High cholesterol is when you have too much of a fatty substance called cholesterol in your blood. As Mayo Clinic explains, your body needs cholesterol to build healthy cells, but high levels of cholesterol can increase your risk of heart disease. Unfortunately, a blood test is required to detect high cholesterol because it doesn’t usually produce any symptoms.
Foods high in saturated fat include:
- Meat pies, sausages and fatty meat
- Butter, lard and ghee
- Cream and hard cheese, like cheddar
- Cakes and biscuits
- Food that contains coconut oil or palm oil.
Instead, you should opt for foods high in unsaturated fat, which include oily fish, like mackerel and salmon, and nuts and seeds.
Many of these components can be found in a Mediterranean diet.
The Mediterranean diet is high in vegetables, fruits, legumes, nuts, beans, cereals, grains, fish and unsaturated fats such as olive oil.
Activities can range from walking and cycling to more vigorous exercise, such as running and energetic dancing.
According to the NHS, doing 150 minutes of moderate aerobic activity every week can improve your cholesterol levels.
Moderate aerobic activity means you’re working hard enough to raise your heart rate and break a sweat.
As the NHS explains, one way to tell whether you’re exercising at a moderate intensity is if you can still talk but cannot sing the words to a song.
