Cholesterol Heart Friendly Foods
You must maintain a healthy cholesterol level in order to avoid heart disease. There are many reasons why people can have unhealthy cholesterol levels. A person’s weight is not only a risk factor for heart disease on its own, but being overweight can also increase your cholesterol. By losing weight you can lower your bad cholesterol and increase your good cholesterol.
Also, factors like the amount of exercise you do, age, and gender play an important part in whether you are at risk for having high cholesterol. Genetics is also a predisposing factor in the amount of cholesterol your body manufactures. High cholesterol can be inherited throughout generations. If you are looking for ways to lower your cholesterol, certain diets will help with this.
Try finding a good cookbook that is mainly focused on cooking meals on a low-cholesterol diet. A low cholesterol diet is the best way in lowering your cholesterol. Cut back ten to twenty percent of the bad cholesterol that is in your diet, this will greatly improve the health of your heart. Foods that are rich in healthy fats like vegetable oils and fish are excellent choices. Foods that contain high saturated and trans fats should be eaten very sparingly.
You can change your diet to a low-cholesterol diet by replacing trans fat margarines and polyunsaturated oils that you might typically use with canola oil, olive oil, or plant sterol spreads. Using white wine vinegar to keep your pan moist while cooking instead of butter will get you off to a good start in preparing healthier meals. It does not change the taste of the food and it is low in cholesterol. Instead of cooking with whole eggs, use a cholesterol-free egg substitute.
It is equally as important to change your diet the right way as it is to change it in the first place. When some people want to lose weight they change their diets but they go about it the wrong way. Actually, low-fat, high-carb diets can raise your cholesterol levels. Since cholesterol is so important to the human body, it has a backup plan in case you were to be faced with starvation. What will begin to happen is that your liver will start to produce cholesterol to maintain a certain level of it.
A low-fat, high-carb diet causes high levels of insulin to be introduced into the bloodstream. This triggers the body to siphon off excess blood sugar into the liver to make cholesterol and triglycerides. Rather then staying away from anything that has cholesterol in it, it is important to continue to eat foods that contain good cholesterol.
Your liver only makes 75% of the cholesterol that you need. The rest of the cholesterol you need comes from the things that you eat. Decreasing the amount of cholesterol that you eat and making up those calories in carbs and sugar, your metabolism goes into famine mode and your liver overproduces cholesterol to make up the difference. This overdrive state will not shut off until you start eating cholesterol again. A low-cholesterol, high-carbohydrate diet can lead to high cholesterol!
About the Author: Todd Peterson has compiled a FREE mini-course on nutrition and heart health. This course teaches you how to lower your cholesterol naturally without using cholesterol-lowering medications. For more information on
diet for lower cholesterol , Visit his website on how to naturally lower cholesterol. the safe and healthy way.