Diet ideas to lower triglycerides

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MkParrish1984
MkParrish1984 Posts: 1 Member
in Food and Nutrition
Had bloodwork done and my triglycerides are in the lower 400s and need to be under 150...
i need diet ideas to help lower my triglycerides quickly...
i wont eat fish so please exclude that from diet ideas.. ty

Replies

  • LyndaBSS
    LyndaBSS Posts: 6,964 Member
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    A Mediterranean diet is good to lower triglycerides. That includes fish, though.

    I eat a pescatarian diet which also includes fish. My recent bloodwork showed my triglycerides finally in the normal range.

    Avoid highly processed foods. Do you just not like fish? There are so many different kinds.
  • concordancia
    concordancia Posts: 5,320 Member
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    The South Beach Diet was originally designed to improve such blood markers.

    Think "healthy carbs" with lots of fiber, such as whole grains and vegetables and "healthy fats" such as avocados, nuts and olive oil. Fill in the remainder with lean proteins.
  • apullum
    apullum Posts: 4,838 Member
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    The most common causes of high triglycerides are obesity and untreated diabetes (https://www.uofmhealth.org/health-library/zp3387#zp3391). Dad's triglycerides routinely were four digits until he was diagnosed with T2D and treated for it. Your numbers aren't THAT high, but it's worth asking your doctor to check for diabetes.

    Beyond that, you should not be focusing only on diet to lower triglycerides. Diet can be helpful, but you also need to incorporate exercise and achieve a healthy weight (if you aren't already there) for best results.

    I will say that my triglycerides were consistently high and responded poorly to both medication and dietary changes. They only responded to exercise and weight loss. Once I was about halfway to my goal weight, I was able to stop all the medication.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 32,293 Member
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    Mine were over 400 at one point. Moderating (not eliminating) carbs and alcohol was a bit of a bandaid initially, but they were still very high. I tried various other eating strategies, without much result.

    When I started losing weight (on a balanced-macro way of eating), they pretty quickly (2-3 months) dropped into the normal range (120s at the time), even before I'd lost all the weight I needed to lose. Nowadays, at a healthy weight and eating a balanced-macros diet (usually couple of hundred grams of carbs daily), they've run in the 70s to 90s for the last 4 years.
  • psuLemon
    psuLemon Posts: 38,395 MFP Moderator
    edited August 2019
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    Weight loss and exercise are the biggest contributors to improve metabolic health. Things to keep high: Omega 3 (chia seeds), fibrous fruits and veggies, and whole grains. Things to keep low: added sugar, Omega 6s and saturated fats.
  • yirara
    yirara Posts: 9,420 Member
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    Are your triglicerides always high or only sometimes? Just a thought: if you're dehydrated then blood lipides appear higher, and as many blood tests are done fasting, and for many people before they had something to drink in the morning an explanation might be there. Mind you, when I was living in the Middle East we had a free health checkup in summer that was very poorly organized: people would wait outside a container for more than an hour in over 40C. Pretty much everyone had high blood lipides just from being dehydrated.
  • Jthanmyfitnesspal
    Jthanmyfitnesspal Posts: 3,521 Member
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    No, you don't need to eat fish to improve your lipids!

    My understanding is that most (but not all) people with high triglycerides are overweight. If this is your case, I'm going to postulate that what you eat will have much less effect than how much you eat. Just going on a calorie deficit will rapidly lower triglycerides in overweight people.

    Exercise, limiting booze, sweets, and carbs will also help.

    I'm sure you've seen articles like this. (I am a fan of the Mayo Clinic web site, in general.):

    https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/high-blood-cholesterol/in-depth/triglycerides/art-20048186

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