I recently had some routine blood work done and… the results were startling. It turns out, my cholesterol was through the roof.

this-was-my-wake-up-call

This Was My Wake-Up Call

doctors are notoriously bad patients and I fall into that category headstrong and recently I went for my checkup and found out something really bad about my health and I want to share that with you I've been kind of slacking on my health over the last year and a half I'd like to blame the pandemic and that's certainly been a part of it but a lot of it has also come from the fact that I've been a little bit lazy and I've been slacking and that's okay but when push comes to shove we have to take care of our health but I knew for me it was time to get a checkup get my blood work done figure out what my risk factors were and this is a really important teaching Point here because you don't need to get blood work done all the time it's about knowing the right intervals of when to get your blood checked that's why it's so important to have a family medicine doctor to guide you on when you should be getting your cholesterol checked when you should get your sugar checked blood work has to be ordered with a purpose because we treat the patient not the lab value in fact when you get blood work done too often that increases the rate of medical error because something could be off just in that given moment and it really confuses and muddles the picture not to mention the health care spending that comes with that for me one of the tests I needed to order especially knowing how poor my diet has been over the last year I needed to check my cholesterol I didn't expect this at all my cholesterol is through the roof in fact it was getting to be at such a high level that it was almost falling into the category of you can't get it this high with just the diet we need to check if you have a familial Gene for hypercholesterolemia if I had a patient my age walk in with that cholesterol I would have a very serious conversation about genetic testing my number my LDL cholesterol was 185 getting into the 190s is like potentially have a heart attack at age 40 with no symptoms bad and I don't want to have a heart attack I don't want to die it was a brutal wake-up call for me the general goal is we want to get the LDL cholesterol below 100. so in going back to see what I was doing I realized I developed some really bad habits and they're bad habits that I want to highlight with you today because it goes to argue the point that weight is not the single determinant of your health status I was not eating a lot of calories during the day therefore my weight was okay but my cholesterol markers were terrible because of the type of foods I was consuming here's how a typical day went I would wake up not eat anything I'm a big fan of intermittent fasting don't have much of an appetite in the morning so then I would continue along with my day till lunchtime where I would have a salad and then came dinner time I was still working because I work really late hours where it would be like 10 11 12 a.m and I'm done with work but I'm starving and I worked out in the morning so I burned like 800 calories I need to consume some serious calories right now in order to not lose weight and keep some muscle on so what I ended up doing was binge eating late at night really low quality foods an extra cheese pizza with pepperoni on it I would take it to the face a cheeseburger a double cheeseburger nuggets or some kind of like crispy shrimps so for the day I only consume like 22 2300 calories burned 800 in the morning I was good my body was looking great like my six-pack started even coming in but my cholesterol levels were quietly going through the roof because I was consuming a lot of saturated fat a lot of fried foods unhealthy Foods a lot of red meat giant steak like it was way too much red meat because I need someone to be objective I reached out to my good friend Dr Danielle belardo who's a well-trained cardiologist knows everything about cholesterol and low wearing cholesterol and I knew she could be of help LDL cholesterol is the actual most important cholesterol that we look at with regards to cardiac risk even though I think you may have possibly some genetic components of high cholesterol I do think that there's a lot you can do to reduce your LDL with diet significantly Dr belardo gave me three tips on how to lower my LDL cholesterol from least to most important that I follow third is to decrease dietary cholesterol reducing the amount of any sort of kind of processed foods junk Foods refined carbohydrates that can make a huge difference second is to bump up my fiber intake to about 60 grams of fiber per day not an easy task fiber only exists in plants and so by eating more plant-based Foods whether it be fruits vegetables whole grains legumes this can help reduce your cholesterol as well and your LDL specifically and first and most important is to decrease my saturated fat consumption saturate fat we can see in both animal products and plant products for example coconut oil is really high in saturated fat can raise your LDL so dropping a saturated fat by cutting back on red meat butter bacon cheese or high fat Dairy that can make a huge difference too I was primarily now getting my protein sources from fish as the number one source plants like beans and then chicken those are like my three primary sources of protein when it comes to the second point of increasing fiber that was probably the hardest Not only was my GI system kind of a mess like I was bloated having some flatulence issues once my body adjusted to the huge jump in fiber content I started feeling a lot better and I became more regular and all that improved but how did I get there first I started are having to take a fiber supplement the reality though is even when you take a fiber supplement twice a day you're only increasing your fiber intake by like five or six grams so I still had to find other ways to get my fiber in the best way that I found to get my fiber in was through black beans and I like Black beans I think they taste great they have some protein and the fiber content is amazing there's ways you can pick Bean foods that aren't actually beans there's ways to make your pasta to be legume based you drastically increase the amount of fiber you're consuming I also found some Fiber to go bars protein bar that had some fiber in them that was also plant-based I got some freeze-dried blueberries and raspberries which have a great amount of fiber in them over the next month because it's been about a month now following this I will say certain changes became visible quickly first I actually lost 10 to like 12 pounds I wasn't intending to lose the weight but I was and I was starting to look and feel better I feel more energized when I wake up in the mornings my stomach isn't as bloated I don't feel as full like nasty full throughout the day but it's also made a big difference in how I perform in everyday tasks in life but the benefit that I'm doing for my health by eating this way is huge the raspberries and blueberries I'm eating don't just have fiber they have vitamins and minerals in them the beans that I'm consuming are good for my heart there's so much other added value in eating this way that goes just past the cholesterol Point like it really woke me up to the mistakes that I was making in my dietary habits and this goes to show two things one that just because you're a doctor you're an expert in something doesn't mean you're always making the right choices for yourselves doctors are probably the biggest Hypocrites and second that despite being at a healthy weight and having nearly a six-pack I was unhealthy our health goes past our weight all right it's been a couple of days I got my test results back I needed to see that my total cholesterol would go down and by changing my lifestyle I know that if my total cholesterol goes down it's because the LDL went down which is the bad cholesterol and it worked my total cholesterol number totally went down and it went down significantly in just five short weeks initially my total cholesterol 265. now 217. if I checked this three months later it'd probably be even below 200 which is ideally where we want it to be so now I have to keep my cholesterol low and healthy by continuing this lifestyle that doesn't mean I won't occasionally indulge in some pizza or burgers or like chicken nuggets or something but I've learned to love fiber rich foods I've learned to incorporate more plant-based Foods in my diet and frankly I feel like my palette has evolved it's like a Pokemon now you know my cholesterol score but do you know my sister click here for a special video about us as always stay happy and healthy [Music]

Dr.

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