The Best Diet To Lower Cholesterol – Many of us avoid doctor’s appointments, even if we love our doctors. This is especially true if we’ve been encouraged to change our diet and exercise routine but haven’t made much progress. Hey, it happens. You blink and another year has passed. But these annual checkups and self-care tweaks are incredibly important, especially when we’re dealing with one of the most common problems people face today—high cholesterol.
You may be confused about the true effect of cholesterol on heart health because there’s been so much buzz about it lately, so I asked our resident R.D. to bring you more facts on this somewhat hot topic. I teamed up with Jen Reilly.
The Best Diet To Lower Cholesterol
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Cholesterol used to be considered the one and only determinant of heart disease risk. However, researchers now realize that cholesterol is only one piece of the puzzle (triglycerides, blood pressure, obesity, and diabetes are some of the other pieces) ( study ).
Eat To Lower Your Cholesterol
A low-fat diet used to be recommended to lower cholesterol and prevent heart disease. Dietary recommendations have now changed and focus on making sure you get enough omega-3 fats, which can raise your good cholesterol, avoiding trans fats and limiting saturated fats, which can raise your bad cholesterol.
Some researchers and diet experts have begun to discount the role of saturated fat when it comes to heart disease risk and cholesterol levels ( research article ). However, their results are based on observational studies, which are not very reliable when it comes to showing definitive cause and effect. Saturated fats (and mostly animal fats) are still only part of the heart disease equation, but should be limited if you want to keep your ticker and the rest of your body healthy.
New to the heart disease risk group is sugar. Research now points to avoiding simple carbohydrates and added sugars, especially added fructose, because it raises triglyceride levels and other risk factors for heart disease ( study ). The good news is that many of the recommendations for heart health are still the same: plenty of plant-based foods, fiber, maintaining a healthy weight, exercising, and avoiding smoking, of course!
But the fact is that more than 102 million adults in the United States have high cholesterol. That’s a lot of people! Although cholesterol isn’t the only predictor of heart disease, it’s still important ( research ) because it can increase your risk of plaque building up in the walls of your arteries.
How To Eat Vegetarian When You Have High Cholesterol
So here are the three main warning signs your doctor looks for when monitoring your cholesterol: 1. A low level of good cholesterol (HDL) compared to your total cholesterol level. 2. Bad cholesterol, which contains many risky small, dense particles (there are three types of particles, and the smallest is not good for your ticker). 3. High triglycerides (cholesterol’s cousins) (learn, learn, learn). This can lead to blockages and heart attacks or strokes – not something we want to mess with.
In addition to what we discussed above, there are some additional ways you can adjust your food choices to prevent high cholesterol and heart disease.
Hopefully, your doctor has mentioned that food choices, exercise, and weight control can have a powerful effect on your cholesterol and triglycerides. If not, see if he’ll give you a 6-month chance to make a change and recheck your levels before prescribing statins. It usually takes about 6 months for your body to respond to dietary changes, so be patient and persistent.
You’ve probably heard the typical advice about keeping your arteries clear. Eat more vegetables. Avoid lots of saturated animal fats, trans fats, and fried foods. Limit sweets and simple carbohydrates that will raise your triglycerides (and possibly raise the worst kind of bad cholesterol). Maintain a healthy weight, reduce stress and exercise. When it comes to the diet portion of your plan, there are some additional changes you can make to increase your artery-cleansing power.
Safe And Natural High Cholesterol Diet Chart For Lower Cholesterol
To make these tips even easier for you, I’ve created a handy chart below with the top 5 cholesterol-lowering recipe substitutes.
If you’re trying to lower your cholesterol and improve your heart health, I hope you have a better understanding of the role cholesterol plays in your overall well-being and how you can take an active role in keeping it within a healthy range.
Check out my book Crazy Sexy Kitchen for over 100 plant-based recipes for every occasion – make your kitchen buzz with health and flavor! Grab your copy here today.
Want to look better and feel your best? Start here – it’s the ultimate guide to living and eating Crazy Sexy (delicious recipes included!). You may have heard that eating certain foods is bad for your health because they increase your body fat content and increase your chances of developing them. get a heart attack, for example, fast food. The same goes for foods that are good for you, such as eating cholesterol-lowering foods that help you maintain low-density lipoprotein (LDL) levels and lose weight.
The Low Sugar Diet: Pros, Cons And What You Can Eat
Eating 15g of soy meal per day can help reduce cholesterol levels by up to 6%. Examples include soybeans, soy milk, and tofu. Other health benefits of soy foods include being a source of Omega-3, fiber and protein.
Cholesterol-lowering foods are not limited to main meals, but can also include breakfast. Oats are a healthy way to start the day. A bowl of oats gives you 2 grams of fiber and lowers your LDL levels. You can add some fruit to the oatmeal to make the mixture more palatable and increase the fiber level by at least 1 gram.
Plant sterols, or stanols, are commonly found in vegetable oils, whole grains, seeds, fruits, nuts, and vegetables. There are also prescription drugs for plant sterols and stanols because some people can’t get enough from natural sources. Normally, consuming 1.5-2.5 g of plant sterols or stanols lowers cholesterol by 7-10%.
Beans and peas are high in fiber and take longer to digest. As a result, you feel full for a long time. This effect makes beans a perfect food for people trying to lose weight, as it prevents them from eating all the time. A plate of baked beans and peas lowers LDL levels by up to 5%.
Cholesterol And Low Carb Diets: Guide
Cholesterol-lowering foods include fruits and vegetables. Any fruit or vegetable you eat has a small amount of saturated fat, which helps to keep your LDL levels at a specified minimum. In addition, fruits and vegetables contain fiber that stops the absorption of cholesterol in the digestive system.
When it comes to cholesterol-lowering foods, there is a special group of fruits that includes apples, citrus fruits, grapes, and strawberries. These fruits contain pectin, a special type of water-soluble fiber that keeps cholesterol in the stomach and prevents it from entering the bloodstream and clogging arteries.
Eating almonds, peanuts, and walnuts contains high levels of unsaturated fat, fiber, vitamin E, potassium, magnesium, plant-based protein, and natural sterols that help keep your heart healthy. Additionally, eating 2 ounces of nuts lowers LDL levels by 5%.
Eggplant and okra contain a lot of soluble fiber that prevents the body from absorbing LDL. Studies show that regular consumption of eggplants can help reduce bad cholesterol levels by up to 30%. Eggplant and okra are also used by diabetics to lower blood sugar levels.
Lowering Cholesterol Naturally Ebook By Regan Harrelson
There are two ways that fish can lower LDL levels: first, it gets rid of LDL-raising saturated fats and produces omega-3 fats, a source of healthy cholesterol. Omega-3 also lowers blood triglycerides and improves heart health.
Avocados are a good source of monounsaturated fat, which helps increase high-density lipoprotein (HDL) levels. HDL is a form of cholesterol that carries bad cholesterol away from the arteries to the liver, where it undergoes chemical breakdown and leaves the body.
A low cholesterol diet requires you to be flexible, you don’t have to eat all of the above foods at once or stick to one food for the rest of your life. Try mixing different foods and working with them on a daily basis.
The preferred low-cholesterol diet contains high amounts of fruits and vegetables and rarely fish. Also, if you want it to be effective, don’t forget to follow the diet.
Day Meal Plan To Lower Cholesterol: Recipes & Prep
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