Have you checked your cholesterol level in the past 5 years? Scrap that. Have you ever checked your cholesterol level at all? FYI, it is recommended that every individual above the age of 20 to check (test) their cholesterol levels once every five years at the very least.

It is common for young adults or even adults for that matter, to neglect monitoring their cholesterol levels. This is mostly due to the fact that high cholesterol levels do not show any painful symptoms. It only make sense that most of the time, patients of any kind of medical conditions will take their medical problem seriously when it is painful - Aspirins to cure the symptoms of headache.

While high cholesterol is life threatening, it is not as frustratingly and annoyingly painful as a simple headache to actually prompt people to pay attention to it. This should not be the way to go.

So, now that you’ve realized and are aware of the importance of maintaining a healthy cholesterol level, what do you do? Exercise regularly? Eat less oily foods?

Yes. As you can see, the general knowledge of exercising regularly and eating less oily foods are already instilled in you, so why don’t you act according to your knowledge? A little goes a long way, but it has to be on a consistent basis. Having good habit counts! Remember that.

Diet
Minimize and cut down not just oily foods. The right way is to reduce your intake of any foods that contribute or contain saturated fat. Examples of these that are common and accessible to all are: Fried foods, processed meats, butter, cakes and pastries, cream, coconut milk and lard. Noticed that the word ‘reduce’ was used and not ’stop eating’ altogether. Good habit counts, remember? And the right way to cultivate any habits is to start moderately, and ensure that it is well maintained - consistence and persistence. In no time, you will find that the healthy eating habit has been instilled and staying healthy takes no effort at all!

Physical Activities
Maintaining a healthy cholesterol level is simple since it is not building muscles or six abs that you are looking for. To curb high cholesterol problems or maintain healthy levels of cholesterol, take the stairs instead of using the elevator. Walk up the escalator instead of standing still. Walk instead of drive or if you have to drive, park your car some place distant from where you are going. Walk the dog or if you don’t have a dog, walk your neighbor’s dog. A mere 30 minutes a day of simple physical activities mentioned helps lowering the risk of high cholesterol more than you think. And bear in mind still, habit is the key, start moderately!

Give it at least one week if not a few. Once you have managed to cultivate the habit, move the quality of the habit up a notch. Habit is quality, not quantity.

Get some friends together or neighbors, whichever you prefer, and go for a group jog and chitchat while you exercise, these are good methods to start with.

Like I’ve always emphasized - Habit is the key!

For years obesity experts have been warning us against saturated fat found in red meats, but when the animals are raised exclusively on grass, these fats can actually help you lose weight, strengthen your immune system, and yes, protect you against heart disease.

Fat soluble vitamins are vital for human health, and vitamins A, D and K2, (a vitamin discovered by Weston A. Price), are found most plentifully in the fat of grass-fed animals. These vitamins help to prevent heart disease. They also support the function of the endocrine system, and are needed for the absorption of calcium. Calcium has been shown by a number of recent studies to help people lose weight. Children need these vitamins to build strong bones and teeth.

Weston A. Price pointed out that:

“It is possible to starve for minerals that are abundant in the foods eaten because they cannot be utilized without an adequate quantity of the fat-soluble activators [vitamins].”

Back in the 1930s when Price analyzed the vitamin and mineral content of the ‘primitive’ groups that he studied, and compared their diets to that of the ‘modern’ diets of industrialized countries, he found that traditional people ate as much as 10 times the amount of fat-soluble vitamins as we do, and far more calcium, magnesium, phosphorus and iron.

If Price were still with us, he would tell us that the current fat-soluble vitamin content of the ‘Standard American Diet’ is now even worse. After all, he made his comparisons before the popularity of low-fat diets, and before the existence of factory-farms.

One of the protective foods that Price brought back from traditional societies to use in his own practice was high-vitamin butter from cows eating fresh spring grass. He used spring butter as a medicine to reverse dietary deficiencies in his patients. He also prescribed plenty of raw milk from grass-fed cows, just as Sir Robert McCarrison did when he left India to start his own practice in England. These foods were medicinal because of their high fat-soluble vitamin content, and the conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) in the butterfat.

Raw milk from grass-fed cows is now difficult to buy in the United States, and few people still make their own butter, but CLA can also be found in beef, if the animal has been raised naturally.

CLA is a powerful antioxidant and has been proven to protect against cancer in laboratory animals. It also promotes the development of muscle instead of fat, and it makes body fat burn faster.

According to Dr. Joseph Mercola, author of Take Control of Your Health, CLA is found primarily in grass-fed beef and dairy products and cannot be produced in the human body. CLA is produced naturally by the bacteria that live in the rumen of ruminant animals like cattle, sheep, and goats.

Research has shown that grazing animals raised strictly on their natural diet of grass can have levels of CLA hundreds of times higher than animals raised on grain feeds. Also, a study done by the Department of Animal Science at Southern Illinois University in 2003 found that beef finished off on soybean oil reduced the amount of CLA produced by ruminant animals. In fact, feeding animals anything other than their natural food reduces both their health and ours.

Recent human studies have shown that volunteers who were given CLA supplements lost a significant amount of body fat, and bodybuilders who were given CLA were able to lift far heavier weights, indicating the growth of muscle mass. This substance is so important for weight loss and cancer prevention that factory farmers are now trying to find ways to artificially force confined, grain fed animals to produce the CLA that is created naturally when the animals are raised on grass.

The loss of this special omega-6 fat from our food supply may be one of the reasons why the obesity rate began to skyrocket in the 1960s and 70s, shortly after most family farms and ranches gave way to giant factory farms.

It isn’t just the missing CLA that makes grain-fed meat less healthy. Factory-raised animals also have less of the important omega-3 fats than naturally raised animals. The healthiest proportion of omega-3 fats to omega-6 fats is one to one - even portions of both. Since factory raised animals don’t have this healthy balance in their fat, the American Heart Association is probably right - saturated fats from confinement raised animals are not good for us. But this is only true if we remember that they’re talking about the saturated fats found in factory-raised animals.

Fortunately, there are still small ranches and farms that raise healthy, grass-fed beef cattle. It takes time to find them, but the health benefits for you and everyone in your family makes it worth the trouble.

Jonni Good shows you how to power-up your healthy diet with delicious, satisfying natural foods. Learn how the right foods can help you control your appetite, reduce food cravings, and burn fat faster. The same wholesome foods also keep your kids from getting fat. For details, visit http://www.RealFoodDietRevolution.com

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