what's a good way to keep cholesterol down?

Hello all. back from my 2 week vacation. Planet mars was a great place!
however, I went to the doctor for a physical and he gave me the bad news. I have high cholesterol. 234, I believe. bottom line, I told the doc I exercise and have no way of changing my diet, i feel fine. so he put me on Lipitor. Now as you know, I am somewhat of a scientologist and I don't believe in medication such as these. I couldnt tell that to the doctor, so I took the meds and I'm taking one a day. Doc said, "you are in the gray area for heart risk". So what i'm doing now, i'm not going to eat any real foods before going to bed and i'm stickin to cherrios. what other ways did you guys lower your cholesterol?

Probably to eat cholesterol free foods.

Sorry, but i think thats probably the only way + doing a bit of exercse...

I would suggest you start eating a healthy combination of fresh fruits and vegetables. The more fruit and veggies you put in your diet the better. Baked potatoes are also a good choice.

You should also choose foods which are high in omega-3 fatty acids such as fish.

A healthy diet is the first step.

Yeah the easy answer is just that avoid food with cholesterol and exersize.

The easy give is to sub butter with olive oil, get away from anything fried, and oatmeal can help lower it a bit.

Wine in moderation also can help.

Even with that if you have a genetic predisposition to high cholesterol, you may still need the medication to keep things under control. Look at it this way, it will save you from worse medications down the road....

true. I rarely eat fruits anymore. So hard to get them fresh. most of the time they are old and tasteless. I remember I used to be real skinny as a child and eating fruits from trees was the thing to do. now where do you find a tree with any fruit? But thanks for the info.


I do have the hereditary compostion. I told the doc about my dad, he was over 300lbs, had heart failure and diabetes and died from a heart attack at 65. So, He knows that i'm going to die the same way. no way around it. for now, i'll take the drug, comes with muscular pains it says, a sort of side effect.

Red wine will help break down anything and whiskey (Scotch) helps to clear arteries.

Eat what you like, but only eat when you are hungry and only eat to the point where you stop feeling hungry.

Your body knows much more about its needs than any doctor or pills.

learn to understand what your body is telling you and it wont let you down.

Skip breakfasts until you feel hungry. Don't feel you need to eat because everyone else says it's time to do so.

Sometimes just a couple of small bars of chocolate are all i need for a day.
other times i can quite easily eat a whole large pizza to myself.

Remember we were supposed to have been hunter gatherers for many years, so our bodies are atuned to doing that more than they are to a set time table of eating.

reply to post by jedimiller

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Lol, you crack me up. You can have real food and more than cherrios. lol
Food: Basicaly, if God made it, eat it. If man made it or messed with it - it's not good for you. Whole grains and raw veggies are THE best. Do 1 cup of oatmeal or beans EVERY DAY and you'll see that number drop pretty quickly. Add to that the whole grain bread in place of the white bread, add lots of garlic (or more garlic) into your diet (or do the supliment form)....
Stop using corn oil, veggie oil, peanut oil ect and use good olive oil or, if needed, canola oil.

ahhh... let me just put this in an easier to read list form for you:
-No more than 2 cups of coffee per day.
-1 cup beans per day (yes, chilli counts :-)
-1 cup oatmeal (the REAL stuff, not instant) per day
-Add garlic and onions to everything you can. Take garlic tabs also. I get
2000 mg tabs for less than 5 dollars a jar. Not too expencive.
-Stay away from fast food and box stuff. If it grew that way - eat it.
-Whole grains, the more the better. Fiber!
-Olive oil (lowers bad cholesteral and raises the good cholesteral)
-Cellery - and other fresh, raw veggies. Cooked is better than not, but
fresh and raw is best.

I could go on and on, but these things will get your nubers as low as the doctor wants them to be in no time. If you follow these things above (count cherrios as a whole grain food :-) then your number will be lower when you go back in 3 months for a recheck.

Also, not that any doctor will tell you this littler fact - the 'acceptable number' is much higher than they will tell you. But they can't sell you medicine if they can't say something is wrong now can they?

Why do you have no way of changing your diet?

Just wondering.

I like oatmeal! Mayo says so. A link to the article speaking of oatmeal and other helpful foods to blow out the pipes. "Cholesterol: The best foods to lower your cholesterol..."

Oatmeal and dates together? The ultimate cholesterol mop IMHO.

Vic

First of all, stop with the hot dogs - nuked or not!

Seriously, if you are under age 50 you are much too young to surrender to a maintenence drug without at least trying to change your lifestyle. Big Pharma has pushed these drugs without much long term research into their effects. You owe it to yourself to change your diet (especially because of your dad's history) and try a holistic regime for at least 90 days. If there is not a significant change, then try the drug.

I've heard that a red wine enema is really good.

Not sure if it helps with cholesterol, but it sure sounds like fun.

How about instructing the cat with the light saber to guard the fridge?

Can you not just use the force? These are not the snacks your looking for!

MonKey



Edit for dodgy spelling.

[edit on 3/2/08 by ChiKeyMonKey]

update guys. well, I been taking those meds, not sure what they are doing. having no side effects on me. So we will see in about 2 months if it went up or down. still eating the same and doing the basic stuff. went to the gym this week just once.

As far as I've seen from relatives and friends, nothing works without increasing your level of physical activity.

Some pills might lower your LDL, but in order to raise HDL (equally important) you absolutely MUST get more physical activity.

To start off, even some basic stuff would be great. Walking, treadmill, rowing machine... anything like that.

STAY away from hydrogenated ANYTHING.
Also, I heard from a few doctors that coQ10 works wonders.
Also cayenne powder.