The Results are In, My Experiment to Reduce Cholesterol Naturally

I wanted to share this story as it may help others out there that are struggling with cholesterol but wary of using statins and other medicines. This is not meant to be medical or nutritional advice as I am not qualified to provide either, rather I am just sharing my experience.

In December, I had a normal annual physical and was surprised when my doctor suggested that I might want to consider starting a statin. My total cholesterol was 199 and had been that way for a couple of years. I was leery of going on statins and thought I could turn things around on my own by eating better. After all, I had been eating plant-based since 2017 and my numbers used to be in the normal range. However, while I started out as a very clean whole food plant based eater, over the past few years I had been eating a lot more vegan junk food. ?So, I asked my doctor to give me 3 months to see if I could turn it around through diet and exercise.? We setup an appointment for Mid-March, but my doctor was very skeptical that I could make any change in my numbers.

Now, I have been plant-based since 2017 so having high cholesterol was surprising to me. However, while I started out mostly whole food plant based back in 2017, over the past few years I had started to eat a lot more vegan junk food laden with saturated fat and sugar. It’s easy to let these tasty, processed foods back into your diet, no matter what your diet is.

So, I did some research and determined that to reduce my cholesterol naturally, I needed to keep my daily saturated fat under 13 grams and my “added sugars” under 25 grams. Using that as a guide and the Lose It! App to track my macronutrients, I started the 3-month experiment.?

As I started examining the foods I ate, it quickly became clear I had some big problems in my diet. For instance, I had been eating plant-based ice cream bars 4-5 days a week and each one has 12 grams of saturated fat. On days, I ate one of those bars my sat fat levels must have been 2-3X my new goal!! ?I also had been eating peanut butter a couple of days a week despite 3 tablespoons having over 5 grams of sat fat.? Those became some very easy targets to cut my saturated fat and I have not touched either during the past 3 months. While I thought I had been eating well, this was an eye opening experience to see the saturated fat and added sugar levels of some of my past go-to foods.

Now, you might be thinking “but fats are important for brain health” and I agree with you.? But those are healthy fats, not “saturated fats”.? I was tracking my macronutrients, and I was still getting about 40% of my daily calories from fats, I just wasn’t eating the bad ones!?

Last Friday, I had my second appoint and the 3-month experiment results are in.? And they were shocking!? I lost 8 pounds without dieting. I was not restricting calories just reducing saturated fat and added sugars.? And in just 3-months, I had dramatically improved my Lipid numbers by 18% to 23%, taking them all into the normal or very close to normal range! Here is a summary of the results and a couple of the specific charts are shown at the end of the article.

Of course, I am not finished here, I am going to keep going on this program and hope to improve them much further over the next year.

While I am very proud of these improvement, the reason I wanted to post this here was because many others are struggling whether to take statins or not. I just wanted people to know these improvements can be made with diet and frankly it was not that hard.? To be honest, I really did not feel like I was sacrificing much. I still ate some sweets at night but focused on lower saturate fat and lower sugars sweets.? I also think this would apply to any diet, as long as you focus on lower saturated fats and lower added sugars.

I cooked a lot myself using whole food ingredients, but I also had some “cheat code products” that made things easier and I am happy to share them here:

Meati (alt steak from fermented mycelium) – taste like steak and high in protein but ZERO saturated fat and zero added sugar.

Nature’s Fynd (alt sausage from fermented mycelium) – used in breakfast bowls with Just Egg and vegetables – also almost zero saturated fat or added sugar.

Gotham’s Green Vegan Caesar Dressing – ate a salad with veggies and walnuts everyday with this delicious dressing with zero saturated fat and no added sugar. Disclosure: GG is a Manna Tree portfolio company.

Cedar’s Dark Chocolate Hummus – tastes nothing like hummus, tastes like thick chocolate pudding.? It has almost no saturated fat and a reasonable amount of added sugar.

Noble Made Smoky BBQ Sauce - I eat this on a lot of things, it's delicious with zero saturated fat and only 1g of added sugar. Disclosure: The New Primal is a Manna Tree portfolio company.

Chipotle Restaurant - Burrito Bowl – beans, rice, sofrito’s (soy based), salsa and lettuce – delicious and very good for you.

Step One Oatmeal – with flaxseed meal, raisins and bananas.

Here are a couple of the actual charts to show the history and large decline in 3 months:

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