How To Lower Your Cholesterol Naturally
High cholesterol invariably has an adverse effect on one’s heart. Heart disease can be traced back to large amounts of high or bad cholesterol flowing in the bloodstream. High cholesterol may be hereditary and is also certainly the result of consuming the wrong foods. Lowering cholesterol naturally can be accomplished by eating natural foods and adopting a daily exercise program together with other lifestyle changes.
A low cholesterol diet comprises foods that are high in fiber. These foods absorb high cholesterol and remove it from the bloodstream and out of the body via excretion. Foods such as apples, oranges, berries, apricots, raisins, prunes, peas, beans, broccoli, grapefruit and ground provisions are high fibrous foods to name but a few. Soluble fibers also comprise a whole range of vegetables, particularly green leafy vegetables.
Foods to avoid include fatty and red meats, dairy products made of whole milk, egg yolk, butter, margarine, coconut oil, palm oil and cocoa butter. These are all full of saturated fats and trans-fats. A change to a low calorie, low cholesterol diet must be done the right way. Good cholesterol (the cholesterol contained in low cholesterol foods) is very important for the body. When you starve yourself by eating minuscule amounts of food, your body has to produce the cholesterol that it was deprived of to maintain a baseline level. In this case high levels of insulin are produced and cause the body to siphon off excess blood sugar into the liver to make cholesterol and triglycerides (for energy and fat storage).
When your body is starved of the right nutrients, in particular good cholesterol, and this happens when a high carbohydrate high sugar diet is entertained, the body shuts down and goes into a famine mode. This situation will continue until you start to consume good cholesterol again. The absence of good cholesterol actually leads to more bad cholesterol accumulating in the body.
So in conclusion the best way to lower your cholesterol naturally is to stick to consuming natural fibrous foods. Since bad cholesterol is definitely bad for the heart, begin by cutting twenty percent of bad cholesterol foods from your diet immediately. Use vegetable oils instead of butter and margarine. Examples of good vegetable oils are olive oil and canola oil. Use white wine vinegar instead of butter when stir frying (you will lose nothing in taste and also gain good cholesterol). You can also use egg substitutes instead of egg yolks or whole eggs.
A daily exercise program is also very important for lowering cholesterol. Being overweight is also a risk for heart disease as the heart has to do more work to pump the blood through the blood vessels. By losing weight you can lower your bad cholesterol and increase your good cholesterol levels. If you have a predisposition for high cholesterol, this can be tackled by consuming greater quantities of cholesterol lowering super-foods (examples of which are garlic, wolfberries and mangosteen) which are now proving to be just as effective as statin drugs but without the adverse side effects.
The importance of a healthy diet cannot be overstressed when treating with high cholesterol. Certain natural diets can and will lower your cholesterol if consumed with discipline. The payoffs are huge in terms of a long and healthy life free of chronic disease.
