Physical activity: Why Is It Not Enough to Lower Cholesterol?

According to the recommendations of the World Health Organization, every person should engage in moderate-intensity sports activities at least five times a week for 30 minutes each. Movement stimulates the metabolism in the body, which is good not only for our figure but also for our health. When we weigh less, the risk of high blood pressure decreases amongst other things. In addition, people, who weigh less, less frequently suffer from glucose metabolism disorders, which also promote the progression of atherosclerosis.

However, most of the cholesterol is produced by our body itself, so it may not be possible to significantly reduce it with an active lifestyle alone. The most important thing is to balance an active lifestyle with a healthy diet, and also take care of your mental health and regularly seek check ups and reviews by your doctor. It is a known fact that not only due to genetics but often also due to improper nutrition or constant stress, cholesterol levels increase in our blood.

The last two aspects are extremely relevant, so pharmacists recommend paying more attention to what we eat and how we feel while spending time at home.

Your Heart Best Friends: Plant-based Food

Nutrition is the most essential factor that leads to good health and a healthy heart. We get most of our cholesterol from food with saturated fatty acids. The occurrence of atherosclerosis is greatly influenced by improper food, factory-processed foods, bad habits, such as smoking, high blood pressure, and too little consumption of vegetables. Unhealthy food, for instance fried, modified, and saturated fat-rich foods increase chronic inflammation in the body, which can damage blood vessel walls, allowing cholesterol to enter and accumulate more easily.

Therefore, in order to reduce cholesterol in the body, it is important to have a balanced diet: eat a lot of vegetables, fruit and nuts, with meat or sweets making up a small part, if any of our caloric intake. We need to increase unsaturated fat in our daily diet. Unsaturated fats are best obtained from plant-based products like nuts and avocadoes. That’s the way nature is: most of the human diet has always consisted of plant-based products, and only in the last century we have started eating a lot of meat. Our bodies are not genetically adapted to the amount of meat we eat now.

Unsaturated fats are known as the good fats and their main sources are nuts, seeds, and various vegetables. The main component of the Mediterranean diet is monounsaturated fat, which is associated with a low risk of heart disease. Olive oil, avocados, and almost all nuts are sources of this type of fat. Polyunsaturated fats are the most important, meaning they must be obtained from food. Flaxseed and walnuts are good sources of polyunsaturated fats. Try to replace unhealthy fats with mono- or polyunsaturated fats whenever possible. Research shows that it helps lower cholesterol and reduces the risk of heart disease.

Cholesterol Responses to Constant Stress

Stress is a constant companion of modern man. Although the psychological and emotional effects of stress are often discussed, doctors emphasize that high tension can also lead to certain diseases or their exacerbation. And you know what? Stress can cause cardiovascular diseases too. The European Society of Cardiology has identified stress in its cardiovascular disease prevention guidelines as a significant risk factor for myocardial stroke or heart attack.

According to cardiologists and scientists, stress also increases the concentration of cholesterol in the blood, blood pressure, pulse, and oxygen consumption, so high stress can really be extremely dangerous for patients with cardiovascular diseases. Stress can also lead to the onset and progression of these diseases. If you only experience occasional stress, it’s not necessary to worry a lot about it, but chronic stress can raise your cholesterol for a number of reasons. First, people become more physically inactive or eat unhealthy foods due to constant stress. In addition, stress stimulates the release of cortisol and adrenaline, which stimulate the release of triglycerides and free fatty acids, which are responsible for increasing bad cholesterol levels. Moreover, due to the effects of stress, the cholesterol plaques accumulated in the blood vessels can crack, and as a result, a person can have a myocardial infarction.

Supplement when needed

Supplements and sometimes medication may be needed to treat the imbalance of “good” and “bad” cholesterol. Statins are medications with significant scientific evidence of positive effects. Statins not only suppress the production of “bad” and promote the production of “good” cholesterol in the body, but they also stabilize existing atherosclerotic plaques and protect them from rupture. When dyslipidemia occurs, statins are recommended both for those who already had cardiovascular diseases and for healthy but high-risk patients. It should be remembered that if these drugs are used in the right doses, regularly, when the target level of “bad” cholesterol is reached, the risk of cardiovascular diseases decreases.

A point to remember, is that even when using such medication the priority should be on enhancing ones diet and exercise schedule as these are the best bets in the fight against high cholesterol. 

