A Nutrition Guide To Managing Cholesterol
A healthy blood cholesterol number takes effort when you have been diagnosed with an elevated blood cholesterol number or if one has a family-related risk factor for heart disease. The total amount of cholesterol in your blood should be determined in a fasting state and should have a value of less than 200 mg/dL. Cholesterol is a fat-like substance found in every cell of the human body.
There are many factors that influence changes in blood cholesterol values, such as smoking, being overweight or obese, a lack of exercise, underlying conditions such as elevated blood pressure or diabetes, and most directly poor nutrition habits and choices. Here is a list of foods you should avoid if you have been advised to monitor your blood cholesterol values (1):
- Shellfish (Ex. conch, crab, lobster, shrimps, etc.)
- Red meat
- Cheese (Ex. Cream cheese, feta, blue cheese, mozzarella, full-fat dairy, etc.)
- Alcohol
- Sweets, Pastries & sugar beverages
- Processed foods (Ex. Chips, cookies, noodles, canned goods, some form of bread, bacon, breakfast sausages, microwaved meals, etc.)
- Fast Foods, fried foods, and salty items
- Egg yolks & carton eggs
Dietary changes can be difficult to adapt to but in consistently making the “right” choices you can safely reduce your risk of elevated blood cholesterol. What will make the biggest dietary impact though, is eating the correct servings of fruits and vegetables at each mealtime, drinking enough water relevant to your body weight, and choosing aerobic and/or cardiovascular exercises a minimum of 60mins, 3 times weekly. As an added tip, more and more research has identified that antioxidants from green tea consumption lower blood cholesterol values for both normal weight and overweight/obese individuals (2).
Drinking enough water relevant to your body weight
Additionally, when monitoring your total cholesterol values, one should also be aware of HDL cholesterol, LDL cholesterol, and triglyceride values (3). HDL is considered good cholesterol and should be maintained at 40mg/dL or higher, LDL is considered bad cholesterol and encouraged to be lower than 100mg/dL and triglycerides are a form of fats found in the blood. The combination of these three determine what total cholesterol looks like and the impact of cholesterol on health, and risk factors for heart attacks, strokes, or aneurism. It is highly recommended that if you are at risk of elevated total cholesterol or genetic risks for this condition, you meet with a nutritionist regularly, as you would a physician, to determine ways you can improve your diet. Additionally, please be aware of the impact of medications to improve this condition. We encourage you to discuss your lifestyle changes with both your physician and nutritionist to determine the safest ways of protecting you and your family from this form of heart disease.
If you are a CG Zest Wellness member, check out the journeys feature on the virgin pulse platform to embark upon a 10-day motivational stride to improve your health.
References
1. https://health.clevelandclinic.org/high-cholesterol-foods-to-eat-and-avoid/
2. https://nutritionj.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12937-020-00557-5
3. https://www.heart.org/en/health-topics/cholesterol/hdl-good-ldl-bad-cholesterol-and-triglycerides
