501 Delicious Heart Healthy Recipes: Feel Great - Lose Weight - Lower Your Cholesterol

501 Delicious Heart Healthy Recipes: Feel Great – Lose Weight – Lower Your Cholesterol Review

Check Price Now! 501 Delicious Heart Healthy Recipes: Feel Great – Lose Weight – Lower Your Cholesterol Feature 501 Delicious Heart Healthy Recipes: Feel Great – Lose Weight – Lower Your Cholesterol Overview 501 Delicious Heart Healthy Recipes: Feel Great – Lose Weight – Lower Your Cholesterol Specifications

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CHOLESTEROL LEVELS AND WEIGHT LOSS

If, while on the Liberation Diet, you are working with a doctor who is checking your blood cholesterol levels often, you may expect an increase as you lose weight, and may not begin to see a marked decrease until well after you have lost the excess weight.  Keep in mind that the unhealthy cholesterol built up in the body by eating processed food and chemicals is more difficult and takes longer for the body to eliminate than does fat.  The blood cholesterol will begin to drop a few weeks after weight loss stops.

Give yourself time.  It is not only in the arteries that unhealthy fatty deposits have been made, but in all areas of the body.  Food materials readily change into durable (shelf-life?) non-food forms when processed.  When absorbed in the bloodstream and circulated, it accumulates mostly in the artery walls, joint cartilage, and fibrous parts of the body because these have a dense structure and poor blood supply so that the material is filtered and trapped inside, clumping together, and deposits tend to form in certain spots.  The body has the ability to rid itself of this very slowly, but the unhealthy materials have been eaten over time faster than the deposits can be removed.  Over time it of course builds up to a greater and greater extent, making us older than our years, dulling us and diminishing vitality before any sign of disease appears.1

Often the body regains its vigor within weeks of eating fresh, real food.  While following the Liberation Diet, your body will begin rebuilding itself and cleaning itself and you will notice short term and long-term effects. So if closely monitoring cholesterol is part of your regimen with your doctor, it would be safe not to expect marked, long-term decreases to begin until 4 to 6 weeks after weight loss has ended.

1 Stale Food vs. Fresh Food, Robert Ford, copyright 6th edition 1977 by R. S. Ford.

[Via http://liberationwellnessblog.com]

Low Fat: The Great Deception

Understanding Fats

Loving fat is easy for me now, but it didn’t start out that way.

In my younger days, I consciously chose low fat items over its fattier competitors. My choices were based on numbers (quantity) rather than content (quality).  It turns out, low-fat is full of itself.

Jeff Novick, MS, RD, of the McDougall Program destroys the myth that the US ever went on a “low fat” diet. As a former account manager at Kraft Foods, he blows the lid off the deceptive tricks corporate food companies use in order to make (false) claims that their foods are “healthy” or “low-fat.”

This is an excerpt from Novick’s full 80-minute talk at the VegSource 2007 Healthy Lifestyle Expo, which is one of a 12-part series of top health expert presentations. In his fascinating and entertaining presentation, Novick reveals the intentional label deceptions nearly every food company employs, and shows you “how they do that.”

Fats Don’t Make You Fat

The wrong types of fats contribute to obesity, but it’s a generalization to say that fats make you fat.  It’s important to understand differences in fats, which ones to include in your diet and which ones to cut out.

The nominees for “Best Source of Fat from a Tree” are: avocados, olives, coconuts, and nuts (almond, walnut, macadamia, cashew, brazil, pistachios).

AVOCADOS

Avocados have endured a bad reputation for being full of fat.  It’s true that one medium sized avocado has 30 grams of fat, enough to put it on the avocaDON’T list.  However, it is mainly  mono-saturated fat, which is the heart-healthy kind of fat you want.  They are also loaded with  fiber, vitamins B6, C, and E, potassium, magnesium and folate.  In fact, they contain 60%  more potassium than bananas.  Cholesterol and sodium free, this fruit is high in calories and  should be consumed in moderation (1/2 avocado a day).  I personally have a hard time keeping them out of my meals because they taste so good, especially in salads.

