Having high cholesterol can put you at risk of many serious health conditions. When there’s a high concentration of cholesterol in your body, it can lead to the clogging or thickening of arteries, reducing the blood supply to your heart. Over time, this can mean that you gradually edge closer and closer to a heart attack.
Luckily, cholesterol levels can be managed by a range of lifestyle habits. If your cholesterol is seriously high, you may have to purchase some tablets to take alongside these healthy habits. You can get them from an online drug store or your local pharmacy, but only take them if you have been prescribed them by a doctor.
To reduce your cholesterol fast, and naturally, here’s what you should do:
Eat less saturated fat
Avoid foods high in saturated fats – this usually includes processed and fatty foods – as these are the main culprits of high cholesterol. If you limit your intake of these, your cholesterol levels will stop increasing, and that’s the first step in lowering them.
Eat more soluble fiber
Soluble fiber is found in things like oatmeal, beans, apples, and many other healthy foods. It’s great for your digestion, but it also actively helps to lower cholesterol in your body. It’s believed that increasing your soluble fiber intake can stop cholesterol from being absorbed into your bloodstream. Therefore, your levels start to decrease and less stress is put on your heart.
Take a whey protein supplement
Whey protein is synonymous with weightlifters and people trying to pack on muscle in the gym. While it can help you gain more muscle – which also helps you burn more calories per day – studies have shown a good link to cholesterol. People that take whey protein supplements are shown to have reduced levels of bad cholesterol in their bodies. So, adding this to your daily diet could help you lower your cholesterol very quickly.
Stay active and exercise
People with high cholesterol also tend to be inactive. Exercising and being active will help you lower cholesterol faster than anything else. This is because exercise trains your heart and gets the blood pumping around your body. We need good circulation as blood carries many things around the body for us. In the case of cholesterol, regular exercise means your blood moves bad cholesterol around the body to the liver. Here, it gets processed and removed from the body. All of this is achieved by just being more active every single day. Walk more, run up and down the stairs, join a gym, buy a bike; do whatever you find comfortable to stay active and healthy.
These four steps will help you lower cholesterol and reduce the risk of heart failure. Of course, you should also cut out some key bad habits to stop your cholesterol levels from rising. Excessive smoking and drinking alcohol are both bad for you and should be either cut out completely or heavily reduced.
Ideally, you should follow this advice before your cholesterol gets to a point where a doctor gives you medication or warns you that it is high. But, if you are in that position, these steps are even more important to work on lowering your levels ASAP.
