High cholesterol . Possible to reduce by diet alone and what to eat?

[jesustheinfant]

Seems like a huge undertaking.
I'm limited with exercise due to a back injury.
Can it be done?
Any idea what to eat or where to go for
Recipes ?

A friends mum had high cholesterol. Her doctor told her to go vegetarian. Substituting lentils and beans for meat would certainly help.

Minimal dairy as well.

This is for your doctor to decide. Trying to lower cholesterol by diet alone isn't easy to sustain. If its high your doctor may want to prescribe a statin

Flora pro active range is meant to help. At best by 10pc so it prob depends on how high.

Mine measured high many years ago and I asked to speak to a dietitian about it. All the obvious stuff really.

@Zerrin13, it most certainly is not for her doctor alone to decide, and statins can have terrible side effect, that most GPs either do not know about or ignore

Drop processed carbs and white starches.
Switch to lower fat dairy - say goodbye to cheddar, etc and hello to skimmed milk and the like.
Eat raw nuts.
Eat lots of beans and lentils, hummus.
Increase your veg intake significantly.
Decrease your meat intake and focus on small helpings of lean meats.
Eat a lot more fiber - brown rice, bulgur, oatmeal, whole wheat pasta, quinoa,
Small helpings at dinner, big breakfast with protein included.

No more high fat items like ice cream, pastry, crisps, roasted nuts, chocolate, biscuits, brownies, cake, fried chicken, burgers, fish and chips, etc.

This.

White fish is good too.

Is there any history on angina in the family? Very little chance of lowering cholesterol naturally if that's the cause.

Oats (ie porridge).

www.health.harvard.edu/heart-health/11-foods-that-lower-cholesterol

Within your results, did your GP also give you the full breakdown of LDL/HDL and Triglycerides because these are important to give you a full picture of your level of risk. For example, I've always had a high cholesterol reading but importantly, my LDL and Triglyceride readings (the bad ones ) were very low, and my HDL (the good one) was high. Unfortunately my most recent cholesterol test showed my LDL/Triglyceride readings have significantly worsened - given how poor my diet has been over the past couple of years, I'm not really surprised, but it has been a wake-up call to overhaul my diet and to start walking on a daily basis again.

Through recommendations on some older threads on here, I bought the 'How Not To Die' book and cookbook by Dr Michael Greger. He also has a website called NutritionFacts.org. Both books and website have lots of great information and research on what foods to eat, and the cookbook is brilliant. @mathanxiety gave you some great advice. But yes, it does mean a predominantly plant-based diet with plenty of wholegrains, legumes and fruit/veg. Including food fortified in plant sterols is also recommended. The HeartUK.org website also has lots of great information if you search on cholesterol.

Be careful with suddenly changing from carbs to legumes: I gave myself IBS doing that. Beans and chickpeas are hard to digest.
Lean meat, small portion of potato/pasta/ beans, loads of vegetables/ salad for dinner. Oats for breakfast with psyllium added in.
Can you do two 20 minute walks a day? I got my cholesterol down following this advice from the dietitian.

What @mathanxiety recommends, definitely. If you are looking for recipe ideas, I highly recommend Lebanese cuisine. Lots of vegetables, salads, legumes; limited meat, fish and dairy. No ultra processed foods or refined carbs. A Lebanese Feast is an excellent book.

Regarding exercise: are you seeing a Physio for your back injury? Can you walk? Several short walks a day if you cannot walk for long periods. Try wearing wrist and ankle weights to enhance the effect - excellent for strengthening bones too!

East nectarines, melon, apple for breakfast and a slice of really good seeded sourdough toast for breakfast, with a minute scraping of Lurpak spreadable and some home made jam.

Huge salad of lettuce, thinly sliced cucumber, pomegranate seeds, bit of balsamic, bit of olive oil and a little bit of protein for lunch.

Fish or chicken and steamed vegetables for supper.

Snack on fruit and sweet/salt natural popcorn.

Drink 2l water.

I tried really hard by dieting but after six months, although I lost weight, the numbers barely changed. I intended to try further but then my sister who is 5 years younger had a stroke so I went straight onto statins and have had no problem with them. She had previously taken them but stopped after a few months due to aches and pains that she put down to the statins.

Hi @jesustheinfant me too!!

I have cfs/fm too plus ibs and an already restricted diet due to intolerances - I started a thread yesterday about high triglycerides

The idea of restricting my diet further makes me wanna cry

My brother’s blood results were slightly higher than the GP liked and put him on a low 10g dose of statin for a month, then asked to see him 2 months after. He cut out most cakes, biscuits and pies but doesn’t cook much, so has mainly ready made meals. This was enough to lower his cholesterol this time. I tried when I was first diagnosed with high cholesterol, I cut out creamy pasta meals, pies, cakes and biscuits and generally improved my diet, but there was no difference 3 months later, so I take 10g statins each day and have done now for about 10 years

Dh has high cholesterol. He’s vegetarian and doesn’t eat fatty, high processed foods or chocolate, etc. a dietician told him that 95% of your cholesterol is down to genetics (it certainly runs in his family. She told him not to bother with benecol, etc as you’d need to eat a tub a day to make a difference. This was about 20 years ago, not sure if advice has changed.