​High cholesterol is one of the most common chronic health problems that can lead to several MORE serious issues. There are several different medications that can be prescribed to help lower cholesterol and while these medications are important, it’s also important to change your lifestyle and prevent yourself from needing them in the first place.









Side effects of cholesterol lowering medications called Statins (HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors) include:

• Muscle soreness/wasting
• Impaired muscle growth
• Rhabdomyolysis (severe muscle damage that can harm your kidneys)
• Liver injury
• Dizziness
• Nausea
• GI upset, excessive gas
• Lower sex hormone binding globulin (SHBG)
• Lower testosterone

My point in sharing these side effects is to bring awareness to the potential harm caused by these medications. Yes- they save you from heart attacks, strokes and other vascular emergencies so usually benefit outweighs the risk of taking them BUT what if you could delay or prevent your cholesterol from being high enough to need cholesterol lowering medication?!
There are several things you can do to help lower your cholesterol:

1. Eat healthy fats. These healthy fats help your body clear out the inflammatory fats. Olive oil, nuts, nut butters, flaxseeds, fish, Omega supplements, avocado, chia seeds and dark chocolate are all examples of foods with healthy fats.
2. Avoid high sugar/high carbohydrate foods. Many think their hamburgers and fried chicken are the foods causing their high cholesterol. While these do contribute to high cholesterol sweet treats, baked goods and other high carbohydrate foods may be contributing just as much. The high carbohydrate/high sugar foods also contribute to insulin resistance and can further increase your risk for vascular disease.
3. Exercise! In about 3-6 months of consistent exercise you’ll see lowering in your bad cholesterol levels. You need 150 minutes of moderately intense exercise per week. Exercise also helps you control other things like insulin resistance (diabetes) and high blood pressure.
4. Eat fiber. Your body uses fiber to bind to unhealthy cholesterol and remove it from the body via your bowels. Without fiber, less cholesterol can be eliminated. Aim to get at least 25g of fiber per day.
5. Achieve and maintain a healthy weight. If you’re in the process of losing weight when you get your cholesterol rechecked, don’t be alarmed if your cholesterol is the same or slightly higher. This is a common finding and could be a result of your body using your fat stores for energy. This is a transient change and you’ll soon have a decrease in cholesterol. Losing 5-10% of your body weight can have a big impact on your cholesterol.

(If you have normal weight, making sure you’re not eating too many calories will help prevent your body from making fat to be stored and thereby decrease your cholesterol.)

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If you’re needing to reduce your cholesterol or risk for heart disease and stroke, pick one of the five listed ways to decrease your cholesterol and start implementing changes to make it part of your daily life. Make a SMART goal about the item you choose. For example- I will eat 25g of fiber a day by eating 5 servings of vegetables a day and using acacia fiber for the next two weeks.
Once you get one item down, move on to the next until you have all five of these as part of your lifestyle. You’re much more likely to succeed at lifestyle changes when you have someone holding you accountable and encouraging you along the way. Find a friend that wants to make the same changes or hire a health coach to exponentially improve your chances of making permanent changes to your lifestyle. 

It's Valentine's Day during heart health month so there's no better time to share with you some practical things you can do to prevent heart disease. Heart disease runs in my family so prevention is a pretty big deal to me and it should be to you too. 

10 WAYS TO PREVENT HEART DISEASE-
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1. Maintain healthy weight (especially avoid fat around your belly)
2. Exercise regularly
3. Don't smoke
4. Decrease how much sugar you eat
5. Sleep
6. Manage your stress in healthy ways
7. Eat healthy fats
8. Visit your doctor for regular check ups and don't allow things like diabetes and high blood pressure to go untreated
9. Eat more fruits and vegetables
10. Laugh more

Pick three things you can start doing on a regular basis to begin protecting your heart from disease. 

Happy Valentine's Day!  <3 

Let's discuss one of the most important organs of our body that we generally ignore until it's a problem. It's like ignoring the engine in our car until it breaks down. Our heart's need some basic maintenance to keep optimally functioning so it can go as many miles as possible. 
First and one of the more obvious things we need to do to help maintain heart health is exercise. The heart is like any other muscle. It needs to be stressed in order to grow and maintain it's ability to contract. 
Second, we need to feed it food that's good for the heart. High fat high heat (think fried foods) cause inflammation in the heart and vessels in your body. But the opposite is true- eating healthy whole foods like raw fruits and vegetables provide great protection and nourishment to the heart muscle.
Third, we need to know our numbers. There are some genetics that will put you at risk for heart disease. There are other health problems like high cholesterol, diabetes, prior heart attack or stroke and issues with your blood vessels in your arms and legs that increase your risk of heart disease. 
You should start maintaining your heart NOW. Once you develop heart disease or health problem like diabetes, high blood pressure or high cholesterol you then have to do even more work to reverse the negative impact those disease have on your heart. 
How many miles do you want your body to go? You can't expect the engine that gets you there to maintain itself. What are you going to change this week to help your heart health?