Oh my gosh. I have high cholesterol. I’m 31 years old! How could this be?! I don’t eat meat. I try not to eat too much dairy or too many grains. I try to eat mostly vegetables, beans, nuts and seeds, eggs, and fruit. I exercise AT LEAST three days a week (180 minutes), although I typically shoot for four or five (210-250 minutes). My weight and BMI are in the healthy range for my age, height, and activity level. I’ve never had any sort of bloodwork done, but in order to avoid paying an extra $600 (!) for health insurance, I had to do a wellness screening. They did a basic panel testing for total cholesterol, HDL, LDL, triglycerides, and sugar.
My triglycerides and sugar were great - cholesterol, not so much. Although my total cholesterol fell in the range in which it “should be” (don’t even get me started), my HDL was two points below the range they want it to be in (40-60), and my LDL was 122. It is supposed to be 100 or lower. 100. When I was in school studying dietetics, it was supposed to be under 130. So if I’d had these numbers on a panel 10 or 12 years ago, 122 would have been perfectly acceptable. I always wonder if these numbers are actually, truly, scientifically based, or if it has more to do with selling statins, as statins are the second top selling drug in the United States, and most of the drugs are quite pricey. BUT I’ll try to keep my opinions on that to myself.... Knowing that my maternal grandparents, as well as my mom, have high and borderline high cholesterol levels, respectively, I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised with these numbers. In my experience, I’ve found that genetics tend to play a bigger role in cholesterol levels than lifestyle (what we eat and how active or inactive we are). Heredity high cholesterol is called familial hypercholesterolemia, and unfortunately not much in the way of diet or exercise will help to lower cholesterol levels to the number “experts” recommend they should be. (Genetic testing can be done to determine whether or not a person truly has familial hypercholesterolemia.) Often times individuals with familial hypercholesterolemia are prescribed statins to regulate their cholesterol levels. Personally I’ll take my chance with having borderline high LDL levels – have you READ the side effects of statins?! Lifestyle and diet do play into cholesterol levels, even for individuals with familial hypercholesterolemia. Elevated levels of blood sugar over time can increase LDL and decrease HDL levels and can also cause extra weight gain. Both obesity and large waist circumference are also linked with high cholesterol levels, as are smoking and inactivity. So what can you do to lower your cholesterol levels? Precision Nutrition has a GREAT list with ten lifestyle tips to lower cholesterol/keep your cholesterol levels good, and you can check it out by following the link at the bottom of this page. Avoiding added sugar and processed foods, following a plant-based or mostly plant-based diet, and getting at least 150 minutes of exercise a week can give you a great start to getting your numbers down. Unfortunately we sometimes have to deal with “bad” genes that lead to higher cholesterol levels, and we have to put up more of a fight than those other lucky people to get those levels down. I’m taking my lab results with a grain of salt and am not going to worry too much about slightly high LDL and slightly low HDL levels. My plan of action is to do a little better diet wise – more veggies and less to no added sugar. If I start exercising more, I’ll be living in the gym, so I don’t plan to change much in the way of my activity level. I likely won’t be doing anymore bloodwork until this time next year, but I will update this blog post with new levels the next time I get them checked! Think positive, stay active, and smile. -A https://www.precisionnutrition.com/all-about-cholesterol https://www.healthline.com/health/high-cholesterol/is-high-cholesterol-hereditary#complications
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Through chatting with people – friends, family, coworkers, strangers on the bus – it seems that the general idea in order to lose weight and get in shape is to cut foods like carbohydrates, sugars, fats, etc. out of your diet. While this isn’t totally untrue, it puts a huge burden on you and can be incredibly overwhelming. In addition to cutting out all the “bad” stuff, people tend to think they need to spend hours in the gym doing cardio and lifting weights, and this puts even more pressure on you. While exercising is important, it doesn’t have to take up hours of your day every day, and it doesn’t have to be done in a gym. This blog provides tips and advice to make small changes to your daily routine that will make a big impact on your health.
One of the many points that stuck with me during my Precision Nutrition certification was that if you have food in your home, healthy or unhealthy, eventually you or someone you love will eat it. And with that being said, buying more whole foods and fewer processed foods means you and the other people who live in your house will be eating more whole foods and fewer processed foods. This will help to cut down on your caloric intake and will increase the amount of nutrients you’re consuming. It also automatically aids in cutting added sugar from your diet as well as “unhealthy” carbohydrates and “bad” fats. (I use the terms “unhealthy” and “bad” loosely and to save the time it would take to dive into great detail about carb and fat sources.) As well as consuming more whole and fewer processed foods, eating appropriate portions is a great way to cut calories without calorie counting. We have a tendency to eat whatever is in front of us, even after we’re full, so filling your plate with only what you need can benefit a lot of us. So how do you buy more whole and fewer processed foods? It will take some thinking and planning: What days will you have time to cook? What will you cook? What will you need to buy at the store? When will you do your grocery shopping? Once you’ve shopped, you’ll need to prep the food for healthy snacks and meals. You can prepare all your meals over the weekend or whenever you have time and separate and refrigerate/freeze them accordingly. Keeping healthy, easily accessible snacks handy and having meals on hand that have already been prepped and just need to be cooked or warmed up keeps us from reaching for unhealthy snacks or going through the drive thru on the way home from work. Keep healthy snacks at home as well as at work and on the go. As previously mentioned, adding exercise to your daily routine is a daunting task for many, but it doesn’t have to be. If you’re not used to exercising, start small – take a 10 minute walk every day. This can be done in the morning when you go out to get the paper, parking far enough from work to provide you with a 10 minute jaunt, before you sit down to eat your healthy lunch, when you get home from work, or after you’ve had dinner and washed the dishes. Or really any other time you have 10 minutes available. The goal is to get at least 30 minutes of exercise a day, and once you’ve gotten in the routine of taking one 10 minute walk, you can increase that to two and then three 10 minute walks every day, and BOOM – 30 minutes of