Reconsider That Cheeseburger With High Saturated Fat
Speaking of cheeseburgers, if you’re like many Americans, you occasionally eat lunch from a fast food restaurant. But before you order that double cheeseburger, consider this: A McDonalds Big Mac has 10 g of saturated fat and a Wendy’s Classic Double With Everything has a whopping 20 g of saturated fat . You might want to hold the fries and the shake, or better yet, order a plain burger instead.
Healthy Cholesterol Numbers By Age
It’s not just about how much HDL a person has. There are several other measurements clinicians use to assess a person’s cholesterol and corresponding health risks.
Non-HDL levels are a person’s total cholesterol minus their HDL level. This is not, however, equal to a person’s LDL level. As mentioned, there are a few other types of cholesterol besides HDL and LDL. Though they play a more minor role in heart health, they are still important to measure when it comes to risk assessment. According to the Mayo Clinic, a non-HDL measurement appears to be a better risk predictor than simply measuring LDL levels.
Cholesterol is measured in milligrams per deciliter . The following are healthy cholesterol numbers by age for men and women, according to the U.S. National Library of Medicine:
Cholesterol Levels by Age Chart
Anyone age 19 and younger |
Men age 20 or older |
Women age 20 or older |
Total Cholesterol |
||
50 mg/dL or higher |
As you can see, the difference between healthy cholesterol levels for men and women over 20 years old comes down to HDL cholesterol: Women have a slightly higher range for healthy HDL.
Cholesterol levels do tend to increase as a person gets older. But healthy cholesterol levels remain the same.
Dietary Recommendations For Kids
The dietary recommendations for cholesterol are that you should keep your intake below 300 mg per day if you are healthy. You can keep an eye on your daily cholesterol intake by reading the nutrition labels on the foods you eat and by paying attention to portion control.
If you have high cholesterol levels, your MD will make special recommendations for your diet and daily cholesterol intake. A simple blood test at a doctors office can give either you or your child your blood cholesterol levels.
Donât Miss: Does Egg Beaters Have Yolk
Don’t Miss: Bananas Lower Cholesterol
What To Look For On Nutrition Labels
Nutrition labels on foods tell you how much of each nutrient or fat is in the item, based on the recommended serving size. The numbers and percentages are written for a 2,000 calorie/day diet. Youll find a label on the back of packaged, canned, or bottled items that says Nutrition Facts.
Heres how to read the label properly:
Not All Fats Are The Same
![How to Lose Belly Fat for Men How to Lose Belly Fat for Men](https://www.healthycholesterolclub.com/wp-content/uploads/how-to-lose-belly-fat-for-men-the-calories-in-your-favourite-foods.png)
All types of fat have the same amount of calories, but some fats are better than others. Unsaturated fats are healthy fats because they can help lower cholesterol and are good for heart health. They are liquid at room temperature and mostly come from plants.
- Monounsaturated fat is found in olive, peanut, and canola oil most nuts and avocados.
- Polyunsaturated fats are found in soybean, corn, and sunflower oils. Fish, walnuts, and flax seeds are high in healthy omega-3 polyunsaturated fats.
Saturated fat and trans fat raise blood cholesterol levels and increase a person’s chance of heart disease. Saturated and trans fats are solid at room temperature like butter, lard, and fat on meat. Saturated fats and trans fats are listed on food labels.
- Saturated fat comes mostly from animal products, but some plant oils, like palm oil and coconut oil, have saturated fat.
- Trans fata are often found in packaged baked goods, like pastries, cookies, and crackers, and fried foods. Partially hydrogenated vegetable oil is high in trans fats. Hydrogenation is a process that changes liquid oils into a solid form of fat by adding hydrogen. This helps food containing these fats keep for a long time without losing their flavor or going bad.
Read Also: Snow Crab Cholesterol
Calculating Your Fat Grams
The number of fat grams to include in your nutrition plan depends on your total daily calories. The Institute of Medicine of the National Academies recommends that 20 to 35 percent of your daily calories come from healthy fats. Keep in mind that this assumes you are not eating an excessive number of calories.
