Are you on a statin – a cholesterol lowering drug? I see it often and it motivated me to make this video. There are a few things that would make that situation so much better and bring down cholesterol numbers naturally.
Why do statin drugs get prescribed?
You went to your practitioner, your your T cholesterol (your total cholesterol) was 200 points or above. You may be wondering what to do when you’re on it to naturally bring down your cholesterol. Your practitioner really wants you to bring it down and statins, cholesterol lowering drugs, work really well. The only thing is, it’s a medication and some of us would rather not be on pharmaceutical medications long term.
So what do we do when we’re on it? First and foremost, we have to change what we’re doing, our habits, our food intake. This can seem to be not so simple.
Coenzyme Q 10
When you are taking a cholesterol lowering drug, you want to also take co Q 10 or Coenzyme Q 10. Make sure it is Ubiquinol with an O L at the end. There are a few forms of Coenzyme Q 10. Ubiquinol is one of them. It is the most absorbable and the best form. So that’s what you want. Taking 100 milligrams per day is recommended for most people. It really is helpful, especially if you’ve got muscle soreness and cramping.
Obviously there’s something going on the body and when the cholesterol medications cause you to decrease in fat, it causes an imbalance in the musculature and can bother it. When you take the Ubiquinol it puts back some of the things that the muscle fibers need, and they are absent when they’re you’re on this drug.
This targeted supplementation along with changing your food intake are important for cholesterol management.
Move More
I’m so happy to be doing this at this time, at the beginning of the summer, because moving is so important for this.
When I say move more, I mean moving for 20 minutes, three times a week. Most of us can get that done. Like the other things I’m going to talk about, the vital thing is consistency. And that’s not always easy. I’m gonna tell you a quick story. Back in the day, I used to train at Gold’s Gym in Santa Monica, California and Lou Ferrigno would come in. I would also I would be reading Muscle and Fitness magazine all the time. He made a statement and I think that the interviewer asked, “What do you do when you don’t feel like training?”
And of course, he was training for big bodybuilding contests. And he said, “I get myself there. I get myself into the gym and I do abs or I do calves or I do a body part. And most of the time as I’m getting to the gym I really do my workout. It’s just getting there and going through it and delivering myself there. I just stay on target as much as I can.” So, I always thought that was interesting. Of course that was years ago and that always stayed with me.
So consistency when we’re trying to be healthy and we’re trying to achieve things is monumentally important and you know you can move three times a week and I want you to measure it. Whether it’s something on your wrist or an app on your phone – you can do that. You could just look at the clock you can make it much more unplugged and walk. You want to increase it a little bit as you go along. But the three times per week is a good start.
Walking is good. And there are so many other types of workouts that you could do. So that’s just moving a little bit more. I put that out there because I don’t want people to think that they’ve got to be in the gym five days a week or more. You don’t need to be doing these intense workouts. I don’t even think that’s good if you’re just starting. So you’ve got gyms around, you’ve got people around you, you’ve got the internet. Look, something’s up and start that – I think that’s wonderful.
Eating for Better Heart Health
Talk to your practitioner. If you’re on the statin and you are borderline and you’re looking to lower that cholesterol, what you want to do is a cholesterol lowering (I hate this word) diet. There are many examples of cholesterol lowering diets online. Many of us just go, “Oh, I don’t even want to start that, it sounds so terrible.” But if you do things and you do them consistently, you’re going to be able to improve.
I think some of the things that bother most of the people is not being able to eat beef, not being able to have their cheese or not being able to have cottage cheese and yogurt. But, regarding beef, if you stick to your cuts that are not so fatty, your chucks, your sirloins, and your rounds, that can be helpful. It’s also important that you’re doing one serving at a time which is about four to six ounces. Also, you’re doing it three times a week. This will give you a better chance to be in a cholesterol lowering situation when it comes to eating red meat. Remember that veal, lamb and chicken are also available and really helps in bringing down the cholesterol, skinless chicken, you all know that.
When it comes the yogurt fans out there and cottage cheese fans, it goes such a long way to buy the low fat varieties.
My advice is that, at this point, you tally the amount of cholesterol that you would take in in per day. Most Americans, on average, take in 300 milligrams of cholesterol a day. When we’re lowering, we want to go right to 200. There is a an app for this, guys. It’s called cholesterol manager. I really liked that one now but I must have seen seven of them available in the app store, so take your pick. Some of the apps actually have recipes. For some people, that’s the magic key, they really like to use the technology.
Remember, the reason we got in trouble means we need to change what we have been doing all along. In general, it’s a good idea to strive to eat a more vegetarian type of intake for your protein and put the emphasis on your legumes and even a protein drink. If you choose a protein drink from a plant source that gives you 20 to 30 grams of protein during the day. So that’s wonderful, and they have virtually no cholesterol. I’m not telling anybody to be a vegetarian. I’m just saying to embrace some of those habits can be wonderful.
There are also a lot of macaronis out there now that are a combination of a legume, chickpea, and lentil, and those afford many grams of protein. You’re not eating meat, but you’re getting your protein and you’re getting it from a plant source. Careful though and watch yourself when you’re eating those protein pastas because they have a lot of carbs. Volume is always the thing, one of the keys when we’re taking in food.
A little bit more of a vegetarian thinking is nuts and seeds add to that protein, but it works. You’re also going to take in vegetables and fruits. It’s just putting it together and it’s doing it every day.
Targeted Supplementation
Think about cholesterol – phytosterol is the plant form of cholesterol, if you will. That’s a very broad statement, but in the gut as you’re eating, it goes into the gut and this nutraceutical competes for the receptor sites to be brought into across the gut into the body. Once in the body, it goes throughout throughout your arteries and so forth. So the phytosterol competes and then it leaves the rest of the cholesterol to kind of float around in the intestines and be moved out. That’s what we want.
I’d like to see people also be on a fiber, a soluble fiber, and I like a Acacia fiber powder a lot. It is almost all soluble fiber. What is that? Insoluble fiber is broccoli, cabbage, salad, the brushy stuff. The soluble fiber is the type of fiber found in potatoes, macaroni, and beans. If we put them in a pot and heat them up, they blow up and they’re kind of mushy. They could kind of stick on to things through the intestines, especially fats and especially cholesterol. As a result, the cholesterol will stay in the intestine and then be taken out with bowel movements. It’s a very holistic, food based kind of approach to lowering cholesterol and this is what I like to see.
Certainly, there’s other things that you can add to to what we’ve discussed here. So with the movement, with your change in food, with some targeted supplementation like Ubiquinol and fiber, this can be helpful if you’re on cholesterol lowering drugs, your statin already. I like this strategy for you and this will help you get in good shape.
Don’t forget to like our video and subscribe to our channel on YouTube. Here on our website, you can visit our shop page and click on cholesterol management. We’ve added a few products that have exactly what I’m saying and what I have discussed here today, so good luck with that.
Remember, better outcomes from better intakes.