Controlling your Cholesterol
How you should best control it if you have high cholesterol depends on how high it is and why it is so high in the first place. By doing this you will at least be aware of the risk of having high cholesterol. You may already know that you have it. You may just want to learn more about it. Either way, you will need to get a grip on your cholesterol and get informed about controlling it.
You may know that cholesterol plays a significant and decisive role to heart disease. You probably already know that the primary cause of heart attack and stroke are clogged arteries, and blood clots because of those arteries traveling to either the heart or the brain, and that high cholesterol is what clogs the arteries. You likely already know that it is important to control high cholesterol before it gets to be high. If you don’t….now you do.
If you have high cholesterol, you are going to want to lower it. If you don’t, you want to know how to avoid getting it in the first place. Your first step to control high cholesterol is to establish healthy eating habits, healthy exercise habits and healthy drinking and smoking habits. When I say healthy habits there is a meaning to this.
Healthy smoking habits are not smoking cigarettes and cigars that are healthy it is a fireplace with the vent open, meat or vegetables on the grill, or perhaps fireworks in July. Tobacco smokers have a single advantage over nonsmokers: if they quit they raise their HDL cholesterol levels very quickly, and that’s a good thing. Healthy drinking habits are a little less crazy than smoking. Indications today state that a glass of red wine a day actually helps raise HDL cholesterol.
Healthy exercise habits mean regular aerobic exercise at least several times a week. This can be walking for 30 minutes, tennis, running, cycling, volleyball. Whatever you enjoy doing and it gives you a good cardiovascular workout. Healthy eating habits are one of the best ways to control high cholesterol. If you do this it will give you higher HDL and, more importantly, much lower LDL. What these whole foods do place more emphasis on fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes and less on animal products that are high in saturated fats and they focus less on processed foods. They could mean the difference from you having a heart strong enough body to maintain it properly.