Low Cholesterol Diet
All low cholesterol diets have six main goals:
1. Reduce your dietary cholesterol.
2. Reduce total dietary fat.
3. Reduce sodium intake.
4. Increase dietary fiber.
5. Increase complex carbohydrates.
6. Reduce calories if you need to lose weight.
Why is Cholesterol Bad?
Cholesterol is carried through your body in your blood. When the amount of cholesterol in your blood is too high, some of the cholesterol sticks to the walls of your blood vessels. This is called cholesterol plaque.
As more and more cholesterol plaque builds up, it leaves less and less room for your blood to move through your body. Of course you need a good flow of blood because blood is how your body gets oxygen and nutrients. You more or less need to keep getting these things.
Where does Cholesterol come from?
Most people have heard that cholesterol comes from fats in foods. I was surprised to learn that your liver also produces cholesterol. This is why even if you cut everything out of you diet that contained cholesterol; you would still have cholesterol in your body.
You really don’t want to stop your liver from working, so the best way for you to cut cholesterol is to limit the types of foods which produce more cholesterol. These are generally foods high in saturated fats - you know - all the things you grew up loving.
What’s the difference between saturated fats and unsaturated fats?
A simple way to think about this is a test you can do any time in your own kitchen. Saturated fats turn solid and stay solid at room temperature. Think about leaving a steak out on the counter for an hour or so after your meal. All that saturated fat turns to gel.
For something that tastes so good when it’s hot, it sure is unappealing just a little later. INTERESTING FACT: Meats are graded based on their fat content. Prime has the most fat, Choice is next and Good is last.
Unsaturated fats don’t do this. Notice you never see this with fruits or vegetables.
This turning solid at room temperature is exactly the problem your blood vessels face with excess saturated fats. Since unsaturated fats do not do this, you can eat them more. In fact there is mounting evidence that unsaturated fats can even help lower your cholesterol levels.
Why is weight loss a way to lower my Cholesterol?
When you are overweight, the weight is generally stored as fat. That’s a nice way to say it - my wife says it’s stored somewhere else on me. Anyway, that fat will be absorbed back into the blood stream as saturated fats. So even though you are eating less saturated fats, your body figures out it can keep getting them from the emergency reserve. You have to get rid of the emergency reserve.
Why is Sodium on this list?
Many folks with high cholesterol also have high blood pressure. Sodium contributes to high blood pressure. Table salt is about 1/2 sodium (wonder what the other half is). Many foods and medications contain significant amounts of sodium. You need to start reading labels to learn how much you are getting without being aware of it.
Why increase dietary fiber and complex carbohydrates?
Even though saturated fats have a dark side, they are also great sources of energy. When you stop eating them you still need the energy. Complex carbohydrates are a great source of energy.
Dietary fiber helps dissolve fats. Some research shows that soluble fiber can reduce cholesterol levels as much as 15%.
SUMMARY
Too much cholesterol in your blood is a serious health issue. Lowering you cholesterol level is one of the top three behaviors you can change that will positively impact you health. The other two are high blood pressure and smoking. Generally if you choose to go on a low cholesterol diet, you will also be on a diet that will lower your blood pressure. Smoking is not something I am covering here. We’ll save that for another web site.
Here are a few good books on lowering your cholesterol:
The Prescription Free Cholesterol Cure
The New 8-Week Cholesterol Cure : The Ultimate Program for Preventing Heart Disease
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