Male
52 (almost)
6'"5 / 220
Cholesterol - 210
HDL - 45
LDL - 150

Always eaten whatever I wanted for the most part but improved diet about a year or so ago and lost 15 lbs or so as cholesterols was about 250. One year later cholesterol about 210 with no cardio. Have started working out again and trying to do cardio. Decent athlete (long ago) / how much cardio do I need and how realistic is it that I can get it u see control?

Thanks

My doctor suggested I start taking red yeast rice extract and that, along with stepping up the exercise significantly has helped a lot.

Stop eating sugar

Did zero sugar for all of 2019 / helped a lot with weight / cutting way back on red meat this year awhile keeping sugar low

I ditched sugar and bread for 4-5 weeks to meet my markers for insurance. It was the first time I ever had good levels for my lab work without statins. I also felt amazing but those first few weeks were brutal.

How do you " ditch sugar?"

You stop drinking sugary drinks first. All of them. Orange juice, cokes, Gatorade, everything.
Of course no candy.

That leaves you with 2 sources of sugar that I can think of at 5am. Alcohol and sauces for food. I use honey or agave to sweeten things and I use very little. Alcohol I haven't cut back except this month.

I eat more sodium than probably anyone. I appear high-strung to others. I drink a assload of caffeine. I eat meat mostly with some veggies. Lots of red meat. All of my bloodwork is good and has been for years. BP is excellent.

AgLiving06 said:

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How do you " ditch sugar?"

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I was reasonable in my approach by avoiding soda and desserts all together. Salad dressing and meat sauces such as bbq in my head was ok. That was easy. The bread thing was hard.

Drinking one glass of red wine every night will increase your HDL anywhere from 10-20%.

What about 2 glasses?

chipotle said:

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What about 2 glasses?

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Absolutely. Since we're friends that's what I drink every night. Health has never been better.

You'd need about 18 hours of cardio per day, or basically enough that you never have time to eat. Seriously though, exercise has no effect on cholesterol levels. It's all diet and genetics

ramblin_ag02 said:

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You'd need about 18 hours of cardio per day, or basically enough that you never have time to eat. Seriously though, exercise has no effect on cholesterol levels. It's all diet and genetics

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Diet and genetics have the biggest control over your LDL cholesterol. But exercise, particularly aerobic exercise, will definitely increase your HDL.

Exercise? Pfffft...going with the wine thing

There are studies that show that regular blood donation can help. Doesn't seem to be the case for me though.

I guess, but HDL has shown to be pretty irrelevant.

What about cheese? Does it have a significant impact on Cholesterol?

Dietary Cholesterol has shown to have little to no impact on your body's cholesterol.

Sugar is the culprit to almost every disease that is plaguing us today. (at least it seems that way to me)

Woods Ag said:

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Dietary Cholesterol has shown to have little to no impact on your body's cholesterol.

Sugar is the culprit to almost every disease that is plaguing us today. (at least it seems that way to me)

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That's not exactly true. There are certainly people whose dietary cholesterol intake has no effect on their blood levels. To my knowledge, none of those people have high cholesterol. Those people are lucky, rare, and have good genetics. For everyone else, intake of dietary cholesterol, saturated fats, and trans-fats causes a cholesterol increase. Data on this is pretty good and widespread. Now sugar causes increased triglycerides, and chronic high blood sugar causes insulin resistance. This has many secondary effects on metabolism including increase in cholesterol levels. So too much sugar is really bad, but that doesn't make dietary cholesterol and saturated fat good.

what i've read recently is that saturated fats and trans fats are what affects blood cholesterol. Dietary cholesterol seems to have little effect on blood cholesterol.

