Making gradual and permanent changes in your diet and lifestyle can help you lower your cholesterol levels. Not only will these changes reduce your risk for developing heart disease, but they will also reduce your risk for other serious conditions such as high blood pressure, cancer, stroke, and diabetes.
The main lifestyle changes to help you lower your cholesterol levels are:
- Reduce fat and cholesterol in your diet.
- Eat more foods rich in carbohydrates and fiber, such as fruits, vegetables, and whole grains.
- Increase your level of physical activity.
- Maintain a healthy body weight.
In addition to lowering cholesterol levels, if you smoke cigarettes or have high blood pressure, quitting smoking or moderating your sodium intake can also significantly reduce risk for heart disease.
Consider taking a systematic approach to lowering cholesterol, one step at a time:
- Find your starting point, or think about what needs to be changed. Sometimes this means keeping a diary for a few days to record your normal food intake or patterns of exercise.
- Once you have identified your problem, make a commitment to change.
- Plan how you will start to make a change. If many changes are required, plan which change you will make first.
- Check up on yourself to see how well you are carrying out and keeping up the changes.
Of course, it is unrealistic to expect to make many lifestyle changes all at once. However, as you will see, there is plenty of overlap. For example, regular exercise will help you lower your cholesterol and lose weight, which further lowers your cholesterol.
When making changes, you need to pace yourself. Make adjustments to your way of living in whatever order is easiest and don't rush. Gradual change is more likely to be permanent than many rapid and drastic changes. When you change your diet or exercise routine, don't think of it as going on a temporary diet or exercise program. Instead, think of it as adopting a healthier way of living to continue for life.
Also, don't feel you have to give up any favorite food completely when making dietary changes. If you really enjoy certain high-fat foods:
- Eat them in smaller portions (example, one cookie instead of three).
- Find a version of the food that is lower in fat (example, ice milk instead of ice cream).
- Find a substitute for the food that you like almost as well (example, popcorn instead of peanuts).
All of the above changes are healthy for the entire family. Not only will these changes help you lower your cholesterol level, but they will also help reduce the entire family's risk of developing chronic health disorders such as heart disease, cancer, high blood pressure, and obesity.
Reducing Total Fat
Ounce for ounce, fat contains over twice the calories that protein or carbohydrates do. So even if saturated fat is the type of fat most likely to raise harmful blood cholesterol levels, you should limit intake of all fats. Eating too much fat, no matter what kind, can make you put on excess weight. Eating too much fat can also increase your risk of certain types of cancer, such as breast or colon cancer.
To limit total fat intake:
- Broil, bake, boil, or roast foods rather than fry.
- Use non-stick pans or coat pans with a thin layer of non-stick spray.
- Add less fat to food during both cooking and eating. Some examples include using jam instead of margarine on toast, a non-fat or low-fat salad dressing instead of a high-fat dressing, lemon juice instead of butter on vegetables, or salsa instead of sour cream on baked potatoes.
- Experiment with butter substitutes, spices, and other flavorings as alternative to fat.
- Look for low-fat alternatives to foods, such as a bagel instead of a doughnut, pretzels instead of potato chips, or a round steak instead of a t-bone steak
- Try new fat-free products like yogurt, cookies, or crackers.
- Read labels, which offer excellent information to help you compare fat content of prepared foods.
To reduce the fat and cholesterol intake in your diet, start with changes that are relatively easy to make. For example, many people find it easy to switch from 2% milk to 1% or skim milk. Once you have adjusted to one change, pick another change to work on.
Here are some simple changes that will help you greatly reduce saturated fat and cholesterol in your diet.
Egg yolks:
- Eat no more than three eggs yolks weekly.
- Eat as many egg whites as you like - they contain no cholesterol.
Meats:
- Buy lean meats such as fish, poultry, veal cutlet, pork tenderloin, or flank steak.
- Trim as much fat off meat as possible.
- Broil, barbecue, or roast meat on a rack rather than fry them. This allows some of the fat to escape during cooking.
- Limit the amount of hamburger you eat, and buy the leanest type available.
- Replace high-fat prepared meats like sausage and luncheon meats with lower-fat meats like lean turkey or chicken.
- Remove the skin from chicken or turkey before you cook or eat it.
- Try to eat fish twice weekly. Fish contains a type of fat called omega-3 fat that may help prevent heart disease.
Dairy products:
- Use margarine instead of butter, choosing a margarine that has a liquid oil rather than a hydrogenated oil listed as the first ingredient.
- Choose a lower-fat milk. If you use whole milk, switch to 2%. If you use 2%, switch to 1% or skim milk. (All types of milks have the same amount of calcium and other vitamins and minerals.)
- Use non-fat or low-fat yogurt.
- Use plain non-fat yogurt instead of sour cream.
- Cut down on the amount of regular cheeses you eat. Look for lower-fat cheese that contains less than 3 grams of fat per ounce.
- Sprinkle a little Parmesan cheese on food to give it a cheesy taste. Parmesan cheese is strong tasting, so a little goes a long way.
Tropical oils and processed oils:
- Check food labels to see what the main type of fat in the food is. Limit foods that list palm oil, coconut oil, or a hydrogenated oil as one of the first type of fats. (Food labels list ingredients in order from greatest to least by weight.)
- Be suspicious of commercial baked goods such as doughnuts, sweet rolls, brownies, and cookies, which are a major source of saturated fat.
About 60% of the saturated fat in the American diet comes from three food sources:
- Hamburger
- Cheese
- Whole milk
Cutting down on these foods, or cutting them out, can go a long ways toward helping you cut down saturated fat and cholesterol.
Including more starches and fiber in your diet can help you lower your cholesterol level, as well as reduce your risk for obesity, cancer, high blood pressure, and other diseases. Fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grain breads and cereals, and legumes are naturally low in fat, cholesterol-free, and rich in starches and dietary fiber.
A certain type of dietary fiber, called soluble fiber The type of fiber that can help reduce blood cholesterol levels. Foods such as oat bran, dried beans, and some fruits are high in soluble fiber., may help lower cholesterol levels by sweeping cholesterol out of the body before it gets into the bloodstream. Foods rich in soluble fiber include oat bran, dried beans and peas, some fruits, and psyllium seeds (the main ingredient in Metamucil, a fiber supplement).
Fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and nuts and seeds also contain
- Vitamin C (in citrus fruits)
- Beta-carotene (in carrots)
- Vitamin E (in vegetable oils)
To damage artery walls, cholesterol must first be chemically changed through a process called oxidation. Antioxidants help prevent cholesterol from being chemically changed and help prevent
The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Guide Pyramid recommends that you eat the following number of servings of these plant foods daily:
- 6-11 servings of grains (1 serving equals 1 slice of bread, ½ of a bun, ½ cup of pasta or rice)
- 3-5 servings of vegetables (1 serving equals 1 cup of raw leafy vegetables or ½ cup cooked vegetables)
- 2-3 servings of fruits (1 serving equals 1 medium apple, peach or orange; ½ cup of berries; or 3/4 cup juice)
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