Dear Lynn: On Lowering Cholesterol
[Lynn],
Given that you’re so thin and your blood pressure is okay, your cholesterol reading probably will be good too, especially since you seem to eat very carefully, without too much reckless abandon. But I’ve learned lots over the years about lowering cholesterol. So if yours is high, I have lots of remedies to share. Here are just a few tips:
- Hold total fat consumption to under 20 grams per day.
- Keep saturated fat consumption under 5 grams per day.
- Get at least 20 grams of fiber per day.
- Consume this fiber early in the day so that should you decide to eat fatty foods later on, the fiber will have had time enough to line your intestines and reduce the amount of fat absorbed into the blood from those fatty foods. This in turn helps lower your LDL (bad) cholesterol.
- Avoid eating fatty foods late at night. The liver makes most of the blood cholesterol at night, while we sleep. Having excess food in the system to process puts the liver into high gear, and can thus, raise cholesterol.
- Walk a half hour every other day (at least).
- Eat cleansing foods like miso, garlic, apples, and green veggies.
Enjoyed the talk tonight, as always. Have a good one and we’ll talk again tomorrow.