5 Ways to Lower your Cholesterol NATURALLY (no diets needed)

High cholesterol isn't just a number. It's a silent risk that can damage your heart, can clog your arteries, can put your health at serious risk. So today I want to talk about five ways to lower your cholesterol without having to follow any kind of serious extreme diets or crazy exercise. So let's dive in. Your body isn't broken. It's doing exactly what it's told to do based on what you're feeding it. Now, if you want to lower inflammation, if you want to improve your labs, improve your lipid panel, if you want to reverse metabolic dysfunction, then the first step is to ditch the processed junk. Let go of the seed oils, let go of the sugary snacks, of the ultra processed, highly palatable foods that maybe you say you love, that your body does not love back. You know, these are the foods that didn't exist 100 years ago that our body was not meant to survive or thrive on. Instead, what I urge you to do is take a look at your foods and, and get back to the real food, like loading up on animal based protein, pasture raised meats, if you can do it, focusing on wild fish, if your budget allows, avocados, eggs, including the yolk, olive oil, avocado oil, and if your body can tolerate it, if your gut can tolerate it, some fibrous veggies. So the foods that we're focusing on that are going to help you reduce your cholesterol levels are actually red meat, eggs, seafood, healthy fats like butter, tallow, olive oil, avocado oil, and again, if your gut tolerates it, those non starchy veggies, which would be like a broccoli, cauliflower, spinach, green leafy veggies, romaine lettuce, cucumbers, bell peppers, all of those veggies are non starchy, not super high in carbs, gets you the soluble fiber that your gut might thrive on. Really important to note is to not fear saturated fat. The real danger when it comes to heart health is metabolic dysfunction, not cholesterol. If you want to do a deep dive into the topic of cholesterol, the root cause of high cholesterol, I did a video tackling this and it's a bit longer. So if you want to check this out, just go into the description and we'll include a link there so you can check it out. Now if you feel like having a customized plan, a personalized plan to guide you through exactly what, when and how much to eat to help you not only draw weight, but improve your energy levels, improve your Lipid panels, then you should check out PhD weight loss. We will provide you with a roadmap of exactly what, when, how much to eat, how to move your body so that you can see significant improvements in your health. So again, if this is something that interests you, just go into the description here and we'll have a link for PhD weight loss so you can learn more. Now, my step two to lowering cholesterol. This one is a bit controversial and it might not be important for everybody. You know, everyone's body is unique. But research shows that consuming soluble fiber can help reduce ldl, which has been termed as the bad cholesterol, by binding the cholesterol in your gut and helping to release it, remove it through your bowel movements. Now, the effect of this is likely modest. If you're already metabolically healthy, if you're eating real food, if you're not eating a ton of sugar, then you might not have to really focus on chasing fiber. But if you enjoy foods like avocados, chia seeds, flax seeds, leafy greens, if your body seems to tolerate them well, then they're good sources of the soluble fiber. But I just don't want you to think that eating oat bran is going to save your heart. It's probably not going to make any significant impact on your overall cholesterol numbers. Instead, what you want to do is focus on fixing insulin resistance. This is what actually is the root of most cholesterol problems. Number three is to include heart healthy fats. This is where conventional medicine completely missed the mark. You know, fat is not the enemy. When I was danc professionally, I avoided fat like crazy. I thought it was a huge win if I would consume about 5 grams of fat or less. I was struggling with injury. I had low energy. I could not get my body fat down to the level that I needed it. If I had only known then what I know now, and if I had embraced dietary fats like I do now, no, my career would have been longer. I would have had less injury. I would have been leaner. I am now leaner and eating so much more fat than I was during my dancing days when I avoided fat. Now, the right fats, especially from animal sources, are essential for good hormone production, for fat burning, for cellular repair. So we're talking about the fat that comes from ribeye steaks, that comes from pasture raised eggs with the yolks, specifically wild salmon, real butter ghee, which is basically clarified butter, extra virgin olive oil. I love cooking with avocado oil. It has a high smoke point it doesn't taste like anything. Coconut oil is also great. I just personally don the flavor of like cooking my eggs in coconut oil. Now, if you want some help on what type of fats to consume, at what specific temperatures and what are the healthiest fats, I've got a free dietary fat guide for you. Just go into the description and click the link