Cholesterol

[chelle]

Anyone else battling this lil bugger?

 

I've never really worried about what I eat and figure all things in moderation. I don't have a weight problem, but both Mom and Dad have high cholesterol (but they are also overweight and aren't active). So I thought I'd get mine checked. Turns out I have elevated cholesterol too. 232 was my number. The HDL is great, but the LDL is too high.

 

So...I guess I gotta start watching what I eat now. No more sausage and fries nights at Schultzy's. Gotta cut out the egg yolks and butter, and the peanut butter sandwhiches I like to make for a quick lunch. And make sure I get enough fiber. I found these bagels at PCC that have 16 grams of fiber. They kinda remind me of sawdust but what the hell. Smother them in hummus and they're okay.

 

Any other tips, substitutes you've found would be useful.

[Norman_Clyde]

Cholesterol control recommendations have gotten WAY aggressive in the past few years. I was a little suspicious of this trend at first, wondering if drug company profits could in some way be involved. Over the years, the studies have been repeated and the findings confirmed many times, making me a believer in the general guidelines. However, if you have a total cholesterol of 232 and no other risk factors, your heart disease risk is not going to be overly high. HDL is also a big part of the picture. Women tend to have higher HDLs on average. If you have an HDL of 50 or 60, with a total cholesterol of 232, then your LDL is not likely to be too much over 130 and I would advise you not to be too concerned.

If you want to investigate further, there is a worksheet on the web at the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute which will calculate your ten year heart attack risk. Try googling nhlbi.org or .gov.

[layton]

drink more hard liquor to dissolve it.

 

Seriously, I think the "everything in moderation" way of eating, or doing anything for that matter, is a dangerous way of living. Why live in the blah blah middle of the road way of never getting what you really want, or experiencing pain and loss?

 

Moderation is just slow build up of cholesterol, or a deepening angst of this modern condition. Slow death.

 

Starving yourself is a great way to stay fit by stressing the system. Then when you're ready to train at the next level, eat a lot of crap to stress the other end of your system. The next bout of vegetables, rice, or nothing at all should push those LDL balls right out!

 

You'll thank me, it Works for me!

[chelle]

Hey Layton, I am assuming that you are completely kidding in your post. Or is this what they are teaching in Chiropractic school these days?

[Courtenay]

Another point: stress levels! Case in point: when I was working in DC before grad school, I had a nice healthy number; 2 years later, in the midst of a stressful grad program, it had skyrocketed higher than I care to admit; as soon as I got out of the grad school program, reducing my total stress levels significantly (no real changes in intake or exercise, mind you, primarily rise and fall in stress) it came back down. Might not be the case for EVERYONE, but if high cholesterol runs in the family AND you are in a particularly stressful career/job, it can be contributing as much as foods and exercise.

[chelle]

Thanks for the tip on the NIH website Norman. Some pretty interesting stuff there that will be a good resource in the future. I'm less than 1% on the risk scale.

 

Courtenay - maybe it is stress. My stress levels have been pretty high for the past 6 months and my exercise has dropped off but I am making some changes there. I guess I won't worry too much about it at this point.

[arlen]

I went through the initial warning stage a couple years ago--exercise alone has never done it for me, so I didn't have much choice. Reading the label helps a little, but I suspect that Saffola is doing me less good than it advertises.

 

I made minor changes in my diet, enough to feel like a different lifestyle but not enough to seem like a different life. After a couple years it's pretty effortless to choose the better stuff--100% whole wheat bread, skim milk, parboiled rice, etc. It's really apparent when I go back to South Louisiana and get laughed at for not taking seconds on deep fried lard chunks