Everything you know about cholesterol is not true!

I wanted to address this topic because there’s so much confusion surrounding it.  Just like with many other food related items we are told something is good, then it’s bad, then it’s good again, oh wait it’s bad now, or is it good again?  This results in most of us not making the best choices because we just don’t know what the truth is anymore.

Let me offer my humble opinion on this subject.  After years of research and self experimenting, I believe I can shed some light on this very complicated and important issue that touches all of us.

First of all, please don’t freak out when the doctor tells you that you have high cholesterol.  It doesn’t mean anything unless it’s clogging your arteries.  Just because you have high cholesterol, there no proof, literally zero, that it causes actual harm.  The medical community just wants to push drugs on you that will actually do a lot more harm than good.  There have been many adverse complications and, as a result lawsuits, against cholesterol lowering drugs because they have caused horrible and irreparable damages that people now have to live with.  And it was all for nothing because there’s no benefit in simply lowering the number.  You need to understand what is actually happening to your body.

Here’s the irony of the whole thing.  You are told that if you have high cholesterol, you need to limit foods that have cholesterol in them.  But the opposite is true.  Your body produces cholesterol from food, so cholesterol in the food does not translate into cholesterol in your body.  Since your body makes cholesterol, when you introduce foods that have a high amount of it, say eggs, it signals to your body to produce less cholesterol since you already have enough.

Now, some foods actually make your body produce more cholesterol and those are the ones you need to limit or avoid.  But it’s not what you think.  Again, foods with cholesterol are not the ones increasing your body’s cholesterol.  Products that fall under the refined white category(simple carbs) do.  That would be white rice,  breads and pastas.  These actually make your cholesterol sky rocket which is why I would strongly recommend that people with dangerously high levels of cholesterol stay away from those products as much as possible.

So, now let’s talk about what foods can help manage your cholesterol by keeping your arteries from build-up.  The best foods for that are what we call “good fats”.  Foods like olive oil, avocados, fish, and nuts have amazing properties which actually push “bad fats” out and scrub your arteries so that cholesterol doesn’t stick to them.  As a side note, “good fats” also tend to keep us full longer, and therefore, they are amazing for weight loss.

So, to recap, cholesterol is not the bad guy here.  It only becomes bad when it starts to build up on the walls of your arteries.  To remedy that, cut down on simple carbs like breads and pastas, and instead, add “good fats” to your diet.  You will feel fuller, more satisfied, and a whole lot healthier.  Oh, and you will lose weight too.  But who cares about that, right?