You may not feel anything unusual in your body, but your cholesterol and blood lipid levels change silently every day, directly affecting your cardiovascular health without you knowing. When your bad cholesterol (LDL) ratio increases or your triglycerides exceed the limit, your blood vessels begin to accumulate fat, increasing the risk of blockages, high blood pressure and cardiovascular complications.
The problem is, these changes often have no obvious symptoms until the consequences become serious. Therefore, early adjustment is the smart way to protect your body from potential risks. Without complicated methods or extreme abstinence, you can still control your blood lipid indexes well with simple but effective strategies.
What is the most effective strategy to improve Cholesterol and Lipid ratio?
Here are 9 extremely effective strategies:
1. Anti-Inflammatory Diet
One of the best strategies for improving cholesterol and lipid ratios is to adopt an anti-inflammatory diet. An anti-inflammatory diet eliminates inflammatory foods and includes organic, non-GMO fruits and vegetables, healthy fats, and clean proteins.
This diet reduces inflammation, stabilizes blood sugar, reduces toxic load, provides essential nutrients, and supports healthy blood pH levels.
1.1. Foods to Eliminate
The foods to eliminate in an anti-inflammatory diet are those that are known to cause inflammation. These include refined sugars and grains, food additives and preservatives, genetically modified foods (GMOs), foods containing pesticides, and toxic impurities.
Other foods to avoid include conventionally raised meat and dairy, farmed fish, processed foods, hydrogenated fats, and highly processed vegetable oils, such as canola, grapeseed, and safflower oils. These foods increase inflammation, create more acid in tissues, and contribute to poor cholesterol and lipid profiles.
1.2. Foods to Include
The foods you should eat on an anti-inflammatory diet are whole, unprocessed foods. Always choose grass-fed poultry, wild-caught fish, and free-range eggs. Eat a variety of colorful, low-carb, low-glycemic fruits and vegetables.
Fruits and vegetables are rich in antioxidants and phytonutrients. Antioxidants can slow or inhibit the oxidation of LDL, which leads to plaque buildup on artery walls, damage to the lining of blood vessels, and heart disease. Great choices include vegetables like broccoli, cucumbers, asparagus, and leafy greens. Low-glycemic fruits include berries, lemons, grapefruit, and Granny Smith apples.
2. Intermittent Fasting
Intermittent fasting is a great strategy for improving cholesterol levels. In addition to supporting digestive healing, intermittent fasting also boosts the immune system, stimulates cellular autophagy, improves gene repair, improves insulin sensitivity, and reduces the risk of chronic disease.
Start with a simple 12-hour fast for 1-2 weeks and see how your body responds. This short fast is basically from dinner to breakfast the next day. You can increase the fasting time as your body gets used to fasting at certain times of the day.
3. Exercise regularly
Regular exercise is beneficial for improving cholesterol levels. Moderate aerobic exercise, resistance training, and high-intensity interval training (HIIT) can help increase HDL cholesterol while lowering LDL and triglycerides.
Try doing one of these exercises most days of the week and increase your activity each day. In addition to improving cholesterol, exercise can also boost energy, burn fat, help you lose weight, and build muscle.
Quality fats are an important part of an anti-inflammatory diet. Healthy fats are found in coconut, olives, avocados, and their oils, as well as butter and ghee from grass-fed animals. Omega-3 fatty acids and conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) are found in wild-caught salmon, grass-fed beef, and dairy products. These healthy fats are effective fuel for fighting inflammation and maintaining healthy cholesterol levels.
Studies have found that a high-fat diet is associated with a significant increase in LDL particle size and a significant decrease in the proportion of small LDL particles. This can occur after just three days of following a high-fat, low-carb diet. HDL cholesterol can also increase significantly when following a high-fat, low-carb diet
4. Pay attention to food allergens
About 45-75% of the population has food allergies. It is important to identify any food allergens and eliminate them from your diet for a period of time.
Food allergies can be difficult to detect. This is because food allergy symptoms often appear up to 72 hours after consuming the offending food.
5. Support Thyroid Health
Optimal thyroid function is important for healthy cholesterol levels. There are many strategies you can incorporate to promote thyroid health.
Supporting the liver and digestive system, managing stress, and eliminating inflammatory foods can be helpful in improving thyroid function. Supplementing with nutrients specific to thyroid health is also important. Selenium, iodine, zinc, vitamin C, bioflavonoids, vitamin D3, and vitamin K2 are all beneficial for thyroid health. In some cases, taking a specific thyroid hormone medication or supplement that contains thyroid active ingredients may be helpful.
6. Reduce Stress
It is important to take daily steps to reduce stress in your life. Stress can be physical (such as infection) and emotional.
Adopting an anti-inflammatory, healing diet and balancing blood sugar are two effective strategies for reducing stress on the body. Other effective techniques include grounding, deep breathing exercises, sun exposure, Epsom salt baths, and dry brushing.
7. Get regular sun exposure
Sunlight activates cholesterol to make vitamin D. Regular sun exposure can help improve cholesterol levels.
In areas with adequate UVB rays, several factors need to be considered to determine the appropriate amount of sun exposure. These factors include the amount of skin exposed, skin color, and UV intensity.
If 60% of your body is exposed to sunlight, ideally you should get 10,000 to 20,000 IU of vitamin D3 from sunlight.
Be proactive and get at least 3 times a week of sun exposure, following these recommendations based on your skin tone:
- Light skin = 15-20 minutes per day
- Medium skin = 25-30 minutes per day
- Dark skin = 40-45 minutes per day
8. Optimize your sleep habits
Practicing good sleep habits and addressing sleep apnea are important strategies for improving cholesterol levels. Diet is important for good sleep. Adopting an anti-inflammatory diet can help balance blood sugar and correct nutrient deficiencies.
Other strategies for better sleep include sticking to a sleep schedule, getting sunlight during the day, avoiding artificial light, blocking out your room with blackout curtains, using a sleep mask, and reducing stress. Magnesium supplements, such as Brain Calm Magnesium, may also be helpful.
Strategies to improve sleep apnea include losing excess weight, exercising regularly with resistance and high-intensity exercises, increasing omega-3 intake, optimizing vitamin D and magnesium intake, performing mouth, throat and breathing strengthening exercises, practicing nasal breathing, and changing sleeping positions from lying on your back to lying on your side.
9. Support Liver Health and Bile Flow
The liver plays a central role in regulating cholesterol in the body. It is important that the liver functions optimally to maintain healthy cholesterol levels.
Consuming liver-friendly foods such as liver from organic, pasture-raised animals, cruciferous vegetables, beets, and eggs is important to support the liver. Other strategies for liver health include improving gut health, staying hydrated, intermittent fasting, and applying castor oil compresses.
Good bile flow is also important in regulating cholesterol levels. Bile is a digestive fluid that emulsifies fats and creates fatty acids that the body can absorb and use.
Supporting liver function, gallbladder health, bile flow formation, and bile duct motility are important for good bile flow.