and you can download that for free and we'll tell you exactly what fats to cook with at what temperatures. So in general, swapping real traditional fats isn't just going to help your cholesterol profile. It's going to help reduce inflammation and stabilize your metabolism. The key is reducing inflammat inflammation and improving metabolic dysfunction. And when you do these two things, you're going to see your cholesterol levels improve. Step four is moving your body. Now, I don't view exercise as this huge weight loss tool. I view it more as a wellness tool. So we know that if you don't move your body, if you're sitting all the time, then it's going to be very, very difficult or nearly impossible to achieve optimal health. But to improve your cholesterol and your wellness, you don't have to have a gy gym membership, you don't have to have a 10k training plan. What your body really wants is daily intentional movement. So I want you to think about the kind of movement that we were designed for, like walking, lifting heavy things and playing, moving, exploring. So movement really is again, if you want to achieve overall wellness and have the best lipid panels, the best cholesterol levels, movement really is non negotiable. But it doesn't mean that you have to spend hours on the treadmill. Actually, if you are spending hours on the treadmill or running elliptical machine, it's likely that your inflammation levels are high and you're going to see higher cholesterol levels as a result. So instead again, you're going to focus on daily low level movement. This is like walking, hiking, playing, lifting heavy things. You're going to also focus on short explosive bursts, think sprinting or high intensity interval style training. Now if exercise is a challenge for you and you want a specific, specific guide on exactly how to move, how often to move, what type of movements to do. I also did a video where I dive into all things exercise. So if this is your biggest challenge and you want to learn more, again go into the description here and we'll provide a link to this video for you. I talk about what high intensity interval training really looks like there and then lastly, strength training. I've mentioned this many times because it's so important, especially as we age. If you are over the age of 40, the number one focus for you when it comes to movement are things that will help you build muscle and improve insulin sensitivity. When we can build muscle and we can move like this, we will see HDL increase and we will see triglycerides lower. Triglycerides are the real key to improving your overall health. We want to see triglycerides reduce and we want to see HDL go up. And through these type of movements that I mentioned, you will train your body to burn fat instead of sugar. So again, if you're over the age of 40, strength training is your very best, best friend. You want to focus on building muscle, it helps to increase bone density and it helps to make your metabolism very strong and healthy. Now, if you're struggling with insulin resistance, if your doctor has said that you are insulin resistance, if you struggle with pre diabetes, type 2 diabetes, even type 1 diabetes, really, PCOS, all of these conditions that relate to insulin resistance, then it can be helpful to focus both on diet, on exercise, and sometimes for some people, supplementation. If you find that your body responds to supplementation in a positive way, then one specific type of supplement that you could focus on is berberine. Berberine has been shown to reduce blood sugar, reduce blood sugar spikes, and help to improve insulin sensitivity. I created a capsule product just for this reason for folks who are going through the weight loss journey, who might have more cravings, who want a natural way to reduce hunger and really focus on maintaining healthy blood sugar levels. It's called Glucocet plus plus. If something like this interests you, it's not for everyone, but it might be for you, then go check out the link for Dr. Ashley Wellness there in the description to learn more. If you feel that your body benefits from supplementation and you want to give Glucocut plus a try, just go check out in the description the link for Dr. Ashley Wellness to learn more and to get a special discount. All right, so there are the five basic steps to helping you reduce your cholesterol levels. Number one, focus on your diet. Number two, consider adding soluble fiber into the mix. Number three, focus on heart healthy fats. You don't have to avoid your steak if you love it. Number four is to focus on the type of movement that you do. And number five, if you feel your body seems to respond well to targeted supplementation, you could consider adding berberine into the mix. Again, if you want to dive deeper into the topic of cholesterol. Really understand the root cause and the science behind how it impacts your body. Then check out my video. It's called the Truth About Cholesterol. Cholesterol and its impact on your body. In this video, I break down what LDL is, HDL triglycerides, the key markers your doctor might not tell you about, and how lifestyle and diet specifically can shift those numbers for the better. Just click here to watch it now.