and extra dietary calcium as a side effect of the surgery can be low blood calcium levels! I think now that it was because these were the first bloods I had taken in years where I had not been fasting overnight!

Here in the UK, NHS GPs used to order fasting cholesterol tests. My GP surgery hasn't requested fasting for years.

https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/high-cholesterol/getting-tested/

"...You might be asked not to eat anything (to fast) for up to 12 hours before the test. But most people do not need to fast."

What has it been previously? Or is this your first check and so is out of the blue?

It is very high and I'm surprised you weren't offered statins immediately tbh. I remember someone getting their results during a workplace check and they were sent to their GP immediately with that kind of number.

Mine was slightly elevated before I started HRT but has come back down to a nice healthy level now. I weight train religiously and walk a lot but did make some other small changes which I think have helped. I didn't realise that drinking unfiltered coffee could raise LDL, so I bought a filter coffee maker instead of drinking a whole cafetiere every morning. I have oily fish every day and stick to a high fibre med style diet. I buy beetroot powder (available on Amazon) which I mix into a drink every morning. I've cut out booze completely and have managed to loose my menopausal central fat.

I have a skinny, very fit friend in her 60s. She and her husband recently trekked up to Machu Picchu in the Andes for which they trained for months.
She was diagnosed with very high cholesterol a few months back (I think it was about 8?). Genetic, the doctor said.
And there's me, getting on somewhat, overweight all my life, and mine is just just skimming the lower side of the zone where the doctor is suggesting statins...
Sounds to me like losing weight would be a good idea, might lower it a bit, but if the high cholesterol is in your genes you need to take medication sadly.

I think whenever I have had bloods for cholesterol I have had to fast the night before

I would ask about statins. They are weirdly demonised but incredibly safe and can make a huge difference to your long term risk profile. Obviously if you had a very high fat diet that would be something to look at but for most people diet alone won't be enough to cure or cause it.

High cholesterol can be genetic, you need to start taking statins now.

I agree with medication. I would say you don’t have a chance by making changes to your existing healthy diet.

itll be ok OP

I think your diet doesn't look too bad. So, this big increase may not be entirely down to diet and lifestyle.

Have you had tests to check your liver and kidney function, your thyroid and your blood sugar levels? Perhaps there might be some other imbalance going on that's caused the spike in cholesterol.

Have you any close relatives with high cholesterol? Sometimes these things can have a genetic element.

Op I had to fast for the test. Im on statins due to it being over 8. Last reading was 6.2. I tend to be eating the wrong stuff so need to do better. God its hard!!

I cut mine (wasn’t as high) with mounjaro and 2 stone weight loss, and careful eating. Your diet looks ok.

You say you walk but do you do HIT or weights - they can both help reduce cholesterol

Tbf, I think most doctors do look at the ratios now.

You didn’t have one of your infrequent takeaways the day before the test, did you? My doctor said it can distort the results

Get it retested, that is unusually high.
Labs make mistakes. I once had a reading of 10 which nearly gave me a heart attack in itself, retest was 4.

Is your blood pressure high? My cholesterol is high but because my blood pressure is low and I am not overweight and don’t smoke I was told I didn’t need statins.

If it's genetic, there's diddly squat you can do about it with diet.

That is really high and putting you at high risk of heart problems and stroke - I would be asking for statins now - they are dirt cheap. I was put on them as a precaution when my cholesterol was 5.2 and it brought it down to 3.

What do you mean when you say cholesterol as it’s not one thing? Most cholesterol is a wonderful thing for your body as it’s used to build hormones, membranes and your brain is the most cholesterol rich organ in the body. The liver makes a lot of cholesterol for us everyday such is the importance of it.

Has your doc even bothered to differentiate between your HDL & LDL cholesterol? They should also check your sdLDL as this is the harmful component often triggered by excess refined carbs. Also request triglycerides. You may have to go private if you really want to understand this.

Total cholesterol is not a very useful measure of anything and tends to correlate poorly with heart disease risk. No idea why docs keep rolling out this high cholesterol myth.