Fair enough. Dietary cholesterol and saturated fats tend to have the same sources, so most things I've seen tend to group them together. If you're trying to avoid saturated fats you'll end up avoiding cholesterol anyway, so the practical difference isn't much.

ramblin_ag02 said:

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Fair enough. Dietary cholesterol and saturated fats tend to have the same sources, so most things I've seen tend to group them together. If you're trying to avoid saturated fats you'll end up avoiding cholesterol anyway, so the practical difference isn't much.

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this is a good point, though there are some foods/exceptions like shrimp that are "high" in cholesterol, but have virtually no saturated fats.

I have almost zero intake of sugar and triglycerides are super low (68). My vitamin D is pretty low and I've read there may be a correlation between low Vitamin D and high ldl? Granted, my cardio has been almost non existent for a a few years as I've really just done weights so we will see what happens as I've really ramped up cardio since the new year

I am not an expert. That needs to be noted.

Several years back when I was determined to get fit again I did a lot of reading on health, food, etc. Most of the knowledge that I gained has been lost by the way side and I only have the takeaways that govern how I eat for the most part.

This article was written in 9/19 by healthline.com. I don't know who that is or their credibility, but it generally sums up what I remember from my research on the subject. It was the first thing that came up when I googled "impact on dietary cholesterol on cholesterol levels"

This determines that there is a segment (40% of the population) who are effected by dietary cholesterol. I made a mistake previously, as I normally preface my statements with "this is not the case for everyone, but most people." It is the same with salt. Salt doesn't cause heart issues for most people, but if you have heart disease or a history of heart disease in your family, it does. Is the 40% of the population in which dietary cholesterol effects their body's cholesterol the same people have issues with salt because of heart disease or a family history of heart disease? I willing to be they are related and would guess if you do not have a history of heart disease in your family and you yourself don't have heart disease then you are probably ok to eat all the dietary cholesterol you want.

https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/dietary-cholesterol-does-not-matter#effects

"The amount of cholesterol in your diet and the amount of cholesterol in your blood are very different things.
Although it may seem logical that eating cholesterol would raise blood cholesterol levels, it usually doesn't work that way.
The body tightly regulates the amount of cholesterol in the blood by controlling its production of cholesterol.
When your dietary intake of cholesterol goes down, your body makes more. When you eat greater amounts of cholesterol, your body makes less. Because of this, foods high in dietary cholesterol have very little impact on blood cholesterol levels in most people (9Trusted Source, 10Trusted Source, 11Trusted Source, 12Trusted Source).
However, in some people, high-cholesterol foods raise blood cholesterol levels. These people make up about 40% of the population and are often referred to as "hyperresponders." This tendency is considered to be genetic (13Trusted Source, 14Trusted Source).
Even though dietary cholesterol modestly increases LDL in these individuals, it does not seem to increase their risk of heart disease (15Trusted Source, 16Trusted Source).
This is because the general increase in LDL particles typically reflects an increase in large LDL particles not small, dense LDL. In fact, people who have mainly large LDL particles have a lower risk of heart disease (3Trusted Source)."

Sorry for the tangent and getting off topic.

So you eat no sugar and your cholesterol is still high? It may be genetic. You're now out of my league. I don't know how much cardio will help. I think a good weight lifting/resistance training program that continues to challenge you is the most efficient way to be healthy with some mix of cardio or HIIT.

I'll throw in my two cents. I'm 43, 6'01" and my weight hovers around 170 these days. I was an avid weight lifter for years (my weight was more in the 190 - 200 lb range), but started curtailing that a few years ago due to various long-standing injuries and general muscle tightness. I switched to yoga (multiple times a week), and that's really all I do these days. The last few years especially, my cholesterol has been excellent. As of last fall, my overall was 204 but breaks down as follows:

HDL 78
LDL 111
Triglycerides 77

Up until lately, I basically just ate whatever I wanted and just focused on how much I ate (as in not overeating). Unfortunately, my a1c was creeping up (first time that's ever happened), so I am making a concerted effort to get a lot more fruits and veggies (more fiber) and cutting back on the meat (saturated fat) and sugar.