To calculate your daily fat grams, multiply the number of calories you consume daily by 20 and 35 percent. This calculation yields your target fat calorie range. For a man or woman on a 2,000-calorie diet, the target fat-calorie range is 400 to 700 calories. Fat contains nine calories per gram, so divide each number of the fat-calorie range by nine to determine your daily fat grams. For a 2,000-calorie per day diet, the recommended daily fat intake is 44 to 78 grams. The recommended daily fat amounts for 1,500-calorie and 2,500-calorie diets are 33 to 58 grams and 56 to 97 grams, respectively.
How Many Calories Should You Eat To Lose Weight
The number of calories that you need to lose weight depends on several factors.
To support sustainable weight loss, cut back on ultra-processed items like sugary beverages, , fast food, and high calorie snack foods. Furthermore, try increasing your physical activity.
A can help you determine your calorie needs and an appropriate calorie goal to support weight loss.
Read Also: Can Coffee Reduce Cholesterol
High Cholesterol Diet Guidelines
High cholesterol levels are often treated with a combination of prescription medication and diet and lifestyle changes. These healthy eating tips can help to lower your cholesterol to a safe level with or without the use of medication, depending on your individual needs. When you combine these basic high-cholesterol diet guidelines with other healthy lifestyle habits, like exercising daily, not smoking and drinking less alcohol, you’ll see your health improve and cholesterol levels return to a healthy range even faster.
Eat To Lower Your Cholesterol
Cholesterol isnt all bad news. Follow these tips to lower your cholesterol, the natural way.
Chances are, youve heard a thing or two about cholesterol. Having high blood cholesterol is a risk factor for developing heart disease.
But did you know that you can reduce your cholesterol level by making smart food choices? Its true!
Cholesterol clarified
Before we get to the details, lets be clear on what were talking about. For years, cholesterol has had a bad rep that it doesnt really deserve. The truth is, we need cholesterol to function. Your body makes most of the cholesterol it needs. The rest comes from foods you eat.
Heres the important thing: Dietary cholesterol found in meat, poultry, eggs and dairy products has less impact on increasing your blood cholesterol level. Foods that contain lots of saturated fat are the true culprits.
Now heres how to make nutritious choices to lower your blood cholesterol.
Keep eating simple
In the last 20 years, the rules on healthy eating have shifted. Super restrictive diets arent sustainable or the healthiest choice. Rather than zeroing in on a single nutrient, nutrition research shows the quality of your diet matters more. A diet filled with the right portions of whole, unprocessed foods can help decrease heart disease and stroke. What does that look like? For a healthy, balanced eating plan:
Cook at home
Choose more fibre
Each of these options will provide you with two grams:
- ½ ripe avocado
Read Also: Is White Rice High In Cholesterol
Putting Together A Low Cholesterol Diet
When it comes to investing money, experts recommend creating a portfolio of diverse investments instead of putting all your eggs in one basket. The same holds true for eating your way to lower cholesterol. Adding several foods to lower cholesterol in different ways should work better than focusing on one or two.
A largely vegetarian “dietary portfolio of cholesterol-lowering foods” substantially lowers LDL, triglycerides, and blood pressure. The key dietary components are plenty of fruits and vegetables, whole grains instead of highly refined ones, and protein mostly from plants. Add margarine enriched with plant sterols oats, barley, psyllium, okra, and eggplant, all rich in soluble fiber soy protein and whole almonds.
Of course, shifting to a cholesterol-lowering diet takes more attention than popping a daily statin. It means expanding the variety of foods you usually put in your shopping cart and getting used to new textures and flavors. But it’s a “natural” way to lower cholesterol, and it avoids the risk of muscle problems and other side effects that plague some people who take statins.
Just as important, a diet that is heavy on fruits, vegetables, beans, and nuts is good for the body in ways beyond lowering cholesterol. It keeps blood pressure in check. It helps arteries stay flexible and responsive. It’s good for bones and digestive health, for vision and mental health.
