BY GARY SCOTT BEATTY, PUBLISHER AND EDITOR, MUSKEGONMAGAZINE.COM
Many of you know I've been on a plan to lower my cholesterol levels with diet and exercise.
Doctors readily put patients on Statin drugs rather than address lifestyle changes, but my doctor was thrilled when I approached her with my own researched plan. I'm over half Scottish and don't understand why people treat symptoms with costly drugs without first addressing causes head-on with lifestyle changes.
I'm not a nutritionist or a doctor, but as publisher of this magazine and editor of many publications over the years, I have absorbed a good amount of information over the years. I developed this plan because it sounded like something I can live with.
Turns out, I can live with it. That doesn't mean it you can. You need to come up with your own plan and run it by your doctor so you aren't jumping on and off a plan that's impossible for you.
Trusted sources, like the Mayo Clinic, recommend five foods to lower your cholesterol numbers: Oatmeal, oat bran and high-fiber foods; fish and omega-3 fatty acids; walnuts, almonds and other nuts; olive oil; and foods with added plant sterols or stanois.
The Mayo Clinic also recommends cutting back on the cholesterol and total fat, especially saturated and trans fats. Saturated fats, like those in meat, full-fat dairy products and some oils, raise your total cholesterol. Trans fats, found in most packaged foods, baked goods, chips, cookies (Basically, processed foods) are particularly bad for your cholesterol levels.
First, my numbers. The first number listed was from July, 2012. The second was from four months later.
Total cholesterol: 221. Four months later: 186 (Target is below 200).
HDL (good) cholesterol: 36. Four months later: 37 (Target is above 40).
LDL (bad) cholesterol: 136. Four months later: 124 (Target is below 100).
Triglycerides (another bad cholesterol): 247. Four months later: 127 (Target is below 150).
I obviously have a ways to go, but keep in mind this was accomplished without drugs, with a combination of diet, exercise and supplements. People tell me I'm losing weight, but since that's not the goal, I haven't been keeping track.
Exercise. I exercise 30 minutes a day, five days a week, on an elliptical at home in front of internet TV.
Even more importantly, I set up a place where I can stand to work on my computer all day. Studies in the U.S., Canada, Australia and Asia have all found an association between increased sedentary time and the risk of early death. Too much sitting is associated with numerous problems, ranging from weight gain, to osteoporosis, to cardiovascular disease. Surprisingly, these effects occur regardless of whether we exercise!
Supplements. I believe I should be getting what I need from the food I eat, so I keep the pills to a minimum. Daily, I take 500 mg. DHA, which may reduce the risk of heart and circulatory disease by decreasing the thickness of the blood and lowering blood levels of triglycerides. I also take dietary supplements containing concentrated fruit and vegetable juice extracts fortified with added vitamins and nutrients that may help my cardiovascular system. As with most natural supplements, the benefits are unsupported.
I researched these supplements myself, and, most importantly, ran them by my doctor with my overall plan.
Diet. The basis of my diet can be explained in a single sentence: I eat as many fresh fruits and vegetables as I want, and avoid baked goods, pasta, cheese, and refined sugars.
My body chemistry adjusted to this within a couple of weeks and my taste buds came back with the reduced sugar content of the foods I'm eating. I taste the subtleties in food now.
I switched from coffee to green tea because of its proven value in lowering cholesterol. This was way easier than I thought, since coffee was an obvious addiction, and many teas taste like dishwater. I chose a major brand, Bigelow, and down four coffee cups most mornings.
A typical lunch for me is whole grain oatmeal with Michigan blueberries, or sardines on a salad.
I snack on Michigan apples any time of day. Apples have been the key to me avoiding processed sugars. The natural sugars in apples satisfy my cravings for sweets, cravings that have greatly reduced in four short months.
I cook a lot of stir fry for dinners. My wife and I are NOT vegetarians, eating chicken, lean pork or beef, but I'm sure meat portions have reduced . We leave out the butter, cream and cheese, and have cut way back on salt.
What I find interesting is we eat most of the great foods people usually put on top of pasta, or pizza, or rice, or bread, or other carbs. We just leave out the carbs. It works, try it. Sometimes we use zucchini or other squash on the bottom as a pretend pasta.
No pasta, bread or rice, just the great stuff that goes on top of it -- this is similar to the Atkins, South Beach and other low carb diets popular in recent years, but less restrictive.
I say "yes" to:
• Canola, peanut and olive oil.
• Fiber: fruits, vegetables, beans, oats, barley.
• Fish at least three times a week.
• A handful of walnuts or almonds daily.
I say "no" to:
• Whole milk, cream, iced cream.
• Butter, cheese.
• Liver and Kidney.
• Sausage, baloney, salami, hot dogs, duck, goose.
• Fried foods.
• Coconut oil, palm oil, shortening, margarine, lard.
• Fast food.
• Pop.
Substitutions. There are a lot of products out there that claim to taste just like the foods we're avoiding -- they aren't. I don't see the point in substituting for a food I'm trying to no longer crave.
I do use Benecol spread because it has plant stanols, recommended to lower cholesterol levels, but it's expensive, and the whole point of giving up butter is to not crave the taste, so I don't throw it in everything.
Beer is really bad for you. A typical beer has 150 calories, and most of us drink several in one sitting. I drink brandy, but can see how alcoholism is easier on the hard stuff. I no longer make cream-filled brandy alexanders.
I'm not a fan of tofu, or soy beef substitutes, so I don't eat them.
I found a pasta substitute that tastes great. I take a large zucchini and use a vegetable peeler to thinly slice lengthwise into wide ribbons. Stop when you get to the seeds. Put in a colander, toss with some salt and drain in the sink about 30 minutes. Rinse well and shake dry. No, you don't need to cook it.
So if your cholesterol numbers are a little high and you want to avoid the Statin drug, develop a diet, exercise and supplement plan with your doctor. Come up with a program you can live with and attack the cause not the effect!
It's working for me.
No comments:
Post a Comment