How to Control Cholesterol Levels Naturally with Lifestyle Changes?

How to Reduce Cholesterol Level Naturally This Summer

Category: Lifestyle Conditions

High cholesterol levels are the leading cause of heart disease. Often, high cholesterol goes undetected due to lack of symptoms. Don’t wait to address your cholesterol problems till it is too late, #ABHIKaro. 

What you should know: 

• What is Cholesterol? 
• Good Cholesterol Vs Bad Cholesterol
• How to understand if cholesterol levels are above normal?
• How to reduce cholesterol levels? 
• Other common questions about cholesterol

High cholesterol levels are the leading cause of heart disease. Often, high cholesterol goes undetected due to lack of symptoms, until a fatal heart attack strikes. Why wait for the disaster to strike?

What Is Cholesterol?

Cholesterol is like a fatty substance that is present in your blood. Cholesterol is essential for your body, as it develops vitamins and builds cells and hormones. The liver generates the cholesterol that the body requires. However, even food products lead to the development of cholesterol. Though cholesterol is necessary for your body, excess of it can cause cardiovascular diseases. If your body has too much cholesterol, it will blend with the toxins and other harmful substances in your blood, resulting in plaque that sticks to the arteries’ walls. Due to such build-ups, the risk of heart attacks and heart diseases increases significantly.

Good Vs. Bad Cholesterol

Good cholesterol is known as high-density lipoprotein (HDL), whereas bad cholesterol is termed as low-density lipoprotein. HDL is considered good because it gets processed by the liver and is eventually removed from your bloodstream before it can develop plaque on the walls of the arteries. On the other hand, LDL results in atherosclerosis, as it carries the cholesterol straight to the arteries. It increases the risk of heart attacks. If you have LDL, you must learn how to reduce cholesterol naturally.

What If Cholesterol Levels Are Above Normal?

The ideal cholesterol levels in an adult’s body should be lower than 200 milligrams per deciliter (mg/dl). If the levels are above 200 mg/dl and below 239 mg/dl, it is considered on the borderline and a reading of 240 mg/dl or more is categorised as high cholesterol. If the LDL cholesterol levels are over normal (160 mg/dl), the risk of cardiovascular conditions rises. So, in this case, you need to know how to lower cholesterol naturally.

Causes Of High Cholesterol

High cholesterol is because of poor diet, medical conditions like diabetes and obesity and lifestyle-related habits such as smoking, drinking alcohol in excess and absence of a proper exercise regime.

Following Are Some Ways To Reduce Cholesterol Level With Lifestyle Changes

These tips will not only reduce your cholesterol but also help keep your body cool. Thus allowing you to enjoy Activ Living in the Summer.

Get Moving

Making exercise a regular habit will help you reduce your bad LDL cholesterol and boost good HDL cholesterol. You can either take up your favorite sport or try cycling, jogging, dancing and even walking as an exercise routine. Daily physical activity of at least 30-45 minutes can help reduce cholesterol levels.

Shed Those Extra Kilos

A healthy weight can bring back cholesterol levels to normal. Obesity is directly linked to a higher risk of developing high bad cholesterol and suffering a heart attack. Regular exercise and healthy eating habits can help you lose weight.

Follow a Heart-Friendly Diet

The heart works for you without rest. Why not repay the favour by following a heart-friendly diet? Monitor your dietary habits and increase the intake of healthy and natural food. Add fresh fruits, vegetables and low-fat dairy products to your plate. Increase the portion size of fibre rich foods like whole grains, nuts, lentils and pulses. Avoid oily and processed food which increases blood cholesterol. There are several other healthy and tasty alternatives such as roasted nuts, steamed food like idlis, salads with yoghurt dips etc.

Adopt Healthier Cooking Methods

You are what you eat! Along with healthy food, healthy cooking methods also contribute to cutting down cholesterol levels. Natural is the best foot forward! Raw salads and fresh fruit fall in this category. However, when you have to cook, baking, boiling, stewing and roasting are healthy options for food preparation. You must avoid fried items as they directly increase the ‘bad’ fats in the body like saturated and trans-fat. Using healthy cooking oils, rich in unsaturated fats like rice bran oil, sunflower oil and olive oil is a switch you should make, from traditional but unhealthy alternatives like palm oil.

Sugar Works Like White Poison

Excess intake of sugary foods increases levels of triglycerides, which cause heart problems. It is always better to use healthier substitutes like jaggery or honey. Don’t give in to those sugar cravings!

Quit Smoking

Smoking lowers the good HDL cholesterol levels. In fact, even passive smoking is harmful to your health. You need to kick this bad habit at the earliest to regain good health.

Manage Your Stress Levels

Stress is a major cause of heart disease. Our fast-paced lifestyles with a constant effort to do ‘too many things at once’ is all adding to our ever-increasing stress levels. You must learn to let go and not worry about problems too much. Worrying causes stress, which increases cholesterol levels. Every cloud has a silver lining and the good times are just around the corner! You must adopt a healthy lifestyle, taking recommendations from this post, make wise choices and follow the doctor’s advice to keep your cholesterol in check. In matters of health, time is of the essence. Act fast to control high cholesterol, or else, it might be fatal!

Other common questions about cholesterol 

What Reduces Cholesterol Quickly?

If you looking for ideas on how to reduce cholesterol quickly, the first thing that you can do is maintaining a balanced diet. Eating more food products rich in Omega-3, fibre and monosaturated fats is one way how to reduce blood cholesterol in the body. Altering your lifestyle-related habits like quitting smoking, avoiding the consumption of alcohol, following a strict exercise regime and losing weight are a few tips on how to reduce high cholesterol.

What Is The Best Drink To Lower Cholesterol?

Pomegranate juice is the best drink to reduce cholesterol levels. It is rich in antioxidants that are known to decrease the LDL levels.

How Long Does It Take To Lower Your Cholesterol Naturally?

By properly following the methods on how to control cholesterol naturally, the levels may decrease in a few months.

What Foods Reduce Cholesterol?

Vegetables such as cabbage and broccoli; dark chocolate; walnuts; whole grains; soy; beans and legumes help lower cholesterol. Also, remember the foods to avoid with high cholesterol and triglycerides. These include processed meats, fried foods, desserts and fast foods.

Visit our health and nutrition blogs to get more ideas on improving your health.