Is a Balanced Cholesterol Diet Plan Right for You?
A cholesterol diet plan can be the ideal tool for helping people to create a healthy eating plan. You can lower cholesterol without drugs by following some basic steps that will not only change your cholesterol readings, but also improve your health today and in the future.
So often we use a prescription drug and hope it will magically cure whatever ails us. The truth is prescription drugs for lowering cholesterol do work. The problem is both the short term and long-term side effects.
Cholesterol Lowering Diet Strategies
There are actually several different diet strategies to help balance cholesterol levels that vary widely yet have provided effective results. Even though a low fat diet has been promoted heavily the last few decades, research does not support the idea that such a diet is the best option for most people.
Although it’s now becoming known that cholesterol levels that are too low have risks and dangers just as the levels which are too high. It’s important to remember that cholesterol is not the enemy. Actually, the body produces and uses cholesterol to manufacture many important substances.
For example, the hormone pregnenolone is produced from cholesterol and converts to many important hormones like DHEA, cortisol, estrogen and testosterone among many others. Deficiencies in these vital hormones can cause many health problems like arthritis, autoimmune illnesses like fibromyalgia, MS and lupus, and the list goes on.
So you see that as much as we have been warned that high cholesterol is deadly and causes heart attacks and strokes, excessively low cholesterol levels also have dangers. Cholesterol levels which are balanced is what you’re aiming for, so keep this in mind as you are planning your diet.
There’s good news here. Current research suggests that moderate amounts of certain saturated fats can be healthy. For example, butter is preferable to margarine. Virgin coconut oil is excellent for cooking and can be used instead of low-quality manufactured oils.
Coconut oil was demonized in the past for being high in saturated fat. Now, some *naturopathic doctors are recommending coconut oil as a remedy for many things that ail us today, from fungal and yeast infections to obesity and slow metabolism.
Here are 4 steps you can take today to lower your cholesterol without prescription drugs.
A Balanced Cholesterol Diet Plan
May sound simple, but diet has such a significant impact on balancing cholesterol that it should be the number one factor you look at in determining if your high cholesterol is hereditary or a matter of dietary choices.
Physicians like Dr. Dean Ornish have helped many people recover from, and even reverse, heart disease by combining a low fat, vegetarian diet with stress reduction and exercise. Another diet
strategy that has been successful for some people is the so-called “low carb diet”. There are many variations of the low carb diet including Atkins and the Zone diet developed by Dr. Barry Sears.
With the Zone Diet, Dr. Sears recommends a balanced regulation of fat,carbohydrate and protein ratios consistently in meals as well as insnacks taken in between meals. This often results in improvements in metabolism regulation and healthy weight loss without enduring feelings of going hungry. There are also many reports of improvementsin many different health conditions, including reducing cholesterol and reversing heart disease.
Exercise
Improving cardiovascular health is a step toward reversing the effects of high cholesterol. Exercise itself doesn’t directly lower cholesterol, but will strengthen the heart and entire circulatory system.
Relax
Chronic stress can affect cholesterol levels. If you are constantly stressed and eating a low cholesterol diet, you may not see any improvement in cholesterol readings until you learn to relieve stress.
Talk to your health care provider. Not all are quick to prescribe medications. In fact, natural health care practitioners will help you form a diet and exercise plan that is suitable for your current overall health and abilities as a first step toward lowering cholesterol. It is always important to ask your health care provider if your decision to follow a specific diet or exercise plan is right for you.
In addition, do not stop taking medications before consulting with your health care provider. You can lower your cholesterol with diet and exercise, and under the care of your doctor, see about removing drugs from the process.
Nutritional Supplements
Your best strategy for balancing your cholesterol and improving your health is to develop healthy habits in the areas previously mentioned. But, to get even more benefit high quality dietary supplements can be used to enhance what you’re already doing to improve your health.
We use and recommend the supplements made by Xtend-Life Natural Products.
They make a multivitamin that is the highest quality and most complete nutritional supplement we’ve found so far. For example, it contain the powerful cholesterol balancing nutrient policosanol, and also other important nutrients for heart health, weight loss, healthy metabolism and overall health like alpha lipoic acid, L-carnosine, N-acetyl cysteine and coenzyme Q10. Plus over 75 different nutrients – making Total Balance a true anti aging multi-nutrient supplement.
The multi vitamin, Total Balance goes well beyond addressing elevated cholesterol and has been designed to balance and optimize all the major organs and systems in the body. Visit the Xtend-Life website today to find out more and try Total Balance risk free.
It does not take long to see significant improvements in your cholesterol. Lower cholesterol can be yours in just a matter of weeks.
*Dr. Bruce Fife, Eat Fat, Look Thin
