How Can You Reduce Cholesterol Levels?
Can you remember being younger and feeling as if you could eat anything you wanted without it having any adverse effects on you? We’ve probably all had that feeling at some time or another. But sooner or later those bad habits will catch up with many people, and one of the ways you can combat them is to reduce cholesterol so it doesn’t harm your health.
But how do we do this? Is it simply a question of changing our diets for the better?
This is certainly one of the key things we should do. Take a look at what you are eating for the next week or so on an average day. How much saturated fat are you taking in? Reducing those levels and building in foods that are high in healthier fats – such as olive oil for example – are important changes to make for both the long and the short term.
Of course it can be difficult to make sweeping changes and keep them up. How many times have you woken up on a Monday morning and resolved to start a new diet that day, turning over a new leaf and completely changing the way you eat? It’s good to start so positively but sooner or later you’ll fall off the wagon. Smaller changes made more gradually can be a better way to reduce cholesterol levels and stick with it for the long term.
It helps to be educated on the best foods to eat as well. Start becoming more label conscious for instance. If the label says the item is chock full of saturated fats, put it back and go for something that is high in polyunsaturated fats instead. Monounsaturated fats are also better in this regard.
The aim is to go for foods that are good for bolstering the good cholesterol in your body. This is known as HDL or high density lipoprotein. The stuff you want to get rid of as much as possible is LDL or low density lipoprotein. Some foods are particularly good at doing this because they have ingredients that help to reduce those levels. Typical examples include red yeast rice (which can be found in some supplements), niacin, policosanol and plant sterols and stanols.
We’re often told we should eat more fruits and vegetables, lean meat instead of fatty meat and foods which have soluble fiber in them. These are all good for lots of reasons but they can all help to protect your heart as well. They can get rid of the bad cholesterol from your body so it’s worth eating these foods more often. You should also take a supplement that has been especially formulated to assist in lowering cholesterol and protecting your heart and circulatory system for the long term. This provides you with a double whammy protection against the effects of high cholesterol.
In short, there is a lot you can do to reduce cholesterol levels in your body. And the sooner you start the better.