Guide to Lowering Cholesterol with Therapeutic Lifestyle Changes (TLC)

Our heart is one of the organs that is very crucial for our life. The main function of the heart is to pump oxygenated blood to all the body parts and bring the deoxygenated blood back to the lung. Without heart, our body cells will be deprived of oxygen and cannot function normally, resulting in systemic failure. So, it is very important to take care of your heart. Unfortunately, our heart is also one of the most vulnerable organs. 

This is why we can see that there are a lot of heart-related diseases such as angina, heart attack and cardiac failure happening around us. In order to make sure that your heart is always in top condition, you must implement some ways to take care of your heart health. One of the things that you can practice here is called Therapeutic Lifestyle Changes (TLC). TLC was created by the National Institute of Health’s National Education Program. Their goal is to lower the amount of cholesterol inside the body, hence reducing the rate of heart disease. So, what is the content of Therapeutic Lifestyle Changes (TLC)? Continue reading this article to gain knowledge about TLC and start to implement it. TLC contains three main structure:

1. Eat a low cholesterol diet.

 The first thing that you need to do in order to lower down cholesterol intake is by implementing a healthy diet in your lifestyle changes. You need to start eating foods that contain low levels of bad cholesterol such as avocado, sunflower oil, olive oil, oily fish such as tuna or sardine. Besides that, you also need to stop eating unhealthy food especially those that contain a lot of salt and cholesterol such as junk food, fast food and low nutrition food. Consider taking a lot of vegetables and also fruits because these two food categories contain a lot of nutrition and vitamins that are very essential for your body. Obviously, cutting down on sugary food and carbonated drinks will always be very helpful since they contain a lot of sugar.

2. Try to be more active

The rate of getting heart diseases will not decrease if you depend solely on diet. Diet alone will not be able to help you achieve a healthy lifestyle. If you are committed to taking care of your heart health, the TLC recommended that you start to be more active. You need to start doing some physical exercise and let your body sweat. Nowadays, it is pretty easy to choose an exercise that suits you because there are a lot of types to choose from. You can try jogging, running, swimming, hiking, cycling and also hitting the gym. Try choosing one that is suitable with your timetable and stick with it. It is recommended to exercise 5 times per week in order to gain your desired impact.

3. Focus more on weight management

Weight plays a main role in determining whether someone is fit or unfit. In order to achieve a normal body weight, you need to know your Body Mass Index (BMI) reading. BMI is the most important thing that you need to take care of. If your BMI is more than 40, it probably means that you are obese. So, you need to cut down your weight by using the two methods that were discussed above. You need to regularly monitor your weight and BMI so that it does not go too high or too low. Yes, a low BMI is also a problem because it shows you are not receiving enough nutrition. So, please aim for the normal BMI.

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