Lowering your cholesterol is important for everyone, young and old alike. About half of all men and a third of women develop heart disease during their lifetime. Lower your risk of a heart attack by reducing your cholesterol levels. There are several ways to help lower your cholesterol:
1. Exercise more. Try to get at least 30 minutes, 3 or 4 days a week (check with your doctor before beginning any exercise program) of exercises like walking, swimming, tennis or biking.
2. Lose weight if you are over your desired weight.
3. Follow a low cholesterol, low saturated fat diet.
According to
National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, if you want to maintain a healthy cholesterol level, you should limit your diet to following:
Total fat calories should be less than 30% Total saturated fat should be less than 10% Total cholesterol from diet should be less than 300 milligrams
If your cholesterol is already too high and you want to reduce it, you should limit your diet to following:
Total fat calories should be less than 25-35% Total saturated fat should be less than 7% Total cholesterol from diet should be less than 200 milligrams
Cholesterol lowering foods
Foods containing Omega-3 fatty acids should be on everyone's diet. These are mostly fish, including sardines, salmon, albacore tuna, lake trout, mackerel and herring.
Canola, almonds, tofu, other forms of soybeans and flaxseed, and their oils contain alpha-linolenic acid (LNA), which can become omega-3 fatty acid in body.
Walnuts, almonds, pecans and other nuts have large amounts of polyunsaturated or monounsaturated
fats which help to lower cholesterol.
Soluble fiber should be part of your daily diet as well, since it can help to lower your LDL levels. You need to a lot of soluble fiber to get benefit, but it is contained in quite a few foods.