Opt For Skinless Chicken
Although chicken is usually considered to be a good low-fat meat choice, how you cook it and serve it makes all the difference. For example, one chicken leg with the skin still on has more fat and saturated fat than a hamburger. Remember that removing the skin will help reduce the overall fat content, King says. Indulge in a fried chicken leg once in a while and stick to the grilled or baked chicken.
If you leave the skin on poultry or bread and deep-fry it, you turn it into an unhealthy, cholesterol-spiking food. Also, remember that dark poultry meat has more fat than white meat. When making chicken choices, opt for skinless and skip the dark meat.
Don’t Miss: Does Black Coffee Affect Cholesterol
Easy Guide To Understanding Food Labels When You Have High Cholesterol
Diet is an area that significantly impact your blood cholesterol. A nutritionally balanced diet while keeping minimal intake of saturated fat, trans fat and cholesterol is recommended for all. Generally, people eat enough of these and for some, even too much.
Consuming a diet that has too much saturated fat and trans fat increase your risk of chronic diseases like heart disease, high cholesterol and some cancers.
Food labels tell you what is in the food and drinks you are consuming. Every packaged and processed product should have a food label to help you determine its nutrition content. The food labels can help you sieve through misleading claims, shop faster and make better food choices to lower your cholesterol levels. Today, some restaurants even have nutrition information available on their menus.
Shrimp Is High In Cholesterol But Its Important To Look At Your Overall Diet
![Calories in Different Parts of the Chicken Calories in Different Parts of the Chicken](https://www.healthycholesterolclub.com/wp-content/uploads/calories-in-different-parts-of-the-chicken-cheat-day-design.jpeg)
You are right, shrimp is a low-fat, lower-calorie source of protein. Three ounces of cooked shrimp has 19 grams of protein, 1.4 grams of total fat and 100 calories. Whats more, less than half a gram of its fat comes from saturated fat, the type that raises blood cholesterol. Shrimp is certainly lower in fat and calories than lean beef: Three ounces contains 31 grams of protein, eight grams of total fat, and 3.2 grams of saturated fat. Even skinless chicken breast has a little more fat than shrimp.
Is shrimp high in cholesterol?
But your friend is right, too. Shrimp is high in cholesterol three ounces has 179 milligrams. A similar serving of lean beef or chicken has 75 milligrams, less than half the amount. Cholesterol is important. Its needed to synthesize significant hormones and vitamin D. It is also used to make bile acids, which help digest the fat in meals. But the body can make all the cholesterol it needs on its own. Thats why, unlike vitamins and minerals, there is no daily requirement for cholesterol.
Its also important to know that the rest of your diet matters too. If you follow a diet low in saturated fat and high in fibre, dietary cholesterol has a lesser impact on your LDL cholesterol level.
Leslie Beck, a Toronto-based private practice dietitian, is director of food and nutrition at Medcan. Follow her on Twitter
for the weekly Health & Wellness newsletter for the latest news and advice.
Read Also: Are Pork Chops Heart-healthy
Understanding The Amounts Of Cholesterol And Fats Found In Foods
Here are some examples of foods and approximately how much cholesterol and fats you can find in each:
Food | |
1/4 lb. 95% lean ground beef | 70 mg |
1/4 lb. 70% lean ground beef | 88 mg |
6 oz. skinless chicken breast | 124 mg |
1 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil | 0 mg |
1 cup vanilla ice cream | 58 mg |
0 g | 28.1 g |
All of the above values come from the USDAs National Nutrient Database. These are just some examples of the relative amounts of cholesterol and fats found in your food.
Tips
- Pay attention to the saturated and trans fats on your food labels, as well as added sugars. The less of these you consume, the better. No more than 10 percent of your daily calories should come from either saturated fats or added sugars.
- Dont worry about eating enough cholesterol. Your body makes enough whether or not you consume it.
