Greetings and Question - High Cholesterol Message Board

klook · 09-06-2002, 09:01 AM

Hello,
I'm a new member, male and aged 48. Glad to see all the useful info about heart health and cholesterol. Three months ago I had a cholesterol screening. Here are my ratings:
240 - overall
161 - LDL
55 - HDL

The doc advised me to exercise more and keep eating a low-fat diet. (I'm mostly a vegetarian, but I was allowing myself several high-fat treats per week, plus coffee. I've cut out both since then and am exercising moderately--brisk walks and exercise bike--a few times a week.)

I'm going for a re-check on 9/11 (easy to remember that appointment date, unfortunately). My concern is that for my birthday on Monday at work, my boss is bringing in quiche! Do you think eating a slice two days before my cholesterol screening will elevate my readings too much? (I realize from what I've read that saturated fat is more the issue than dietary cholesterol intake.)

Thanks,
klook

Magpiezoe · 09-06-2002, 12:07 PM

Hello, I think the quiche might skew the test results. What you can do is to make sure everything else you eat that day is fat-free or very low-fat. Don't forget to fast 12 hours before your cholesterol test. As far as being vegetarian and allowing a few high fat items per week...is it saturated fat like in dairy products and eggs? You might want to get out a food diary and mark down what you eat each day for 1-2 weeks and figure out the cal. and total fat. You need to figure out the cal. so you can see if you're really eatting low fat or not. There are a lot of hidden fats out there and a food diary will help you find them. When I first started my food diary, I thought I ate low-fat too until I figured it out. My hidden fat was in eatting too much low-fat cheese, nuts, and too much Chinese take-out. (The Chinese take-out was tofu and vegetables, but they are still cooked in a lot of oil...making it just as bad as a cheese burger.)

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Magpie

klook · 09-06-2002, 12:55 PM

Thanks for the insights, Magpie. I'll do as you suggest and pay special attention to my fat intake over the next few days before my test--excluding the birthday quiche, of which I'll eat only a very thin sliver.

The junk foods I used to eat were candy bars, high-fat potato chips, French fries, and pizza. Also the occasional donut or piece of cake, and Thai Chicken Tom Kha soup (with a deadly coconut milk broth) was one of my favorites.

I've been eating nonfat yogurt and drinking skim milk exclusively for the past couple of years, so that was already in place when I got my high score. But I've given up all those other "treats" as well. Now I literally look at donuts or cake not as treats but as poison. (I don't get strident about it, I just politely decline.)

Now for snacks I eat apples, carrots, baked chips, low-fat Almondina biscuits, pretzels, peanuts, peanut butter (made from just peanuts with no hydrogenated vegetable oil), nonfat salsa, etc.

When my cholesterol was checked in May, I had been on a vacation a couple of weeks before with some gourmet friends, which involved consuming lots of fat every day. Also, earlier in the year I was almost completely sedentary for a couple of months with a broken ankle.

So I'm hoping that my better dietary and exercise habits in the past three months will pay off in lower cholesterol numbers. I'm fortunate that my HDL is in the good range and my blood pressure is low. My ratio of total chol. to HDL was about 4.5 in May. My weight is supposedly average for my height (180, 5-11), and my blood pressure is excellent. And I haven't smoked in more than 25 years.

I do have a family history of heart disease, so that's a big reason for being so careful. My paternal grandfather had angina for many years and died of a heart attack in his 70s. My father has had an angioplasty and heart bypass surgery and takes meds to keep his cholesterol down. I want to be healthy without medication.

--Klook

phja · 09-06-2002, 01:38 PM

magpie ...... i also eeat tofu &vegggies from chinese. is the oil used saturated or did you mean they just use alot of oil.thanks

Magpiezoe · 09-06-2002, 02:16 PM

Hello, A lot of Chinese restaurants use corn oil or peanut oil. I'm the type of person that just doesn't trust oil; eventhough, olive and canola oil is good for you. I don't indulge in it. Just enough to keep the food from sticking is all I'll use, if I use any oil. I have found that some of the vegetable sprays are just plain olive oil and propellant. You can even buy a Miso to put olive oil or canola oil in so you can just mist your cookware with it when cooking. I feel that too much of a good thing can be bad too. There's fat in the tofu; although, it is not considered saturated. I eat peanuts too, but only a sparce hand full on salad. (Less than 1/4 c.) I broil everything. The other thing is that a lot of Chinese restaurants use MSG, which isn't good for blood pressure or migranes. I know I have to watch the bad fat, but I have to watch total fat too. I just try to eat the good instead. (Ex.: If I eat some nuts or tofu, I won't eat any eggs, fish, or meat.) I try to keep the protein portion, which is the food group that has the highest amount of fat, to 1-2 servings per day. I hope this helps.

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Magpie