Lost weight and made lifestyle changes, yet my cholesterol goes up?

anothergal

Hello, everyone. I'm new to Healthboards and hope to learn more about general health and the common experiences of others.

Anyways, my story began in December when I told my GP I wanted to go back on medication for my ADD as I felt certain aspects of my work performance were slipping. He admitted this was beyond his area of expertise and felt it best for this medication to be managed by a specialist, so I was referred to a psychiatrist. She ultimately agreed with me that the ADD diagnosis was accurate and that medication was appropriate for my situation; however, before doing this, she sent me for an ECG and blood work.

The ECG came back normal, but my blood work showed high cholesterol, high blood glucose, and elevated liver enzymes. I followed up with my GP and he also told me I had pre-hypertension and that the glucose and liver enzyme levels indicated I was pre-diabetic and also had fatty liver disease.

My psychiatrist started me on ADD medication (Dexedrine) and I made significant lifestyle changes to mitigate the above health issues such as cutting out junk food and eating less. In the past two months, I have also added a number of vitamins/supplements to my regimen and started working out. While I am still overweight and have a ways to go to meet my ultimate goal, I have lost 35lbs since January and look and feel much better.

At my last appointment with the psychiatrist, she thought it would be a good idea to get my yearly physical and new blood work.

My physical went fine; my blood pressure is now normal and while my doctor advised that while he wants me to lose more weight, he felt I was moving in the right direction.

My blood work also showed some good improvements in the sense my liver enzymes and blood glucose are all now normal. But I am concerned that my cholesterol levels have almost all gone up! My overall level was 5.03 in January, but is now 5.08 (oddly, this was flagged as above normal in January, but is now in the laboratory reference range of 2.00-5.19, last time it was 2.00 to 4.60). My HDL cholesterol has dropped to 1.06 from 1.20 and my LDL cholesterol has gone up from 3.83 to 4.02. I am also a little worried my triglycerides have gone from 1.45 to 1.53. The only levels in this profile actually flagged were my HDL and my cholesterol risk ratio, which is 4.79 (normal is considered to be <4.4). The numbers are all mmol/L.

I will be seeing my psychiatrist on Tuesday and am already making plans to add foods that contain high HDL cholesterol, but would like to know if anyone has a similar situation where many of the conditions linked to obesity have improved with weight loss/lifestyle changes, but the cholesterol has gotten worse?