The Bottom Line

To have a healthy heart, you should not only do exercise but ensure you eat properly and healthily, and reduce daily stress levels as much as it is possible. There may be other additional ways to combat cholesterol but the points above are a good place to start, to have good health and to live a more wholesome contented life. Nutritious food and a regular exercise schedule can help you stay fit, healthy, and happy.

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Many people think losing fat and getting in shape is such a complicated process since you have to deal with figuring out an effective diet with x amount of protein and x amount of calories and then you need to figure out what to eat and what not to eat, and then you have to put together a training plan and whats the best form of cardio and aaahhh!

It can become quite disorientating and confusing, but it really does not have to be so complicated.

Here are 6 very simple tactics which you can slowly start to implement in your everyday life to get you on the right track to losing fat and becoming healthier without us even talking about a ‘diet’ or specific training programme.

Now don’t think you are going to find some magical information here,

you probably already know or have heard of most of these tips, but now YOU need to put them into practice!

1. Drink more water.

Drinking more water has so many benefits.  It will keep you and your skin properly hydrated which will keep your skin soft and can help to reduce wrinkles.  It also helps with providing you with more energy, as when you are dehydrated your energy levels and your mind’s ability to focus often take a dip to compensate for the lack of water.  Drinking more water also helps with controlling your appetite allowing you to feel fuller for longer.

2. Reduce processed foods and sugar in your diet.

Now notice I said REDUCE rather than completely eliminate.  We are only human and thus I know how difficult it is to completely eliminate these types of foods from our diets especially in this day and age; and more often than not, if we suddenly go on a very strict diet which requires us to stop eating specific things, it’s more likely that we will develop cravings much quicker.

The reason to avoid processed food, is because there are so many different ingredients in the products these days which can be quite detrimental to our health.  They also contain a lot of useless calories and hardly any vital nutrients which our bodies really do not need. And YES fast food does fall under processed food!

The thing to take away here is that yes you can have that piece of chocolate every now and again, just do not over do it, and try to opt for ‘healthier alternatives’ such as choosing home made biscuits rather than processed biscuits from a shop which are loaded with trans fats and preservatives.

3. Eat more vegetables and fiber.  

Natural, organic vegetables are full of nutrients, vitamins and minerals all necessary for a healthy mind and body.  They also contain a vital nutrient, fiber.  Fiber helps with ‘cleaning’ the inside of your body and helps with keeping you fuller for longer, also aiding in reducing cravings.  Your body actually uses more energy to digest some vegetables which are high in fiber, for example broccoli, than are in the actual vegetable!  So in some sense you are burning a few calories while you eat it!

4. Start some form of weight training.

Weight training builds muscle and burns calories.  Muscle burns more calories at rest than fat.  Therefore BUILD MUSCLE!  When you train with weights, especially when doing the big movements (deadlifts, squats etc) you stimulate the release and production of growth hormone.  Growth hormone is responsible for many things within your body, from increasing muscle size, fat burning, reducing wrinkles, to growing strong hair and nails.

So we can see why it is a good thing to try to maximize growth hormone production within our bodies.  Also weight training burns A LOT of calories, more than most forms of cardio at the same time as building muscle.  There are many different forms of weight training, all you have to do is find something that you enjoy and which works for you.  Now why wouldn’t you want to weight train?

5. BUILD your cardio up.

Too often people have the idea that in order to lose fat they need to do hours and hours of cardio.  So once they have decided they want to get in shape they immediately start doing cardio 7 days a week for an hour or so a day.  Then after a few weeks they wonder why they have not lost much weight since they are exercising so much.

You see the body is a highly adaptable ‘machine’ so in order for you to continually progress and lose fat, in this instance, there needs to be room for change and additions.

If you are already doing cardio 7 days a week it is quite difficult to add anymore cardio into your schedule as it will become far too excessive.  So instead rather start with adding some cardio 2 or 3 days a week for around 20 minutes and work on improving or adding to this every week or every two weeks.

You can do this by raising the intensity slightly, or increasing the number of minutes, or adding one more session of cardio on a different day or changing to a more HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) style of cardio.  By doing this you can continually progress and will not allow your body to become stagnant and too used to one thing.

6. Be consistent with everything that you do.

I think this is extremely vital when it comes to doing anything.  In order for you to lose weight you need to ensure you are consistent with your eating, with your training and resting.  If you start exercising and eating better then you stop for a period of time and then start again, then stop again, you will never achieve the results that you want.

There is no quick way of getting in shape, it does take time and it does take consistency and commitment.  That’s why it should really become your ‘life style’ and not a two month course.

You need to be focused, disciplined and dedicated to what you want to achieve.

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