How to Lower Cholesterol Through Diet

We all know too much bad cholesterol in your body can kill you.

This fact has been drilled into us since we've heard the word "cholesterol". The media has had full consensus on the matter. No matter where you go, what you read, what you watch, and who you talk to, you'll never hear anyone say that you'll extend your life expectancy by eating more greasy food. You'll also never see anyone say that they felt better on their "all cheese burger diet".

It's just plain bad for you.

Why is it bad? Well, essentially, it's fat within your arteries and can contribute to atherosclerosis. In layman's terms - it can build up in your plumbing and stop that red beating thing from getting the necessary blood-oxygen mixture it really needs. When your heart's main artery, the aorta, gets blocked for a prolonged amount of time cases of death have a tendency to happen. And that's bad.

However, I do have some good news. You can do something about it. All it takes is a bit of knowledge, a healthy helping of commitment, twelve weeks of your time, and some new habits that might just save your life.

I know what your thinking. You're thinking that I'm here to push vegan-ism on you. Well, maybe I am a bit.

Trust me, if you've seen a doctor and found out that you have a high triglyceride count, you may wish to consider a vegan diet, at least for twenty-eight days. That along with some light exercise will do you wonders.

I recommend the diet and philosophy advocated in the film "Forks Over Knives". Simply put, we as human beings eat too much animal protein and are eating and drinking dairy products. While I'll be the first to say that I love butter on my bread and I grew up drinking a half pint of whole milk every day while I was in school, we, as human beings, don't need milk products. The fat in dairy products produces more cholesterol than almost any other source.

Human beings were never meant to have milk after the first few months of our lives.

The argument for milk and milk products in a normal diet is that milk is a great source of calcium and is good for your bones. I have news for you - there is more calcium in broccoli than in milk. It's a fact. If you want strong bones, help yourself to a few florets of broccoli. The dietary fiber will do you good as well.

I recommend the outline documented in the book Engine 2 Diet. This diet in its philosophy has had results in lowering cholesterol, weight loss, and the reducing of disease. It was written by triathlete, Rip Esselstyn, son of the the cardiologist, Dr. Caldwell B. Esselstyn, chief of surgery at the Cleveland Clinic, who discovered through medical research that a plant-based, low fat diet could reverse heart disease and diabetes - who made most of the recommendations within the plan.

It is a diet of whole foods, vegetable, fruits, legumes, and grains. All of which, when combined with regular exercise will improve your health and lower your cholesterol levels.

There is nothing new under the sun.

What Doctor Caldwell B. Esselstyn and his son, Rip have published is almost common sense. Eating vegetables... whole leaf vegetables, like spinach, are good for you. Your body knows when it's eating something wrong. The greasy full bloated feeling you get from certain foods is not a natural state.

Because we live in a modern world with electricity and oil heat, we've outgrown the need to fatten our bodies for the winter season. We can remain fit without bulking up on fat to survive.

It's all part of what we need to do in order to live a healthy and balanced life. When we get to a place were a physician says that we need to throw our life back into balance by eating better, we should all go back to what we already know.

Eating vegetables is good for us. And eating fat is bad.