Healthy Cholesterol Levels

Before you start eating your favorite, you might want to know whether you’re having too much cholesterol. Few years ago, many were not aware what cholesterol level is but with all the information everywhere people are becoming aware how their cholesterol levels affect their lives. You have to remember that you are what you eat and what you eat has something to do with your cholesterol. What is cholesterol? How will you know if you have a healthy cholesterol level?

Cholesterol is a type of lipid needed in all the vital functions of the body. Every single one of our cells is surrounded by cholesterol and its job is to insulate our nerve fibers. By insulating the nerve fibers, the cholesterol ensures that the nerve signals are traveling properly which is extremely important. Cholesterol also produces hormones which are used to carry specific signals around the body.

Too much cholesterol in the body would increase your chances of heart disease. If you have a high cholesterol level, you should bring it down. Even though cholesterol is essential for our bodies to function properly, still it should be controlled properly.

How do you know if your cholesterol levels are high? You have to consult your doctor let you know exactly what your cholesterol level is. Knowing your levels is not really enough to tell whether or not you have a risk of heart disease, you need to find out what your Lipoprotein levels is.

Lipoproteins are molecules which are especially designed to carry cholesterol around the body. They are important because they control exactly how much cholesterol is in your body. Now, there are two main types of Lipoproteins:

- High Density Lipoproteins [HDL]
- Low Density Lipoproteins [LDL]

The one which you really need to be aware of is Low Density Lipoproteins. A high level of Low Density Lipoproteins means that you have a bad cholesterol that here is too much of it to build up. High Density Lipoproteins means good
cholesterol that they are used to carry cholesterol away from cells and to the liver.

The complicated thing about cholesterol is the right level you should belong. The doctor has the ability to tell you how low your cholesterol levels should be. The average person usually should have around 4.0mmol/l but if you have a low density lipoprotein count, then you should have around 2.0mmol/l. As mentioned, however, each person is different so you need to get your levels checked to see exactly what you should be aiming for.

Cholesterol is important and you should know what levels you have for you to know what you can do about it. More and more people are developing heart disease due to high levels of cholesterol so it is advisable to go to your doctors to know your cholesterol level.

There are many ways to improve your cholesterol level. Eat healthy food that can help lower your LDL cholesterol level. With a healthy diet, your body is protected from the damaging effect of cholesterol. You should quit smoking, lose weight and exercise to raise your HDL cholesterol level.

Following a healthy low fat diet can lower cholesterol levels. If healthy eating and exercising don't work after about six months, consult your family doctor of the medicine to lower your cholesterol level.

Low Fat Dessert

No meal is over unless there is a dessert involved. If you are here in America, you know that most of the desserts out there are bad for you. They are loaded with salt, sugar and or fat. We have become a nation of junk food addicts. I do have a theory on this. I think that when a group of people experience wealth, their diets change. I know that this is simple and even a moron can come up with something like this, but hear me out. When a group of people have enough money that they have a choice of what they will eat, they will choose to go along with the more fatty foods. I think this is because we tend to store fat to keep us warm for the winter. In our minds if there is a bunch of food to choose from, then we will go towards the fatty foods. Like most animals, we prepare for the winter time. We know that it will be cold so we want a layer of fat to keep us warm. Another aspect of it is, we are greedy. All people are greedy. We want the best of everything. We want a nice new car, new house and all the rich food that we can eat. In the past, a wealthy person ate different foods than someone who is poor.

What to do? You want that little bit of joy at the end of the meal, but you don't want to become a lard ass. Well, you can have your cake and eat it too. We will discuss some of the more healthy desserts that you can eat. First I want to say, don't get fooled by this low fat stuff. It isn't worth the time. You will eat twice as much of it to fill your cravings. It is because it is missing something, the fat. The one thing that you are craving the most. In the end you aren't really doing yourself any favors. You are falling in the trap that all fat people fall into. They think since it is low fat, they can eat twice as much of it. That maybe true, but only if you don't want to loose weight.

Fresh fruit is always a good dessert. You can prepare it easily and it tastes great. Nothing tastes better than fresh fruit that is in season. Make sure that it is perfectly ripe and ready to eat. If it is ripe, it will be sweet and juicy. If you eat fruit that isn't ripe it will be hard and not have all the flavor that it can yield. You don't have to stick with the ho hum fruit salad. You can choose a ton of different ways to eat fresh fruit. You can bake apples for example wrapped in tin foil with a little bit of brown sugar. This is wonderful.

