How to Reduce or Lower Cholesterol.
Lowering Cholesterol or Reducing Cholesterol is important in persons with high cholesterol. High Levels of Blood Cholesterol (we refer here to LDL cholesterol and/or triglycerides) is detrimental to your health and will cause serious health complications. These are explained in Complications and Harmful Effects of High Cholesterol and will impress upon you the need to Lower Cholesterol. So if your LDL cholesterols levels are high or if you are prone to have high cholesterol due to a hereditary trait, you must read High Cholesterol Foods to Avoid and Low Cholesterol Diet. This along with lifestyle changes to lower cholesterol will help you to keep your cholesterol levels under control without any cholesterol medication.
This education on cholesterol will keep you well informed and will make you realize that it is not difficult to lower your cholesterol. Just a few adjustments are needed and you can bring your cholesterol back to normal without medication.
Besides the Diet and Foods to Lower Cholesterol, it is necessary to incorporate certain life style changes or habits to keep your cholesterol levels within the normal range.
5 Tips to Lower Cholesterol.
1) Lose excess weight.
2) Eat healthy heart friendly foods.
3) Exercise daily.
4) Do not smoke.
5) Do not drink or drink in moderation.
1) Lose excess weight to lower cholesterol.
Being overweight or obese is the cause of various disorders like diabetes, hypertension, higher cholesterol levels, heart disease etc. Diabetes and Cholesterol often co exist and predispose to heart disease. Losing weight and maintaining your correct weight therefore becomes necessary.
Reading the following will help and guide you to lose weight.
- How to Lose Weight.
- Diet and Foods to Lose Weight.
- Calories in Common Foods. Knowing the calories in foods that you normally eat, will enable you to choose foods with lower calorie content.
- Exercises to Lose Weight.
2) Eat healthy Foods or Heart friendly Foods.
Healthy Foods are those foods which give you complete nourishment and protect you from heart diseases. In brief, they are
- Whole Grains.
- Vegetables.
- Fruits.
- Skimmed milk and products.
- Canola or olive oils.
- Very lean meat without lard.
- Chicken without skin.
This a very brief mention because a fully detailed explanation is given in Diet and Foods to Lower Cholesterol. Do read anf follow it.
3) Exercise daily to lower cholesterol.
Exercising daily has very many tremendous benefits, which extend to all parts of the body. However, aerobics in particular, has a positive effect on insulin sensitivity, HDL and triglycerides levels. Some benefits of exercise are being mentioned below:
Exercise –
- Lowers LDL ( bad cholesterol) and increases HDL (good cholesterol).
- Reduces risks or chances of diabetes or helps lower blood sugar if you have diabetes.
- Reduces risk of high blood pressure and lowers of hypertension.
- Helps to control weight.
- Helps prevent certain cancers. (for example colon cancer.)
- Gives a feeling of well being.
- Maintains over all health.
- And many more.
There are various exercises you could do. Some important exercises and their calorie losing equation is explained in Exercises to Lose Weight. Do read this post.
4) Do Not Smoke.
If you are smoker, quit this habit. There are various benefits of not smoking. We discuss here the benefits caused pertaining to cholesterol and heart. Quitting smoking will raise your HDL cholesterol ( the good cholesterol) levels. How stopping smoking affects your heart:
- 20 minutes after you have stopped smoking, your blood pressure starts falling within the normal range.
- 24 hours after having stopped smoking, your chances or risk of heart attack decrease.
- Within one year, chances of getting a heart attack reduce by 50% compared to what they were when you smoked.
- It takes 15 years to bring your chances of heart attack to that of a smoker.
5) Drink alcohol in moderation to lower cholesterol.
If you do not drink, do not start it. But if you do drink, it is still recommended that you stop drinking. But if you have to, ( whatever the reason) and if you do have a strong will power, you can drink in limits as follows.
- 2 pegs of 60 ml each can be allowed in men.
- 1 peg of 60 ml can be allowed in women.
This moderate limit has been associated with higher levels of HDL cholesterol( good cholesterol). However, please note that higher limits than those prescribed above is associated with high blood pressure, stroke and heart diseases.
Summary:
Following these lifestyle habits and the low cholesterol diet , will be enough to lower cholesterol and maintain good and healthy cholesterol levels. However, if your cholesterol levels are raised, regular cholesterol tests have to be carried out to monitor your cholesterol numbers under the watchful eye of your doctor.
Your action step.
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