Keep your cholesterol levels down to lower your risk of heart disease, stroke and heart attack. The general target for your cholesterol level lies around 200 -- combining your HDL, the good cholesterol, and your LDL, the bad cholesterol. The good cholesterol loves exercise, so the more you do, the better your level. The bad cholesterol loves your bad lifestyle habits, so knowing what to improve will keep your LDL level in check.
Statin Drugs
In addition to cholesterol in the food you eat, your body makes its own cholesterol in the liver. Statin drugs, such as atorvastatin, block the liver's ability to make cholesterol. This does not mean you may eat a high-fat diet and the statin will simply eliminate the cholesterol. The patient teaching sheets for these drugs state that use of the drug must be in conjunction with a low-fat diet for the statin to work properly.
Weight Loss
Weight loss can help lower your cholesterol, especially if you combine it with aerobic exercise. Twenty minutes into your workout, you begin to switch from using muscle sugar to power your routine to burning your fat stores. Using free weights increases your muscle mass, which naturally burns off calories even when you're at rest. Even a small weight loss can lower your cholesterol.
For the best, and long-lasting results, lose weight slowly. You have a better chance of sticking to new habits if you make small, permanent changes over time.
Proper Diet
Purchase foods from Mother Nature's bounty, found on the outside aisles of your grocery store, instead of consuming prepackaged, chemically loaded processed foods from the inside aisles. This keeps you from ingesting powdered and artificial fat disguised as additives you probably can't identify or pronounce. Other than avocados, fruits and vegetables contain no fat. With a few exceptions, you can eat as much as you want. Eat fewer of the starchy variety, such as bananas, peas, corn and potatoes, to keep your body from storing excess starch as sugar.
Heart-Healthy Oils
Some fats actually lower your risk of high-cholesterol. Mono- and polyunsaturated fats that come from plants can lower your overall cholesterol levels. Choose extra virgin olive oil or canola oil as monounsaturated fats. Polyunsaturated fats include safflower, sunflower, sesame seed, rapeseed and peanut oil. Oils labeled "vegetable" usually come from soybeans, but check the ingredients to know for sure.
References
- Pfizer.com: How Lipitor Works.
- MayoClinic.com: High Cholesterol
- "Prescriptions for Nutritional Healing"; Phyllis A. Balch; 2010
- "What to Eat"; Marion Nestle; 2006
