29M wanting to share their results of 15 months of Atorvastatin

Hello folks. I did some routine bloodwork back in March of 2025. My lipid panel showed the following levels:

Triglycerides: 112

Cholesterol: 273

HDL: 32

LDL 216

Non HDL: 241

Needless to say, not great. Cholesterol and LDL was extremely high. My doctor pretty much jumped straight to putting me on a statin, which was a little annoying. I plan to try and come off the statin while doing a really solid diet of alternate day fasting and low sat fats.

Anyways, I am on Atorvastatin to be specific, 40mg. In my experience, it didn't really have any side effects. I have health anxiety so sometimes I get in my head about it interfering with my escitalopram, but it does not.

After 4 months on the 40mg, my levels were as follows:

Triglycerides: 149

Cholesterol: 169

HDL: 32

LDL: 111

Non HDL 137

So, an improvement for sure. Between the first results and the second results I was very conscious about what I ate. No more late night snacks or night time milk shakes and ice cream. No more pork belly 3-4 times per week. So, I was glad my levels improved, but I wasn't sure how much of that was the diet or just the medication. After the doctor saw those levels, he wanted my to increase my dosage to 80mg of atorvastatin. After 7 months of 80mg of atorvastatin, my levels were as follows:

Triglycerides: 114

Cholesterol 114

HDL: 34

LDL: 60

Non HDL: 80

This was my best improvement so far. During the 7 months I heavily increased fiber intake, decreased saturated fats via staying away from fatty cut of beef and pork. Prioritizing chicken. Worked out more (2-3 days per week, some cardio). More fruits and vegetables. My diet has changed massively. Again, I'm wondering how much my diet contributed to those numbers, or if it was just mostly the meds. I wonder where my numbers would be without the meds.

I want to be clear: I absolutely eat like crap from time to time. When the weekend hits, I wanna go out to eat. I want pizza. I want a cheeseburger. I want a milkshake. I still go and get these things, but not to the extent that I did before. If I go out to eat at a restaurant, I try to grab something with no cheese, chicken, extra vegetables. Sometime I'll go to In N Out for a burger and milkshake. Today I had some peanut butter ice cream. Terrible for me, but I ate it. I drink beer still because it tastes good IMO and I like to drink with friends. The only thing I have not eaten hardly at all since this has been pork belly. I genuinely do not like it now.

This is just my experience that I wanted to share with my levels, medication and diet. I'd love some advice on stopping the medication. I'm not a big fan of needing to rely on meds for my well-being, but I will take them if I am genetically predisposed to heat disease. My doctor didn't really give me a chance to implement a diet which I felt was a little unfair considering I was only 28 when I had these poor levels and young bodies are resilient.

If anyone sees anything glaringly horrible I'm doing that I've explained shout it out too. I will gladly take everyone's advice.