OLIVES

When I was younger, olives and olive oil were frequently spotted on the table during meals.  By frequently, I mean 99.9% of the time.  It was normal to see a side of olives no matter what my mom made that day — lasagna, cabbage rolls, stuffed grape leaves, burgers or egg rolls. My brothers and I thought it was odd to have olives with egg rolls, but my dad always noticed that the zaytoun were missing (zaytoun is the Arabic word for olives).  He would ask, “Where’s the zaytoun?”  To which my mom would add,  ”Didn’t I tell you kids to put some olives on the table?”

It seemed that we had an unlimited supply of olives and olive oil — and my parents were especially thrilled to receive their yearly shipment of freshly    pressed olive oil from my grandparents, who lived in the Palestinian village of Biteen (pronounced Bait-een).  This came shortly after the mid October harvest, the time when olives are ripe in the Middle East.

I did not know the full benefits of olive oil, except for the simple explanation my dad gave me, “It’s good for your heart.”

That was the short version.  The longer version, I eventually learned, was that olive oil is rich in mono-saturated fat and antioxidants.  It protects your heart is the heart healthy kind of fat that’s good for you.  There are many reports that state the benefits of olive oil, and the best ways to use it (mainly salads).  People know olive oil is good for them, so there’s no need to brag about it.  Do your best to add extra-virgin olive oil to flavor your meals.  A little bit goes a long way!

ALMONDS (and the extended nut family)

There are many types of nuts, but why do nutrition experts pay attention to almonds the most? One reason is that it’s the nut highest in protein, fiber, calcium vitamin E, riboflavin and niacin.  If you do not know this  already, your body cannot produce vitamin E on its own — and it’s a not  well known fact that almonds and sunflower seeds are the top two whole  foods that have naturally occurring vitamin E.

COCONUTS

Are you confused whether coconuts are good or bad for you? Although high in saturated fat, coconut oil is unusually rich in short and medium chain fatty acids.  This means that your body is able to convert coconut oil into energy instead of fat.

Coconut oil has a bad reputation for contributing to cholesterol and heart disease.  This started in the early 1950’s, after studies revealed negative effects on the body due to coconut oil.   These studies were based on hydrogenated oils (and what we know now is that any type of hydrogenated oil is not good for you).  Furthermore, studies linked saturated fats to clogged arteries.  Since coconut oil was very high in saturated fat, it became the scapegoat for Americans’ increasing waistlines.  Was there much mention of fast food or processed food as the culprit?

When was the last time you saw coconut oil listed as an ingredient on a food label?  I rarely do.  And when was the last time you heard someone lose a bunch of weight because he or she gave up coconut oil?

Coconut oil is actually good for you.  I cook all my food with it.  It’s rich in lauric acid (also found in breast milk), which helps support your immune system, and contains no trans fat.  The body converts lauric acid to a fatty acid derivative (monolaurin), which is the substance that protects infants from infections.  The key is to use high quality, unrefined coconut oil.

AWARDS

All of these nominees should receive an award.  People focus so much on numbers (counting calories, weight, etc) instead of content and quality.  They believe fat makes them fat, even though approximately 50% of our cells are composed of fat.  Without fat, we could not function.

In my next post, I will talk about the importance of eating animal fats.  Yes, meat is good for you.  It should be our primary source of nutrition, but so many people want to devalue it and “not really healthy.”  That’s not true!

[Via http://liberationwellness.wordpress.com]

What's up Doc?

Last week, as you may recall, I was very upset when my blood work came back and my cholesterol was up 41 points from last year. So today I went back to the doc after recording what I ate for a week to try and figure out why my cholesterol was so high.

Good news is that my doctor couldn’t believe how well I ate. She asked me if it was really true and laughed when I recorded the 5 french fries I had on Friday night. Hey- I was suppose to record it all, right?  She said she wasn’t worried because of how much I exercised and wasn’t going to re-do the test, instead we would see where I was next year.

I don’t really like doctors. I mean…they never really listen and this appointment took all of 10 minutes. Not that I needed it to last that long (I am swamped at work), but I always feel like she is rushing out. She also does “smart lipo” and I think that side of her business is taking up too much time. I just wish she would have taken a bit longer to look at what I was eating.  She pointed out that I should watch my carrot intake because they contain high amounts of sugar and sent me on my way.

