Cholesterol - What All Those Numbers Mean

So you get your cholesterol checked (by the way, you should be doing this every year or every other year or, if you have abnormal numbers, as often as your doctor recommends) and get confused as to what exactly those numbers mean.

Well here’s a breakdown:

LDL (low-density lipoprotein) – This is the bad kind. This is the kind that builds up in the walls of your arteries and over time, can cause heart disease. You want to keep this number low. Less than 130 MG/DG is recommended.

HDL (high-density lipoprotein) – This is the good stuff. This is the cholesterol that basically acts as a cleaner and helps remove the LDL off the artery walls. You actually want to increase this number. A healthy range is between 40-60 MG/DL. It’s important to keep this number at least at 40 MG/DL.

Total Cholesterol (TC) – This is the combined total of LDL, HDL and VLDL (this type isn’t discussed here). Overall, you’d like to keep this figure below 200 MG/DL.

So how do you get those LDL down and the HDL up? The first step is to make lifestyle changes. Lose some weight. Change your eating, and get on an exercise plan. Studies have shown that both resistance training and aerobic exercise can improve cholesterol numbers. Also, if you smoke, STOP SMOKING!!!!

Other things you can do is increase your consumption of foods that are high in monounsaturated fats, such as olive oil, almonds, walnuts, and natural peanut butter. You should also completely eliminate anything in your diet that contains trans fats (check the label. If the word “hydrogenated” is listed anywhere in the ingredients, don’t eat it).

Another big step you can make is by increasing your fiber consumption. Try to get between 30-35 grams of fiber a day. Good sources of fiber are just about any vegetable (broccoli, carrots, celery), as well as whole grains such as oatmeal, whole wheat bread (that’s actually made from whole wheat flour). You can also get a large dose of fiber from legumes like black, pinto, and kidney beans. And don’t forget about fruits. Pretty much any kind of fruit is filled with fiber (apples, oranges, pears).

Once you get your eating in line and your exercise on track, there’s no reason your cholesterol shouldn’t go down and result in decreasing your risk for heart disease.

www.leanbodyfitness.com

No! I'm Not Dead!

Sorry I haven't posted in a while. Gone last week and this week has just been nuts trying to settle back in.

A little story though from my trip.

I was down in New Orleans for a conference (non-fitness related) and a couple of the days I decide to do a workout in the hotel fitness center.

I walked into the area and there was a young guy in there, maybe late teens or 20s. He was doing your typical bodybuilder workout, isolation exercises (bicep curls, tricep stuff, movement like that, that never work). He was also doing some weighted crunches on a swiss ball. That impressed me because that's a decent exercise. Except I learned a new way to do them from him that must be more effective than anything I've ever seen before:

You lift the bottom of your shirt up and look at your abs in the mirror while doing the exercise. That's an amazing new modification to that exercise that I'm SURE results in better body composition (please, I hope you see I'm being sarcastic).

After that I didn't much pay attention. I did my bodyweight warm up and then I started doing some dumbbell power cleans. I did notice the kid taking a glance at me in the mirror (that's bad form to take your eyes off your abs while doing those swiss ball crunches...) and he looked pretty confused as to what I was doing.

But, here's the most entertaining part of the kid's workout. After he was done, he walked out of the fitness center and onto a patio where the pool was. He sat down at a table....and immediately.....lit up a cigarette.......

I don't think I could makeup an ending like that to that story even if I wanted to.....

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Out This Week

I'm out of town this week at a conference. Have a good week and I'll be back to blogging next week.

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Pet Obesity Epidemic

I was at the vet office yesterday and I was looking around and noticed something about roughly two-thirds of the dogs that were in the waiting room: they were just outright fat. It got me thinking about the topic of whether the human obesity epidemic is starting to move it's way into the pet population. So I did a search and sure enough, it is.

"While there have been no studies on this particular question, there appears to be anecdotal evidence that there is a correlation between overweight owners and overweight pets," explained George Fahey, who teaches and does research in the Department of Animal Sciences.

Which only makes sense really. When you see overweight adults, chances are, their children are overweight as well. It just follows that overweight people's pets would also be overweight.

Here's a few simple steps you can take though from the article that can help avoid this problem:

"First, don't feed your pets table scraps. Second, feed the amount recommended on the bag or can, and if the dog or cat begs for more, don't give in," he said. "Finally, make sure the animals, especially dogs, get adequate exercise."

Sounds like the same advice that humans can use in their own weight management process as well.

www.leanbodyfitness.com

Doberman Intervals

Didn't have time for my normal interval workout yesterday so I tried something different when I got home from teaching my kickboxing class.

I went outside after doing a little leash training with her to get her a little exercise. She follows me everywhere I go so it wasn't a problem keeping her near me.

I started at one side of the yard, looked at her and then sprinted to the other side as fast as I could and she followed right along. When reaching the other end, I would turn around, take another look at her (and watch her little nub wag a million miles an hour) take a turn for a different part of the yard and sprint as fast as I could to it, again, with her on my tail. Did this repeatedly for about 10 minutes.

Great impromptu interval workout that was not only good for me, but also good for my dog. I'm not sure what's going to happen though when she can actually beat me in the race.



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Water and Marathons

This was an interesting study about marathon runners and how it's not necessarily the case that by drinking a lot of water during the run will help your performance.

With the Marathon's temperatures reaching 19 degrees Celsius, the average runner will potentially lose almost a litre of sweat every hour and reach a body temperature of over 39 degrees, two degrees above normal. The sporting community has long assumed that drinking large amounts of water helps to keep the body's temperature down, which improves performance. A recent study led by Dr Chris Byrne of the University of Exeter shows that the level of fluid intake has absolutely no effect on body temperature or performance.

Now, don't take this to mean that drinking water while exercising isn't important. You need to listen to your body while you're exercising and drink water when you deem in necessary.

But, on the other hand, there might be a psychological component to drinking a high level of water during a marathon when you don't need it. It might make you FEEL like you're able to perform at a higher level. So if that works for a person, I don't seen any harm in continuing on that same path.

By the way, it IS important to get in liquids after you're done working out. Ideally you should weigh yourself before you workout and then again right after the workout and for every pound you lost, drink 16 ounces of water. That's rarely practical to weigh yourself every time before and after a workout, but, the point is, you do need to rehydrate yourself in order to recover properly.

www.leanbodyfitness.com

Open Friday

Sorry, nothing to blog about today so, thought I'd entertain you with a good pic of the puppy.

have a good weekend.

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