I Ate 2000 Calories of Saturated Fat a Day—Here's What It Did to My Cholesterol

Nick Norwitz June 16, 2025
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Nick Norwitz

@nicknorwitzmdphd

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MD, Harvard & PhD, Oxford & | My Motto is "Stay Curious" | Enthusiastic About All Matters Metabolic Health | Thanks for Learning with Me! Please also follow at my Newsletter at "StayCuriousMetabolism.com" where you can find more deep dives into metabolism that will be worth your time and upgrade your health. Disclaimer: While I am an MD PhD, this channel is intended to educate. It is not intended to provide clinical recommendations for any individual. Please contact your doctor or other clinical provider if you have questions about your care.

Video Description

For 4 weeks, I ate 2,000 calories per day of saturated fat to see what it would do to my cholesterol levels. Spoiler alert: NOTHING. That’s 222 grams of saturated fat per day, and my total and LDL "bad" cholesterol levels remained the same. In this video, I break down why this happened and explain why this isn't just clickbait—it's a science-backed demonstration that will challenge conventional thinking about cholesterol, saturated fat, and cardiovascular health. We'll dive deep into how dietary fat influences cholesterol levels, the role of LDL and HDL, and why it's important to rethink what we know about fat consumption. Prepare to have your curiosity piqued and learn the real science behind these surprising results that appear to defy mainstream perspectives cholesterol. To get your own CardioChek from Blood Chek Medical, follow this link. Use Discount Code “DrNicholasNorwitz” for $50 off CardioChek Plus Analyzer: https://bloodchekmedical.com/pages/cardiochek-dr-nicholas-norwitz/aff=2 Chapters 0:00 – Consuming 2000 Calories from Saturated Fat: What Happened? 1:02 – How My Baseline Ketogenic Diet Affected My Cholesterol 1:52 – Switching to a Saturated Fat-Rich Diet: The Details 3:08 – Surprising Result: My Cholesterol Didn’t Change 3:25 – Understanding Why My Cholesterol Remained the Same 8:36 – Why Did I Test Saturated Fat’s Impact on Cholesterol? 11:01 – How to Test Your Cholesterol Levels at Home 12:39 – The Importance of Metabolic Context in Cholesterol Levels LDL cholesterol levels were graphed as ‘baseline normalized,’ i.e. as a ratio of LDL cholesterol at a given timepoint relative to baseline LDL cholesterol level for three reasons (i) Relative change, not absolute value, is most pertinent to the point(s) demonstrated by the experiment (ii) Given Lean Mass Hyper-Responder physiology, my baseline LDL-C on a ketogenic diet – irrespective of the fatty acid composition of that diet – is high. This is not the case when I’m on a diet including carbohydrates, as we’ve published. In prior content, audience has become fixated on absolute numbers relative to their own and attempted to use that as justification for personal choices. The point of the video is a physiologic demonstration, not a “dietary hall pass,” as stated explicitly in the video. (iii) We’ve published the absolute numbers in several papers in the peer-reviewed literature. A collection of papers can be found: https://cholesterolcode.com/papers/ #Cholesterol #ApoB #LDL #calories #saturatedfat #coconut #butter #cheese #egg #oliveoil #macadamia #hearthealth #cardiovascularhealth #lipidenergymodel #leanmasshyperrespoder #metabolichealth #metabolism #clickbait #educational #LMHR #CholesterolCode #CholesterolCodeMovie #MetabolicAdaptation #LDLcholesterol #saturatedfatintake #heartdisease #highcholesterol #fattyacids #healthyfats #keto #ketogenicdiet #cholesterolmyths #cholesterolscience #lowcarbdiet #hearthealthmatters #nutritionalscience #metabolichealthjourney #cardiovascularrisk #healthydiet #sciencebacked #nutritionfacts #cholesterolmanagement #lipidprofile #LDLlevels #fatconsumption #scienceofhealth #cholesterolresearch #healthytips #cholesteroldebate #ketofoods #staycurious