If you have recently been told that your cholesterol levels are out, you will probably be weighing up the alternatives that your GP gave you. One alternative would be to take medication and the other alternative would be to adjust your diet and carry out more exercise. The alterations in diet are not radical, yet they could have a big effect. Exercising may be more of a difficulty to most individuals who lead a sedentary lifestyle.
People talk about cholesterol levels because there are two types of cholesterol. The two levels are HDL (good cholesterol) and LDL (bad cholesterol). LDL comes from animal fats (saturated fats), which are prevalent in red meat and full-fat dairy products like milk, butter, cream and cheese but it also is present in hydrogenated trans fats, which are common in margarines, pastry and crisps.
The first thing to do is try to cut out saturated fats by switching to chicken and drinking skimmed milk. You could also substitute the margarine or butter with one of the cholesterol-decreasing margarines in the supermarkets. Just taking these two steps will make a colossal difference to numerous individuals, however, others might have to go a little further.
Grains are very useful in the battle against cholesterol, because of the quantity of fibre in them. Therefore, you could give up your traditional English breakfast of cereals with milk followed by sausage, bacon, eggs and fried bread and instead eat Scots porridge oats with water or low-fat milk followed by wholemeal toast and cholesterol-decreasing margarine. This step alone will also significantly modify your cholesterol levels.
If you like a steak for luncheon sometimes, you may not have to give it up completely, but if you normally order an eight ounce steak, order a four or six ounce one instead and if you have that four times a week, cut back to two instead. Replace the steak with meals of skinless chicken and fish. Omega 3 fish oil is considered to be a great ally in the battle against cholesterol.
If you eat a lot of junk food like greasy hamburgers and oily hot dogs, you will almost certainly have to give them up, but that is not a bad thing anyway. Strive to snack on citrus fruits as they are also your allies against LDL cholesterol.
It is not all doom and gloom on the dietary front for sufferers of cholesterol problems. The changes that will be suggested to you to sort out your cholesterol worries have probably already been suggested to you to sort out being over weight or having high blood pressure or even having diabetes.
They are fundamental, sensible minor lifestyle changes which will have a enormous effect on a number of aspects of your body. The same is true of exercise. Most people know that they should exercise more, it is just a shame that most of us need such a significant incentive before we do anything about it.
Owen Jones, the author of this article, writes on numerous topics, but is now concerned with low fat low cholesterol diet. If you want to know more, please visit our site at What Foods Lower Cholesterol?