A high cholesterol level puts you at high risk of heart attack and stroke. If your cholesterol is high your doctor may have put you on medication. Do you know what else you can do? Eat a healthy diet. Wondering how long it might take to lower your cholesterol if you stick with that healthy diet?
The answer is… it depends.
Everybody’s different and there are many factors involved — your weight, how physically active you are — or aren’t, your age, genetics, the environment.
But after taking all of that into account, you really can lower your cholesterol with a few changes in your diet. In fact a smart approach to nutrition can be as effective, sometimes more effective, than statins and other cholesterol lowering drugs.
Statins Carry Risks
Many medications have negative side effects. You may be able to avoid them with the right diet. You can significantly reduce your cholesterol level in as few as two to three weeks.
What To Do
Eat more high fiber foods like beans and whole grains. Avoid processed meat, fried foods and fast food. (Goodbye McDonald’s fries…) Eat only small amounts of whole milk, cheese and butter.
Drastically limit the amount of sugar in your diet. Reducing sugary foods and other simple carbs is essential to lower your cholesterol. Too much sugar does more than raise your cholesterol. It also increases your risk of overweight/obesity, diabetes, cancer, and neurological problems like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.
Eat Whole and Fresh
Start eating more fruits and vegetables, organic and raw, or at least minimally cooked, whenever you can. When you’re hungry and you’re thinking about that unhealthy snack grab a handful of high protein, high fiber almonds, walnuts, or other nuts. You’ll get high levels of healthy fats.
And don’t forget to drink water.
These simple things can be very effective in lowering high cholesterol, and they will start to work almost immediately. Combine this with 150 minutes of moderate to intense aerobic exercise every week and you cans miraculous changes in your cholesterol.