The sugar thing got me thinking…could sugar make my blood pressure go up? After a quick google search I found out that, yes, refined sugar can lower your HDL count and raise your LDL count. Hmmm…maybe all those bites of cookies and licks of frosting have something to do with this?

I did quit drinking coffee because I would add equal to it and then also add vanilla coffee-mate. Not just a bit…a LOT of vanilla coffee-mate!! I probably kicked this habit just before I took my blood test. Now, I don’t eat a ton of sugary stuff, but I would say I eat something sweet at least once a day. It was sooo hard to do the no sugar week and I couldn’t even do that. Maybe I just need to watch myself a bit more?

All of this cholesterol talk got me really wondering where I stand on the “normal” scale. Here is the scale the American Heart Association has for LDL levels: Yikes! I am borderline high.

Less than 100 mg/dL Optimal 100 to 129 mg/dL Near Optimal/ Above Optimal 130 to 159 mg/dL Borderline High 160 to 189 mg/dL High 190 mg/dL and above Very High

 

My LDL’s are at 145 I am on the borderline and it doesn’t seem as fun as when Madonna sings about it. So what about my HDL? My HDL is at 66.

According to the AHA, “With HDL (good) cholesterol, higher levels are better. Low HDL cholesterol (less than 40 mg/dL for men, less than 50 mg/dL for women) puts you at higher risk for heart disease. In the average man, HDL cholesterol levels range from 40 to 50 mg/dL. In the average woman, they range from 50 to 60 mg/dL. An HDL cholesterol of 60 mg/dL or higher gives some protection against heart disease”.

I am at the average HDL levels for a woman. The doc did tell me to start adding more healthy fats like guacamole and to take a fish oil supplement to help raise the HDL’s. I am going to try and cut out processed sugars as much as possible. This means no more bites of cookies or tastes of frosting. If you take a lot of little bites, it just adds up to a big bite…or more!

So, how am I going to do this? I need a plan! If I have a sugar craving I should be eating natural sugars like a peach or apple. I will be making exceptions for special occasions and I am not going to outlaw dark chocolate. I am going to start reading labels of anything extra I add to my food, like salad dressings and ketchup, in order to cut down on them as well. This is going to be my little experiment and then I’ll see where I am next year.

Don’t worry, I’m not gonna go dyin’ on anyone. A less than 200mg cholesterol level is desirable and 200-239 is borderline/high risk. I am on the low scale of the borderline (I’m at 211), so hopefully just a couple little tweaks will get me all desirable again.

Since my last blood work test I did try going vegan and I found that when I did so I was never full and craved more sugar and bread. I am still not eating that much meat or dairy, so maybe I need to up this just a bit as well and that will help quell the sugar cravings. Just something to think about…

If anyone has any tips that they use to beat the sugar cravings, let me know! I am also going to look into the sugar busters diet…has anyone ever done this?

Well, it’s time to get some good fat up into my tummy…avocado enchilada’s here I come!!

FDA Approves New Cholesterol-Lowering Drug

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today approved the 4 milligram maximum dose of Livalo (pitavastatin), a drug intended to improve blood cholesterol levels in persons with elevated or abnormal blood cholesterol levels.

Like other statins, Livalo is intended for patients when diet and exercise fail to lower their cholesterol levels. Statins improve elevated blood cholesterol levels primarily by inhibiting a liver enzyme called HMG Co-A reductase, thus reducing the liver’s ability to make cholesterol.

“Elevated or abnormal cholesterol levels are associated with an increased risk for heart disease and stroke,” said Eric C. Colman, M.D., deputy director, Division of Metabolism and Endocrinology Products, in the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research. “Today’s approval offers patients and their health care professionals another alternative way to treat high cholesterol.”

Livalo was approved on the basis of five clinical trials comparing its efficacy and safety to that of three currently marketed statins.

The most frequently reported adverse reactions from taking Livalo were muscle pain, back pain, joint pain and constipation.

Livalo is manufactured by Kowa Pharmaceuticals America Inc. of Montgomery, Ala.