There’s been a rise in interest in good health in San Antonio, TX. More and more people are coming to Iron Fit to improve their health. Some are here to lose weight. Others want to lower blood sugar levels, blood pressure, or cholesterol levels. Exercise helps with all those things, but so does eating healthy. The food you eat can do all those things. It can help you avoid the need for medication. A healthy diet not only can cut cholesterol, but it can also rebalance it, lowering the bad cholesterol and increasing the beneficial cholesterol.
Keep your arteries from clogging by cutting out food with added sugar and eating fruit instead.
When people think of cholesterol, they usually think of triglycerides, LDL—bad cholesterol, and HDL—good cholesterol. There are many functions that LDLs perform, so they’re vital to good health, but high amounts of LDL or triglycerides and low amounts of HDL can cause health issues. Sugar promotes an increase in LDLs and a reduction in HDLs. It can also cause increased triglycerides. That can lead to a fatty build-up in the arteries. Giving up food with added sugar and choosing food like apples, grapes, strawberries, and citrus fruits improves cholesterol levels. These fruits are high in soluble fiber pectin that reduces LDL.
Other types of fiber in whole foods also help.
As already noted, pectin, a type of soluble fiber is beneficial for lowering harmful cholesterol. When you eat food with soluble fiber, it dissolves into a gel. The gel traps the bad cholesterol and it also feeds beneficial microbes in your gut. A second type of fiber, insoluble fiber, can’t be digested, even by the gut microbes. It does promote a healthy gut microbiome, which does affect cholesterol levels. Increasing both soluble and insoluble fiber levels helps. Pears, peaches, oatmeal, and oranges are high in soluble fiber and can lower bad cholesterol levels.
Increasing food with omega-3 can help lower LDL levels.
There’s a reason doctors recommend eating fatty fish at least twice a week. Fatty fish like salmon contain high amounts of omega-3 fatty acids. The body needs both omega-6 and omega-3, but it needs it in a specific ratio that ranges from one part omega-3 to four parts omega-6 to one part omega-6 to four parts Omega-3. Unfortunately, the average American diet has too much omega 6. It’s at least four times more than it should be. More omega-3 in your diet can reduce triglycerides and lower LDL levels. Besides fatty fish, increasing other foods like walnuts and flaxseed provides benefits.
- Eliminate trans fats from your diet. While the FDA banned hydrogenated vegetable oil, trans fats can still be found in microwave dinners, pancake and waffle mix, some commercial baked goods, donuts, coffee creamer, and microwave popcorn.
- Have a cup of tea, especially green tea. All tea contains catechins and quercetin, but green tea has the most attention. The catechins inhibit the creation of cholesterol and help prevent absorption. Tea lowers bad cholesterol levels.
- Include more spices in your diet like turmeric and garlic to lower cholesterol. Sweet potatoes also lower cholesterol. Watermelon contains antioxidants that protect your body from free radicals that can raise bad cholesterol levels.
- Choose meatless Mondays and substitute grains like quinoa and brown rice. When you eat animal products, make sure they come from pastured animals to boost omega-3 levels and lower cholesterol levels.
For more information, contact us today at Iron Fit San Antonio