- Eat more healthy, unsaturated fats. Try replacing butter with extra virgin olive oil in cooking, buy lean cuts of meat, and snack on nuts and seeds instead of french fries or processed snack foods.
Understanding Calories In Fat
Many of us keep our eyes on the number of calories and fat grams there are in an ingredient or dish. But it is also important to know how many calories there are in a gram of fat. If you are watching your weight or trying to shed some pounds, only cutting calories may not do the trick if there is a decent amount of fat present in the food you are eating.
Each gram of fat contains nine calories, which is more than double what is found in protein and carbohydrates. In addition to reading labels carefully, understanding exactly what a calorie is will help you make better eating choices.
Recommended Reading: Do Ritz Crackers Have Fiber
Stay On Track With Healthy Eating
Everybody and every body is different, so each persons nutritional needs are different. Gainful wants to help you with tracking your calories and macronutrients and tailoring your diet to your unique set of goals.
Our protein powder blends are made with you in mind. Each low-calorie formula is created with ingredients in the perfect amounts for your body, so you never have to second guess each scoop. If you have completed the quiz at Gainful.com, you will be able to check out the full nutrition facts, calories and ingredients breakdown for your personalized blend by logging into your account on the Gainful website. Most blends contain a little over 100 calories, usually between 110 and 130 calories.
Dont forget: Each subscriber has unlimited access to a personal Registered Dietitian, who is there to answer any lingering questions you may have about calories, nutrition labels or anything related to your diet.
Never hesitate to reach out. We are here to take the guesswork out of calorie counting and tracking macronutrients.
Dont Miss: Is White Rice High In Cholesterol
Look For Higher Monounsaturated Fat And Omega
Dietary guidelines from various countries are recommending that monounsaturated fats, when eaten in moderation, and consumed in place of saturated or trans fat, can have a beneficial effect in reducing total and LDL cholesterol levels in the blood.
Omega-3 is an essential fatty acids that offer unique benefits to heart health and can only be obtained from diet. Omega-3 fatty acids reduce blood clotting in arteries and protects against hardening of the arteries. Good sources of this include oily fish, walnut and chia seeds.
Also Check: Mussels High In Cholesterol
Choose Products With Higher Dietary Fibre And Wholegrains
Whether you are trying to lose weight or lower your cholesterol, dietary fibre is your best friend. Eating a diet high in dietary fibre can help to regulate your digestive system, lower your cholesterol, stabilise blood sugar levels, and reduce your calorie intake.
Including wholegrains such as brown rice, wholemeal bread and oats, as well as nuts, seeds, mushrooms, beans in canned or dried forms, and fruits and vegetables in frozen or canned forms in your diet will help to lower blood cholesterol levels.
These foods are good sources of soluble fibre which bind to cholesterol, reduce its absorption and excreted in the stools. These foods are also rich in phytochemicals, vitamins and minerals working together in our body to reduce our risk of heart disease and other chronic diseases.
Many products, such as the one above, claim to be wholegrain or wholemeal but the first ingredient in the list is often wheat flour, which is actually refined flour. Check that WHOLE grains, WHOLE wheat, wholemeal are the first or second ingredient listed for the real wholegrain deal. Unbleached flour, enriched high protein wheat flour are all refined flours.
That said, note that Healthier Choice Symbol with higher in wholegrains claim may be awarded to this product as it does contain 20% more wholegrain than the regular version of a similar product. This is why checking the ingredient list is so important dont be tricked by product name or claims!
How Many Calories In A Gram Of Alcohol
Alcohol contains quite a lot of calories 7 calories per gram. The amount of alcohol consumed in grams may not be possible to find on the label, but, dont worry, there is an easy way to calculate it using the information provided on every product! Our grams to calories calculator uses the formula below to do it for you:
alcohol = volume * alcohol by volume * volumetric mass density
The last variable is constant and equals 0.78924 g/mL for alcohol, so we can also present the equation as follows:
alcohol = volume * alcohol by volume * 0.78924
Recommended Reading: Is Tuna Bad For Cholesterol