high cholesterol diet?

abbyph311

I was recently told by my doctor that I have high cholesterol. Instead of trying medication, I want to first try to change my diet. In 2 months I have a recheck and HOPE it is lowered. Besides eating healthy and exercise, are there any specific ways to lower cholesterol?

coliema

I got this offline, but I figured it would help!

How to Lower Cholesterol Naturally

These are the 7 steps you can take to lower cholesterol naturally. And if you follow all of them, you can count on a very high success ratio.

1. Eat a healthy cholesterol lowering diet. Some fats help lower cholesterol, while others can raise it. So get your fats right. Reduce overall fat intake, avoid trans fats, limit saturated fats and replace "bad" fats with "good" fats, such as olive oil and those found in whole grains and omega 3 fish. High fiber foods also help lower cholesterol naturally. They decrease "bad" LDL and increase "good" HDL cholesterol.

2. Do regular healthy physical activity. At least 30 minutes of exercise a day has been shown to decrease total cholesterol and improve "good" HDL cholesterol levels, while lack of regular physical activity can raise "bad" LDL cholesterol levels as well as lead to weight gain.

3. Reach and maintain a healthy weight. Being overweight can decrease "good" HDL levels and increase "bad" LDL and total cholesterol levels. Learn the healthiest weight to aim for by calculating your BMI here.

4. Eliminate sweets and refined foods. Few realize that eating sweets and other high glycemic foods increase triglycerides and cholesterol production. These foods are also addictive. Once you eliminate them, you'll find that fruits, vegetables and whole grains actually taste sweet.

5. Cut out caffeine and alcohol – drink water. Both caffeine and alcohol have been shown to elevate cholesterol. So it's best to switch to pure water and, at the very least, follow the "no more than one a day" rule.

6. Don't smoke or use tobacco in any form. Smoking damages blood vessels, contributes to hardening of the arteries and is a major health risk for heart disease, stroke and other degenerative diseases.

7. Practice good healthy stress management. Just like cholesterol, a certain amount of stress is healthy – such as with exercise. But the link between excess stress and high cholesterol production is well established. So take time to relax, let go, meditate, enjoy yourself or do whatever it takes to keep your stress level under control.

Dave198lbs

your doc might be right but cholesterol is very misunderstood and has been blown totally out of proportion by the medical community. get more exercise and eat better anyway, but get more than one opinion before you start putting cholestoerol meds into your body

ahamm002

There are a lot of changing opinions and misconceptions regarding this issue. The jury is still out on what the optimal diet is for reducing hyperlipidemia b/c such studies are very difficulty to perform on humans without massive confounders. Carbs aren't actually all that benign like we were previously taught.

Your best bet for improving your blood cholesterol is exercise, not being obese, and probably avoiding processed foods and foods with a lot of high fructose corn syrup added to them. Avoid any foods that have trans fat (partially hygrogenated oils). Focus on eating natural foods like veggies, fruit, nuts, eggs (with the yolk!), lean meat, etc.

twinmom01

your doc might be right but cholesterol is very misunderstood and has been blown totally out of proportion by the medical community. get more exercise and eat better anyway, but get more than one opinion before you start putting cholestoerol meds into your body

This....higher cholesterol can be genetic - My husband has always had high cholesterol and totally changed his eating habits - it went down some but it is still high...

The thing is you really need to have your dr. do all sorts of cholesterol tests - have them test the HDL and LDL - as well as testing the type of LDL (there are two types - basically a big fluffy kind and small kind...the small kind of LDL is BAD)

My husband had all faucets checked and had great HDL and while the LDL was higher then they would like the % of fat fluffy vs small was a good ratio

You can change your diet and it can adjust the amount of HDL (the GOOD stuff you want) and adjust the type of LDL but still have an overall high cholesterol.

the problem is a lot of Dr's still prescribe to the notion that having a higher overall cholesterol is BAD without looking at all the components....you HAVE to look at the componets and assess your risk.

mayerel

I would agree with what the others have said. In addition- depending on how high your cholesterol is you may or not be able to get it down to where your doctor is happy, but that doesn't necessarily mean you need to go on medication. Do you have other risk factors for heart disease in your family? What is your ratio of LDL to HDL? How old are you? Planning on having children? Read up on the studies, many suggest that medications are not as helpful as once thought.

I have VERY high cholesterol but no other risk for heart disease- no family history, no high blood pressure, nada. I also am young and still want to have children, which you cannot on the medications. In addition, the way I read many of the studies was that the medications primarily help men, in their 50's who have already had their first heart attack- not me. So I decided the money, the side effects and the children issues weren't worth it to me and have not been on medication. I say this AS MY EXPERIENCE ONLY, so be sure to talk it all the way through with your doc and DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH.

Glucocorticoid

Your best bet for improving your blood cholesterol is exercise, not being obese, and probably avoiding processed foods and foods with a lot of high fructose corn syrup added to them. Avoid any foods that have trans fat (partially hygrogenated oils). Focus on eating natural foods like veggies, fruit, nuts, eggs (with the yolk!), lean meat, etc.

Dietary cholesterol doesn't necessarily have much to do with blood cholesterol. Cholesterol intake tends to have a minor effect on total blood cholesterol. But it's just going to depend, there are a wide range of differences in how people respond to dietary cholesterol (hypo and hyperresponders).