One of my favorite things is bananas sliced in orange juice. The sweet tangy flavor of the orange juice is really different compared to the banana. I could eat a truck load of this stuff. It is also a great pick me up if you are feeling sluggish. We have all seen those wand mixers advertised on television. Some people call these boat motors. It is a hand held mixer/blender that you can use for a lot of things. I love these things. If you have one of these, it is easy to make a great low fat dessert.

Here is a simple dessert using your boat motor. Take skim milk. You need to make sure that it is ice cold for this. Take your milk and put it in a drinking glass. Use your boat motor to whip air into it. You will notice after awhile it kind of looks like whipped cream. Add some bananas and strawberries and a little pinch of sugar to make it sweet. This is very low fat and it tastes great. You get that desire for fat taken care of that you have been craving so much. The whipped milk really almost feels like whipped cream. You won't believe how much it feels like the real thing.

You can also use this to add some zing to all kinds of things. You can use it to make your low fat milkshakes. You can add your protein mix to this for a great meal with very little fat. You will be surprised at how many things you can do with this whipped topping. People will think that you have fallen off of your rocker when they think you are eating a big serving of whipped cream. Before you know it, all your buddies at the gym will want you to make them something to eat with your boat motor. That is when you will have to tell them to get their own.

You can also eat gelatin. Make sure that you get the unflavored kind. It will come in either envelopes or in sheets. There will be directions on the package to tell you how to make it. You can add fruit juice or you can add fresh fruit to your gelatin. If you have a boat motor, you can use it and add some of that whipped topping you make from the skim milk. You will love this. You can also eat some low fat cakes. Just because it is cake, doesn't mean that it is bad for you. Just make sure that there isn't a whole lot of eggs or dairy involved. Also sometimes people sneak in mayo in their cake batters. Make sure you know what is on the cake. Also jam or jelly is great instead of frosting.

I'm sure that you can come up with your own ideas as well. Just think of what you already like to eat and put a spin on it. Please, stay away from the low fat stuff. All that will do is make you crave more of that than you should be eating. In the long run, you aren't saving any calories.

How to measure BODY FAT: Simple Fat Calculator

When it all comes down to losing or gaining weight, most people turn to the scales to determine how much they should lose or gain to have the weight or the shape that they desire.

However, health experts said weight alone is not a clear indicator of good health because it does not distinguish between pounds that come from body fat and those that come from lean body mass or muscle.

Being over fat and overweight is not the same. Overweight simply means an excess of total body weight based on population averages for heights and body frame sizes. On the other hand, obesity is defined as an excess of body fat regardless of weight.

What we have to consider, experts said, in order to determine our fitness, is to know our body fat. Remember that body fat is a percentage of your total weight, so even slender people can have dangerously high levels of body fat.

Here are three ways of measuring your body fat:

1. Home Body Fat Scales-- Body fat scales claim to measure body fat quickly and conveniently. These body fat scales use the Bioelectrical Impedance method to measure your body fat percentage. A low-level electrical current is passed through your body and the "impedance", or opposition to the flow of current, is measured.

2. Skin fold Calipers-- Calipers are a tool that looks somewhat like a giant tweezers. These are used to grasp your skin folds at different points on your body and measure the thickness. These measurements are then compared to standard values for persons of your age and gender to give you your estimated body fat.

3. Hydrostatic Weighing—This is just a fancy term for underwater weighing. You sit on a scale inside a tank of water and blow out as much air as you can. You are dunked underwater, where you blow out even more air. Since fat is lighter than water, the more fat you have, the more you will float. The scale measures underwater weight to figure out body density. The margin of error is around 2-3%, but the accuracy depends on the amount of air you expel. You have to blow it ALL out or it will not be as accurate. This is a difficult way to measure body fat since it can be uncomfortable and even scary to be dunked underwater with no air in the old lungs.

Cholesterol: Good or bad? Essential or not ?

In today’s world, almost everything is free… not that everything has no price. It just seems that we have reached the era where we become more aware of our health conditions. Thus, it seems to be the era of everything that is ***-free. Try scanning every available product in your local grocery and you will see what I mean.

Your bread is bromate-free; your yogurt is fat-free; your cooking oil is cholesterol-free; your canned soup is preservative-free; and the list goes on and on. Now you are beginning to wonder about the next -free commodity that you would encounter.

This is not exactly bad. In fact, health experts encourage us to be more sensitive about the foods we eat and the nutrients that we get from them. However, not everything that is –free is healthy. Our bodies need certain substances to be able to function well.

