Seven Ways to Improve Your Cholesterol Without Drugs
Today, most people are taking prescription drugs, called statins, to help lower their high cholesterol and increase cardiovascular health. Here are seven methods to lower bad cholesterol and boost good cholesterol without taking drugs.
1. Eat the Right Fat
To achieve healthy cholesterol levels, it’s more important to eat the right type of fat than the amount of fat you eat. Saturated fats and trans fats can raise total and LDL cholesterol, two factors that raise your risk of heart disease.
Begin by avoiding trans fat in the foods you buy at the supermarket. You can identify foods with trans fat by looking at the food label. The amount of trans fat is listed on the Nutrition Facts Panel. Also, look at the ingredient listing for hydrogenated vegetables oils - this ingredient contains trans fat. Sometimes, a food is labeled as having 0 grams trans fat, but still contains hydrogenated vegetable oil. This means that one serving of the food has between 0 and 0.5 grams of trans fat.
Common sources of trans fat are margarine, baked goods, cookies, crackers, packaged pie crust, fried foods, microwave popcorn, donuts, and some frozen foods like french fries.
Foods with saturated fat should also be limited. In general, meat and dairy foods contain more saturated fat than plant foods. You can limit saturated fat in your diet by eating less red meat, cheese, full fat milk, cream, full fat ice cream, full fat yogurt and coconut milk.
Finally, replace trans fats and saturated fats with monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats. For healthy sources of fat, choose nuts, fatty fish, and vegetable oils like olive and canola oil.
2. Add Fiber Foods
Fiber can help lower cholesterol. Foods to include are beans, fruits, vegetables and whole grains. Soluble fiber, in particular, can help lower LDL cholesterol levels. You can get more soluble fiber in your diet by adding these foods: oats and oat bran, barley, most fruits, psyllium, beans.
3. Lose Weight
Being overweight or obese can lead to low levels of HDL cholesterol - the ‘good’ cholesterol. Low HDL cholesterol is associated with a higher risk of heart disease. Find out your ideal, healthy weight with a BMI calculator (there are many online) and work toward this weight by eating healthy and exercising every day.
4. Quit Smoking
Smoking can raise cholesterol and damages your heart in many other ways. One of the best lifestyle choices you can make to keep your heart healthy is to stop smoking.
5. Eat Nuts
Nuts have healthy fats and are rich in heart-healthy nutrients. Eating nuts each day can reduce total and LDL cholesterol and the risk of developing heart disease. Most nuts, including peanuts, almonds, walnuts and pecans are high in unsaturated fats and low in saturated fats. Nuts also have other heart health nutrients like fiber, vitamin E, magnesium and folate.
The trick is to eat more nuts without increasing total fat in your diet. Here are some ideas for using nuts in a heart healthy diet.
Use nuts in place of meat - use nuts on salads and nut butter on sandwiches.
Snack on nuts instead of other high fat snacks - Choose nuts in place of chips, cheese, or baked goods
Add nuts to pasta - Plain pasta tossed with a little olive oil and peanuts, walnuts or pecans is a great alternative to cheesy or other high-fat sauces.
6. Exercise
Exercise is an integral part of a healthy lifestyle. And exercise can actually improve your cholesterol profile. Exercise may increase HDL cholesterol - the ‘good’ cholesterol. Exercise is also important to maintaining a healthy weight, which helps keep cholesterol healthy.
7. Consume Sterols/Stanols
Plant sterols and stanols are compounds that can significantly lower total and LDL cholesterol. Certain manufactured foods now contain these compounds - look for margarines and salad dressings with plant sterols and plant stanols. Examples of brands are Smart Balance and Benecol.
Tags: hydrogenated vegetable oils | hydrogenated vegetable oils | lower cholesterol | high cholesterol | ldl cholesterol | ldl cholesterol | hdl cholesterol | hdl cholesterol | saturated fats | plant stanols | trans fats | nuts
April 7th, 2008 at 2:28 am
Cholesterol has been around for thousands of years.
It’s a natural function of the human body. Unfortunately,
most people aren’t even aware they have high cholesterol
until they have a heart attack or stroke. It is possible
to have up to 80 percent closure of the arteries without
ever feeling a single symptom! Here are 5 tips you can use
straight away to start lowering your cholesterol today:
1. Reduce fat in your diet.
Buy the leanest cuts of meat you can find. Regularly
substitute poultry (without the skin) and fish for
red meat. Both are lower in saturated fat. Switch to
low fat cottage cheese and yogurt, reduced fat hard
cheeses and skim or 1 percent milk.
2. Eat no more than four egg yolks a week.
Many people don’t have to worry about eating cholesterol.
Normal bodies adjust to increased intake by cutting back
on regular product. However, since one third of Americans
are cholesterol responders their blood cholesterol does
go up when they eat cholesterol. You probably don’t know
if you fall into this category so play it safe. Eat no
more than four egg yolks a week. An average egg yolk
contains 213 milligrams of cholesterol!
3. Eliminate fried foods.
Buying low fat is just the beginning. You need to
institute low fat cooking methods to keep the cholesterol
from sneaking back in to your diet. Remove fatty skin from
chicken and turkey. Don’t fry foods. Roast, bake, broil,
grill or poach them instead. Use fat free marinades or
basting with liquids like wine, tomato or lemon juice.
Use olive or canola oils for saut?ing or baking. Both are
very low in saturated fat. Use diet, tub or squeeze
margarines instead of regular. Watch for the term
“hydrogenated,” which means some of the fat is saturated.
4. Eat vegetables and complex carbohydrates.
Lowest fat foods of all are vegetables, fruits, grains
(rice, barley and pasta), beans and legumes. Try
substituting some of these for meat and high fat dairy
products. Don’t douse your pasta with butter or your
potato with sour cream. Use tomato base sauces instead of
cream base. Use lemon juice, low sodium soy sauce or herbs
to season vegetables. Make chili with extra beans and
seasonings while leaving out the meat.
5. Lose weight.
If you are overweight, the chances are almost 100% that
you have a problem with high cholesterol. You can lower
your LDL and elevate your HDL just by dropping some pounds.
Eat fewer fatty foods and more fruits, vegetables, grains
and beans and it’s a pretty good bet that you will slowly
but surely lose weight.
Remember there is no substitute for your physician.
Make certain that you clear any new treatments with him
before embarking on any radical health changes you are
anticipating.
About the Author
Tony Newton publishes the popular health and wellness
website - http://www.1st-for-health.com’ rel=’nofollow
With lots of informative articles on low carb diets,
hair loss, arthritis pain relief, acne and lots more.