High cholesterol levels are lowered by changes in dietary or food intake, exercise and with drugs.

There is much more advantage in changing your diet and exercising as a means to lower cholesterol than depending on drugs all the time.

Some people take drugs, gets the cholesterol levels lowered and after two to three months, the levels increase again. They then have to take the drugs again.

Those who are able to work hard to change their diet completely are able to lower and maintain normal cholesterol levels for life.

The difficult part is the ability to remain on a healthy eating diet plan for a long period. The choice is often yours to make; to eat well to keep the cholesterol down always or to eat any-how to allow the levels go up at will, and then reach for the drugs.

Also, think of the potential effects of these drugs on overall health and wellness; some of these drugs even cause diabetes. Think also of the potential harmful effect of cholesterol on your health and wellness; stroke, heart disease, among others.

Exercise is key Get some exercise throughout the week. Walking briskly 30 minutes three times to five times a week will help lower your cholesterol levels.

Seize little opportunities that come your way daily to exercise, for example; when going into a storey building, choose to climb the staircase rather than riding in the lift.

Choose food right Do not eat fatty meat. It is best to grill or smoke your meat to remove all fat from them before using it for stew or soup. Do not even fry that meat at all. Reduce amounts of fried foods that you take. Boil, grill and roast much more than frying.

Eat early in the morning if you wake up. The food should be taken before work starts. If you zoom into the day’s activities without food, you force your body to feed itself the energy it needs to move. The end result is high cholesterol. During the day, make it a point to respect good meal times. Eat lunch and eat supper early enough.

Cook healthy meals and send them along to your workplaces to eat as lunch and even supper. This will help you avoid buying food. Most of what you find at food joints will give you high blood cholesterol. So be careful. When you eat heavy meals on getting back home late, you are contributing to increasing your blood cholesterol levels.

Starchy and sugary foods also contribute to increasing certain components of the cholesterol profile. So over-reliance on breads, pastries, biscuits, soft drinks and fruit drinks are not a good thing.

Eat whole meal cereals, high fibre vegetables and complete healthy meals all day.

Eat fish fresh, grilled or steamed. Fried fish is also part of the fried foods that can increase your cholesterol levels.

Overheated oils in our normal stews and fried foods are very potent ingredients for cholesterol production. Asanka stews done without oil are the best for us all.

It is no longer just enough to remove the fat from your meat. You have to move a step further. That is grill or smoke the fresh meat dry of any fat before you use it for soup or stew. Removing visible fat does not make a piece of meat lean. There are tonnes of fat embedded in the muscular structure of meat, be it chicken, goat meat, or pork.

Grilling or smoking the meat dry does a lot of good. Do just that and do not forget to eat just a little piece of meat. Too much meat is bad. Talk to a dietician for a detailed diet plan that will help you lower your cholesterol because there are more you can be told and individual differences count.