Let us take a look at cholesterol for instance. Very simply defined, cholesterol is a fatty substance that occurs naturally in the blood, cell walls, and most body tissues. Cholesterol is made by the liver, and it enters the body via foods rich in saturated fat.

There are two types of cholesterol; these are what they termed as the good and bad cholesterol. Like the literary split personality of Jekyll and Hyde, it has a good side because it is needed for certain important body functions. But for many people, cholesterol also has an evil side. When present in excessive amounts, it can injure blood vessels, cause heart attacks, and stroke.

Low Density Lipoprotein (LDL) is the "bad" cholesterol. This is the form in which cholesterol is carried into the blood and is the main cause of harmful fatty buildup in arteries. The higher the LDL cholesterol levels in the blood, the greater the heart disease risk.

On the other hand, High Density Lipoprotein (HDL) is the “good” cholesterol. This "good" cholesterol carries blood cholesterol back to the liver, where it can be eliminated. HDL helps prevent a cholesterol buildup in blood vessels. Low HDL levels increase heart disease risk.

So before you go into your cholesterol deprivation program, remember that cholesterol is essential for human life. It builds and repairs cells, it is used to produce sex hormones like estrogen and testosterone, it is converted to bile acids to help you digest food and it is found in large amounts in brain and nerve tissue.

What About Fat ?

Most of us are focused on fat. It is all that we hear about these days. Since the time we are kids we are told that fat is bad for us. Some people are more worried about calories than fat. To be honest you should be worried about both. You need to make sure that your diet isn't full of junk food. You should be getting your calories from foods that are good for you. Who cares about not eating any fat, if all your calories come from sweets? I'm not sure how much I believe fat is the bad thing we make it out to be. I'm starting to believe that carbs are the real evil in the diet empire. I really do think this is why so many people are overweight in this world. Think about it like this. How many cultures in the world eat bread? Most of them eat some sort of bread.

Bread for some people is the focus of the meal. In the old days, women spent all day long making breads. This is also true with pasta in some regions of the world. A lot of places eat some sort of pasta with every meal. What about rice? The same thing. The Irish and potatoes? The same thing. These are all carbs.

Most people eat these every day of their lives. I think we are addicted to carbs. I know I am. I eat so much bread and other carbs that I don't know what I would do without them. That, adds a tire around the waste line. I'm not saying that carbs are worse than fat per se. I mean, fat has its problems too. You eat
too much of it, you are getting yourself ready for a heart attack. I mean, your body can only handle so much of them. We have all seen young men get heart attacks at an early age. So, we know that fat is bad.

Not all fat is the same though. Some fat is worse than others. Let's talk about these different kinds of fat. We have items that are lower in saturated fat. These would include meats and cheeses. They don't have as much fat as the items we will be talking about next. On the other hand, you have items that are more saturated than meats and cheese. These tend to be anything deep fried. They will include, donuts, French fries, potato chips.

The second is what you need to stay away from. These are high in calories. They also will clog your arteries. I hate to say it, but the good stuff in life has its risks. I'm not saying that you shouldn't ever eat these items, but eat them in moderation. That is the key. Don't eat them every day, but once per week. Don't go hog wild on a whole bag of chips. Instead, get a small bag that is enough for one or two servings. This way, you won't be tempted to eat the whole bag.

Oils such as olive oil are low in sat fats. You should use these when ever you can. Keep in mind though, you should only use a little of oil. Make sure to always use non stick cookware. This is a must and a great investment for your health. By using non stick cookware you won't have to use as much oil when cooking. If you get the good stuff, you might not have to use any at all. I think that you should watch your caloric intake as well as your fat. I would say that they should go hand in hand. I would pay close attention to how much carbs you are eating each day. I know that I sound like a broken record, but I do think people are too dependent on them. They are a good source of energy, but you will feel burnt out if you eat them too much. I think you know what I am talking about. You feel like you need a nap all the time.

There are also health risks involved with a diet high in fat. You are at higher risk of having sugar problems and heart disease. Plus a whole host of cancers that most people don't have a risk for. People who eat high fat diets also have skin problems. I think people who eat too much fat have very bad complexion. Their skin almost looks like leather.

I hope that you don't finish reading this and think that you should cut out all of the fat in your diet. That isn't my intent. Instead, you should look at the big picture. You can eat some fat, just don't go licking a block of lard as a refreshing snack on a hot summer day.