Best diet to help to reduce high cholesterol?

Besides getting more active, what types of food should you try to eat to help lower cholesterol?

What are some big things (and maybe not so obvious) to avoid?

I just got my first cholesterol results back, and they were high (250), so I want to try to reduce the numbers for my next checkup, so I can avoid having to go on meds!

Any feedback would be appreciated, thank you!!

Lots of great suggestions.

I have (had) very high cholesterol. Exercise will lower it. Cholesterol in food comes from animal products (meat, eggs and dairy). There is no cholesterol in plants.

I cut out sugary junk food and 99 percent of dairy, especially cheese. I'm not much of a meat eater -- I did eat fish 2-3x a year, which I've stopped doing. I also stopped eating eggs.

I added some good fats like olive oil and avocado because they lower the bad cholesterol.

Breakfast: I usually eat steel cut oats. Oatmeal lowers cholesterol.

Lunch and dinner: I eat lentils for protein (1 cup has the protein of 3 eggs), with stir fried vegetables and brown rice. I also eat a lot of steamed leafy greens like kale and collards. Food high in fiber like leafy greens and beans will lower cholesterol.

Snacks: fruit

No meat, No Dairy.

Didn't read. Cholesterol is in animal products. Get rid of animal products and your cholesterol should decrease.

This is exactly what you SHOULDN'T be listening to. Wow.

Cutting back on processed meat might help, but probably not. Eat well, hit your macros, lose weight if you need to and exercise regularly. I think exercising regularly and eating well 80% of the time will do all you can lifestyle-wise.

Exercise and weight loss! I agree with the oatmeal, too. Eat fish. Check out plant sterols and fish oil supplements. These things are working for me.

My entire life- my cholesterol was excellent - around 140. Then a few years ago i had stopped eating oatmeal and it went up to
199. Started back on Oatmeal (changed nothing else) and it went down to 160. Started MFP in May 2013, started losing weight, sometimes had oatmeal twice a day - and now 29 lbs lighter and just had it checked again - 137 !

OATMEAL and lose weight - just my thoughts - it worked for me.

I'm a strong believer in oatmeal also.... That, and a occasional shot of metamucil

I haven't posted on here for a while and try to stay away because you will receive a lot of bad and harmful advice, especially from the people who constantly promote eating more and eating lots of "dietary" cholesterol.

You are with out a doubt receiving a lot of bad advice on this so hopefully I can help clear things up. Some people are saying that dietary cholesterol has no impact on serum levels are wrong and reading that information incorrectly. That information comes form statistics and those statics say that for 80% of the world population, dietary cholesterol has no impact on cholesterol levels. That does not mean for every single person in the entire world, eating red meat and eggs does not increase serum levels. It is a completely wrong and harmful to your body way to interpret that information because the other 20% will constantly see a rise in cholesterol. Let me rephrase that, there is a chance that you fall into the 20% category of people that will see a constant rise in cholesterol if you constantly ingest more dietary fat.

There is only one way to know if dietary cholesterol will raise your levels and that's to get a lipid panel test once you've changed your diet and only then can you make correct changes. However, the standard medical advice is to stick to a low fat BALANCED diet instead of wasting your time going in and out of a clinic getting tested.


I was following a ketogenic diet and losing weight but my cholesterol went sky high, over 300. I only made a decision to get a lipid panel test after reading the section in Lyel McDonald's book. I believe there is a section that he talks about people that can eat a high fat diet and people that can not. He said what i basically summed up earlier, that there is a group of people who can not and should not eat a high fat diet. While my diet was an extreme diet high in fats, the key point you need to take away from this is that dietary cholesterol can raise your levels and the only way to know is to get a lipid panel test to see if you follow in that category. The way your body regulates cholesterol is not the same as the next person, it's based on genetics as someone said earlier.


http://aaron.emascc.com/diet/ebooks/Lyle_McDonald_-_The_Ketogenic_Diet.pdf

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there are 2 ways to lower your LDLs. one is to force your body to use them to process certain foods. your body uses LDLs to separate whole grains. people telling you to eat more fiber should not be taken seriously. bran is a fiber, but it's worthless in controlling your LDL. it will make you go to the bathroom, but your body uses LDL to separate the bran from the grain. if it is already separated, your body doesn't need to do any work or use any LDLs.

Wait what? I've never heard that and couldn't find any info online to back it up. Do you have a source for this claim?

there are 2 ways to lower your LDLs. one is to force your body to use them to process certain foods. your body uses LDLs to separate whole grains. people telling you to eat more fiber should not be taken seriously. bran is a fiber, but it's worthless in controlling your LDL. it will make you go to the bathroom, but your body uses LDL to separate the bran from the grain. if it is already separated, your body doesn't need to do any work or use any LDLs.

Wait what? I've never heard that and couldn't find any info online to back it up. Do you have a source for this claim?

My doctor told me this back in 2006 when my cholesterol was in the 250s. I got it down to the 180s eating a packet of instant oatmeal each morning at work out of a little styrofoam coffee cup within a few months.

I found this Harvard article, but it doesn't go into scientific detail, it just says "it does" basically.

"Eating whole instead of refined grains substantially lowers total cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein (LDL, or bad) cholesterol, triglycerides, and insulin levels."
http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/what-should-you-eat/health-gains-from-whole-grains/

I'll keep looking.

Exercise.