Healthy Hearts: Using food choices to manage cholesterol

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  • By the Health and Wellness Center
WHITEMAN AFB, Mo. --  Healthy Hearts: Using food choices to manage cholesterol

From the Health and Wellness Center

Keeping blood cholesterol in check requires making smart food choices remaining physically active.

The National Cholesterol Education Program has developed a set of tools called therapeutic lifestyle changes to help reduce the risk of heart disease. The TLC program recommends a diet where less than seven percent of total calories come from saturated and Trans fats and total fat should be no more than 25-30 percent of total daily calories. Both of these strategies can help lower bad cholesterol.

Foods low in saturated fat include fat-free or low fat dairy products, lean meats, fish, chicken, whole grains, fruits and vegetables. Choosing foods with no Trans fats also helps, however many of these foods are still high in saturated fat. Many restaurant foods are high in both bad fats.

Watch out for these Trans fat traps: stick margarine, biscuits, cake frosting and frozen french fries. Other popular foods with trans fats include: cookies, crackers, muffins and potato chips.

Additional strategies that can help lower cholesterol include eating two - three grams of plant sterols or stanols a day, eating 25-30 grams of fiber a day and getting 30 minutes of moderate intensity exercise a day such as brisk walking. With a daily intake of two grams of plant sterols, low density lipoprotein cholesterol levels can decrease as much as 10 percent in three weeks.

Foods high in fiber include fruits, vegetables and whole grains, especially high fiber cereals such as oatmeal. Furthermore soy protein has been shown to lower LDL levels. Soy milk, tofu and soy protein powder smoothies are all examples of soy foods.

The Healthy Heart Program is a three class program that focuses on effective lifestyle changes to improve the reduction of cholesterol levels through dieting. Also included is a pharmaceutical class which focuses on how cholesterol lowering drugs play a role in a healthy lifestyle.

The Healthy Heart three-class schedule is:
Jan. 13 from 1:30 - 2:30 p.m.
Feb. 10 from 1:30 - 2:30 p.m.
March 17 from 1:30 - 2:30 p.m.

For more information or to register for the three-part Healthy Heart class series, call the HAWC at 687-7662.