Part 1 of 2

What if all we’ve been told about cholesterol was wrong or not entirely accurate? Weight loss coach and nutritional healing expert Dr. Jonny Bowden says the following, “Cholesterol is a relatively minor risk factor for heart disease compared with much more serious things like inflammation. And the emphasis on cholesterol to the exclusion of other more important risk factors has also led us to take our eye off the ball when it comes to a risk factor we can easily do something about without taking a single medication: triglycerides.”

Instead of focusing on our total cholesterol numbers, look at your triglycerides compared to HDL. According to the Journal of the American Heart Association, this ratio is a strong predictor for heart disease. In his book Good Calories Bad Calories, Gary Taubes references studies from the ‘70s showing that total cholesterol is meaningless; LDL is a very weak indicator and HDL levels are a better predictor for heart disease.

Why are triglycerides a big deal? Triglycerides trigger the liver to produce more cholesterol, particularly the small dense particles known as LDLb which are particularly harmful. So, we’ve been told all these years that LDL is bad or “lousy”, yet there are multiple types of LDL, one being harmful and the other harmless.

A Harvard-lead study author reported:

“High triglycerides alone increased the risk of heart attack nearly three-fold.

And people with the highest ratio of triglycerides to HDL – the “good” cholesterol – had 16 times the risk of heart attack as those with the lowest ratio of triglycerides to HDL, in the study of 340 heart attack patients and 340 of their healthy, same-age counterparts.

The ratio of triglycerides to HDL was the strongest predictor of a heart attack, even more accurate than the LDL/HDL ratio (Circulation 1997;96:2520-2525).”

According to Dr. Mercola, optimal ratio levels should be below 2.0. For example; if your triglycerides are 150 and your HDL is 50, then your triglyceride to HDL ratio is 3.0.

Dr. Bowden goes on to say the following, “Elevated triglycerides can be due to being overweight, being inactive, smoking, or eating a diet very high in carbohydrates. You can bring triglyceride levels down rather easily by reducing sugar in the diet.” Diets that are lower in carbs have been shown in numerous studies to cause triglyceride levels to drop quickly.

In part 2 I’ll finish  discussing why eating cholesterol is not bad for us, why inflammation is the problem and what you can do to decrease triglycerides and inflammation.

I’m going to keep it short and simple this time. If you’re looking to improve your quality of life (think moving better), save time in the gym and become stronger then the following two exercises should at some point be a part of your workout program.

Squat:

Few exercises are more misunderstood than the squat. You’ll even hear doctors say they are bad on the knees. Wanna know what I think? If you hear someone say this, ask them how they go to the bathroom. Silly as that sounds,  at some point we all have to squat down to do such a task.

If we perform a movement in life, then we must train for it in the gym. Now, I’m not saying that someone with knee issues such as arthritis should be loading a bar up with 200 pounds and squat.  But, over the years I’ve come to learn that anyone can squat, the trick is finding ways to do so without pain and with good form.

Here are two tricks to do a perfect squat.

• Find a chair (if you’re a beginner or someone with knee pain, the taller the chair or any object you can sit on the better). Have a seat on the chair.
• Now, find an object that weighs 3-5 lbs and with both hands hold it straight out in front of you.
• Simply stand up and sit down. Now you are squatting.
• Be sure that you don’t smack down on the chair, rather slowly lower and have a seat. This will save all the force from plopping down from going up your spine.
• As you progress, you can do the same thing but instead of sitting, just come down far enough where you barely make contact with the seat and come right back up.

This is a great way to strengthen your leg muscles while doing something that will improve your quality of life especially as we become older.

Step Up:

Think about it. We all have to go up stairs at some point in our life, but as we age that becomes more difficult. So, what can be done?

If you’re a member of a gym, see if they have a Step Up machine. This will allow you to to adjust the height of the step depending upon your ability. The higher you place the step, the tougher it will be from a balance standpoint as well as strength.

If your gym doesn’t have one of these machines, you can simply do this at home with a set of stairs.

• Put one foot on the step, and step up with the other. Now lower the foot you just stepped up with. The key is to perform all your reps with the one foot up on the step for a set number of reps. Then you would switch feet and do the same.
• Again, the height of the step as well as any extra weight you hold will determine how tough it will be.
• It’s always best to start with just your body weight, and if your balance is really bad you can hold on to a railing lightly and progress to not holding on.

There you go, two exercises that we must all do at some point in our day, but become tougher as we age. Practice them in the gym or at home and start to feel stronger and move better.