Total Cholesterol Ratio
Steps for Improving Your Total Cholesterol Ratio
Having a good total cholesterol ratio is one of the most important signs of good heart health. It means that you have adequate amounts of good cholesterol in your body and your bad cholesterol levels are under control. Consequently, this signifies that you are at a very low risk for heart attack and other cardiovascular problems.
Unfortunately, most people, especially those that are rather advanced in years, don’t really have an ideal or normal cholesterol ratio. In fact, millions of people all over the world suffer from high cholesterol and its many side effects. If you are one of these people, there’s no need to worry because you can still pull your cholesterol numbers back to normal values by following the steps below.
Follow a Healthy Cholesterol Diet
Most kinds of food that we eat today contain high amounts of fat and cholesterol. Fried foods, fast foods, processed foods — these are just some of the usual suspects. If you really want to become healthier, you would have to make some sacrifices and stay away from these foods. Instead, you should focus on eating fruits and vegetables and other fiber-rich foods that are great for lowering your bad cholesterol.
Exercise Regularly
Another common cause of cholesterol-related problems is a sedentary lifestyle. If you don’t get enough exercise, all the extra fat and cholesterol from your food will be stored in your body. They will gradually go into your bloodstream, tightening your arteries and causing your heart to work harder. In order to burn the extra fat and keep your total cholesterol ratio low, you should make sure to get regular exercise.
Even if you are busy with work and personal life, you shouldn’t use that as an excuse for not exercising. There are many ways to incorporate some physical activities into your daily routine, like walking to work instead of taking the car, or spending the weekend playing sports or doing some kind of physical activity with the family.
Other than changing your diet and building an exercise routine, there are plenty of other ways to improve your total cholesterol ratio. Giving up smoking, for instance, will do wonders not only for your cholesterol count but your overall health as well. The same is true if you minimize your alcohol consumption to just an occasional glass of wine.
If you do have high cholesterol levels you can start making a few changes to start to lower cholesterol naturally, without the need for medications.
Avoiding High Cholesterol Foods
Managing Cholesterol Levels With The Right Diet
Most people these days live on a diet filled with high cholesterol foods, not necessarily by choice but because of a matter of convenience. People are just too busy these days to prepare healthy meals and it just so happens that the easiest foods to prepare or to buy are those that contain high amounts of cholesterol. Sacrificing nutrition for convenience is never a good idea. You may not be feeling the effects now but if you continue eating a high cholesterol diet, you will definitely suffer dire consequences within a few years.
Good Fats Vs. Bad Fats
Studies show that one of the most effective ways to prevent cholesterol levels from shooting up is to limit the amount of fat in your daily diet. However, you should also understand that there are different types of fat found in food. The ones that you need to stay away from are the saturated fats or trans fats, which have been proven to cause obesity, heart problems, and high cholesterol. On the other hand, you also need some kinds of fat – unsaturated fats, in particular – in order to increase your good cholesterol while keeping the bad cholesterol count low at the same time.
What Are The Foods to Avoid?
Many high cholesterol foods contain excessive amounts of saturated fats and these are the foods that you should try to avoid at all costs. Instead, you should replace them with healthier varieties that don’t contain as much bad fats. Processed fatty meats, for instance, may be replaced with lean meat like chicken, turkey or fish. Fish like salmon and trout are among the best replacements for high cholesterol foods because these contain omega-3 fatty acids, which neutralize the effects of high cholesterol in the body. Look for the foods that increase good cholesterol and avoid the junk foods.
Dairy products like butter and egg yolks are also quite high in cholesterol, so either skip them at least for a while or reduce the amount of times you eat them in your diet. Eggs are excellent sources of protein so it’s okay to keep eating them as long as you stick to the whites and skip the yolk, if you eat them regularly. There are also plenty of low-fat varieties of butter available so choose these instead of the regular ones.
With all the different foods choices available nowadays, it’s really not that difficult to find healthier replacements for high cholesterol foods. Once you get used to it, opting for the nutritious alternative will be second nature to you. Pretty soon, you will be able to see the results of all your efforts and sacrifice. The next time you have your cholesterol levels checked, the numbers will definitely be lower and you will no longer be at risk of heart disease and other cholesterol-related illnesses. Just avoid junk food and eat a low fat, low cholesterol diet.
