Help me lower my cholesterol on a budget

[Letsgetfitsycal]

Any advice?! I need to be on a low cholesterol diet but don’t want to break the bank. Got theee other mouths to feed.

also concerned about my calcium intake lowering if I’m avoiding lots of dairy!

any advice from people who’ve had success much appreciated

0% fat Greek yoghurt will keep you in calcium.

Porridge for breakfast every day lowered my cholesterol enough for me to not need medication. I make it with water only and once done add a sprinkle of sugar and a splash of milk.

Oats or porridge for breakfast. Cheap as chips. Overnight oats made with 0% fat natural yoghurt - a large pot is 35p in Aldi/Tesco. Oily fish like mackerel isn't expensive and I often see it in the reduced to clear so it goes straight in the freezer.

Don't buy cheese and butter or red meat which will save money... If you want to use the cholesterol reducing yoghurt drinks, the own brand Aldi/Tesco/Asda are just as good as the branded Benecol.

Lowering your cholesterol through diet doesn't mean expense. Do you eat a lot of cheese and have a lot of cream to be worried about dairy reduction? Do you eat a lot of processed meats like bacon/sausages and fatty foods?
The whole idea is to eat lean meat, avoid things high in saturated fat, increase your fruit and veg intake and exercise. There are lots of foods that help reduce cholesterol but really they don't have as much of an impact as simply eating better.

Also be aware that high cholesterol isn't always diet related. I don't know what the actual cause is, but I've known people have good diets and be a healthy weight and fit/active but for some reason suffer from high cholesterol.

I'd also expect that the likes of Benecol is a gimmick that has only minimal benefit or comes with a recommendation to use alongside a healthy diet, so it's hard to tell whether there's a significant benefit over the healthy diet alone.

Yes this is true, it isn't always diet. I have high cholesterol, it's hereditary and nothing to do with what I eat or drink, it's a faulty gene. I'm lucky, they found it in my dad and so it was recommended all his family were tested too.

Is 5% mince okay or best to avoid red meat?

and should I switch to skimmed milk?

Statins, oats, psyllium husks and much less salt. It is a family thing, but I have lowered it somewhat. Oily fish is also good, which luckily I love.

Psyllium husks are proven to lower cholesterol by about 5%.

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10837282/

The thing that made the big difference for me was regular exercise. I got it down from 6.5 to under 5 (I.E. normal) with two body pump sessions and one lot of swimming as fast as I can each week.

Can you build in exercise? Even if you do something free like couch to 5k?

I also have oat milk in tea although my 'good' cholesterol was always pretty good... I eat loads of really healthy foods and loads of ummm... leas healthy foods.

The stuff that people say about cholesterol and walnuts? Also true of peanuts and at a fraction of the cost.

Oats (not instant kind), beans, lentils (any legumes); tinned sardines and mackerel, unsalted nuts; Greek yoghurt, unprocessed meats, all vegetables, particularly in season.

The liver makes cholesterol. It's a chemical building block that's required to produce most hormones. One side effect you have to watch out for on cholesterol-lowering statin drugs is hormone deficiencies.

Some people just make more cholesterol than they need, and for pts like that, diet alone won't solve the problem.

It's all very complex. For some people diet is all but irrelevant, and for other people their response to dietary changes doesn't match all of the messaging we hear. The lowest my cholesterol has ever been was when I was on a high fat, high protein diet with less than 20% of my calories from carbohydrate, eating lots of butter and bacon and animal fats, but also nuts and oats nearly every day, and less than 1200kcal a day overall. The nurse seemed sceptical that my improved cholesterol was the result of that diet but I suspect the calorie restriction was a big part of it.

So peanut butter on toast a good brekkie option?

This is going to sound so stupid but how do I tell if they’re instant oats? 😂 we just have Quaker Oats, will that do the job?

Im about to get a treadmill, is it feasible to do Couch to 5k on there? Its an app isn’t it?

Yes. Instant oatmeal works, too; it's the same thing in finer flakes to cook faster.

www.verywellhealth.com/oatmeal-lowers-cholesterol-697709

@Letsgetfitsycal, yes, I believe so. I personally found joining the health club a massive help but that is a more expensive option.