Healthy Food Choice

Cholesterol is produced by your lever. The rest is depending of food that you eat. If your food is high in saturated fats and cholesterol, this can cause your liver to produce more cholesterol. Most food products from animals contain saturated fats and cholesterol. A few vegetable fats such as coconut oil, cocoa butter (found in chocolate), palm kernel oil, and palm oil are high in saturated fat.

Losing as little as 5 to 10 kilograms can make a big difference to your cholesterol levels and significantly reduce your risk of heart attack or stroke

But lowering cholesterol isn't just about what you shouldn't eat. It also means eating a diet rich in vegetables and fruits, with whole grains, high-fiber foods, lean meats and poultry, fish at least twice a week, and at least 1 percent fat dairy products. And also, the diet should be low in saturated fat, trans fat and cholesterol.

If you are wondering what you can do to maintain your cholesterol levels at a lower level, you can try these tips:

• Eat Oatmeal

Oatmeal contains soluble fiber, which can lower cholesterol levels especially the low-density lipoprotein (LDL) or the bad cholesterol. Soluble fiber appears to reduce the absorption of cholesterol in your intestines. Soluble fiber is also found in such foods as kidney beans, apples, pears, psyllium, barley and prunes. Each foods contain several amount of dietary fiber. Eat ten grams or more of soluble fiber in a day can lower your total and LDL cholesterol level.

• Eat Fish

Eating fatty fish can cause lowering your cholesterol because of its high levels of omega-3 fatty acids. Omega-3 helps lower the triglyceride level in your blood. Replace just a few meals a week with fish. The highest levels of omega-3 fatty acids are in mackerel, lake trout, herring, sardines, albacore tuna and salmon. Omega-3 fatty acids also help the heart in other ways such as reducing blood pressure and the risk of blood clots.

• Walnut, Almonds

Walnuts are rich of polyunsaturated fatty acids. Walnuts help to keep your blood vessels healthy and elastic. Walnuts also can significantly lowering blood cholesterol. Almonds appear to have a similar effect. Replace foods high in saturated fat with nuts to avoid weight gain. You can add a handful of walnuts or almonds instead of the saturated fat in your salad.

• Olive Oil or Canola Oil

Olive oil and canola oil are much healthier. Use 2 tablespoons (23 grams) of olive oil a day to get heart-healthy benefits. To add olive oil to your diet, you can sauté vegetables in it, add it to a marinade, or mix it with vinegar as a salad dressing.

• Plain and Simple, Exercise more

Thirty minutes a day of exercise, three to four days a week, can make a drastic change in your health level. Light exercises such as gardening and walking, has been shown in studies to increase the high-density lipoprotein {HDL}, or good cholesterol in your blood.

Summary:
• Eat less high in saturated fat
• Substitute the saturated fat with unsaturated fat
• Eat less high-cholesterol food
• Choose foods high in starch and fiber
• Exercises

I suggest you check out my other post on Nutrient Guidelines for Lowering Cholesterol