daily exercise. You can of course add other forms of exercise as well – lifting weights at home or at the gym, walking or biking to work, taking an exercise class at a local gym, doing an exercise DVD at home – the possibilities are endless. Not all healthy habits revolve around what we eat or how much exercise we get – our environment also plays a huge role in our health. Think about what meal time looks like for you: Are you eating in front of a TV? By yourself or with others? On the go while you’re driving the kids to sports practice? Do what you can to adjust your schedule (meal prepping ahead of time can help with this) to be able to allow at least 20 minutes to sit down at the table, away from the TV, with your family or friends to enjoy your meal. What sort of people are you spending time with? At work we don’t always get a choice of who we’re around, but in our social lives, if we surround ourselves with supportive people who have similar goals and lifestyles as us, it will be easier to make healthy, positive changes in our lives. It’s a lot harder to eat healthy, nutrient-rich foods when you’re hanging out with friends who are constantly going through the drive thru and meeting up for happy hour every week. Joining a gym or taking an exercise class every week is a great way to meet people who have an interest in staying healthy. These tips just begin to scratch the surface of changes you can make to your daily routine that will help lead to a healthier lifestyle. Making one or two small changes at a time can help keep you from feeling overwhelmed and defeated and will lead to success. Surrounding yourself with healthy foods and supportive people will make these changes much easier, and if you have trouble staying motivated, ask a friend or family member to join you in making these changes with you. Think positive, stay active, and smile. -A “So You Make Meal Plans for People?” If I had a dime for every time I heard this response when I tell people I’m a certified nutrition coach, I could retire. Typically when people hear the words dietitian, nutritionist, and nutrition coach, they assume that involves making a lot of meal plans – lots and lots of meal plans. If only it were that easy....
Sure I’ve made meal SUGGESTIONS for plenty of friends and clients who’ve asked, but unfortunately meal plans don’t really work. Think about it – do you want to be told what to eat at every meal, every day, for the rest of your life? I don’t, and although there might be a handful of people in the entire world who would go along with it, I can imagine most people don’t want their meals and snacks to be dictated by someone else. As a certified nutrition coach, it is my job to help people tap into their relationship with food and to figure out how to make that relationship a healthy one. Helping someone make a lifestyle change – losing weight, being more physically active, eating better, learning to cook – involves a lot of time and trust and is very deep and personal. The relationship we have with food is very psychological and deep seeded in us, and this means it is incredibly difficult to make changes to our thoughts and feelings about food as well as our eating habits. I also have to be aware that sometimes there are underlying factors affecting a person’s relationship with food that are out of my scope of practice and that I will need to refer them out to someone with a psychological background. In addition to working with clients on building a healthy relationship with food, I work with them to develop skill sets for planning meals, shopping, meal prep, and cooking. With the help of ProCoach, the online software I use, clients also receive daily lessons where they learn about eating slowly, eating whole foods, why it’s important to include protein at every meal, how to choose “smart” carbohydrate sources, and so much more. While it is impossible to list every aspect of nutrition coaching, I believe this blog provides a basic, general description of how I help clients to achieve their goals of living a healthier life – whatever that may mean to them – and as you can see, it is so much more than “making meal plans for people.” For more information on what I do and how it’s different from other “weight loss programs,” check out my blog from January 1 of this year – “What I do versus what the Other Guys Do.” Think positive, stay active, and smile. -A Why do we need to eat? To provide us with fuel, right? If we really did just need fuel, or calories, to keep going and that was all that mattered, wouldn’t that mean we could just eat a certain number of calories a day, regardless of the source? For example, if all we were interested in was calorie intake, 200 calories of snack cake would provide us with the same fuel as an apple with a tablespoon of peanut butter. That, however, is not the case. Our bodies are much more complex than that, and we need a wide array of macronutrients, vitamins, and minerals in addition to the energy food provides us. What we eat helps our body do its job – strengthen bones, muscle repair, make hormones – and tells our bodies how to function properly – what hormones to express and when, when to release an immune response, and so much more.
Because our bodies don’t burn fuel the way machines do, we can’t look at food and the calories food provides as fuel. Every body digests and processes food differently, and our own body differs in how it digests and processes food throughout the day. Not only do our bodies process calories differently, calorie values assigned to foods are not always accurate, so counting calories doesn’t really work, and it can also drive a person crazy! A better alternative to calorie counting is to eat a wide variety of mostly whole foods in appropriate portions for your gender and personal needs. Food also tells a story about us and our personality. It can indicate to others where we’re from, what culture or cultures we’re a part of, if we’re vegetarian or vegan, how conscious we are about what we put in our bodies (processed vs. whole foods), how willing or unwilling we are to try new things, and so much more! Not only does food tell a story about us, it helps us connect with others. Eating with people we care about provides multiple mental and emotional, social, and physiological benefits. While it is true that food provides us with energy, or fuel, food also tells our story, connects us with others, and can benefit or hurt out health. So what story does your food tell about you? How do you connect with others? Sometimes taking a few minutes to really think about these things gives more meaning to, and makes us more aware of, the foods we’re putting in our bodies and what we’re doing while we’re “refueling.” Hopefully this has given you some insight and now you’ll look at food as more than fuel but rather an experience – and hopefully a positive one! Think positive, stay active, and smile. -A https://www.precisionnutrition.com/food-is-not-fuel https://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-berardi-phd/why-the-food-is-fuel-anal_b_6815880.html https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/a-to-z/m/mealtimes-and-mental-health |
Allison WerresWife, nutrition coach, dog mom Archives
May 2018
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