Hot topic: Cholesterol and busting all the myths and lies we’ve been told for decades about food and blood cholesterol and what’s actually going on inside your body | Get in touch: theladiesdish@gmail.com
Welcome to the Ladies Dish IN THIS EPISODE
Updates (1:35)
• Dana o Thank you for the support from all of the working mom Ladies Dishers.
• Kate o Next Monday 12/12, Mindfull Makeover will be on sale as a stand alone program!! o I’m giving listeners of the podcast $5 off with the code “gracewins2017” o Preorders available now at holistickate.com/mm o This is really a great program to kick off the new year - if you have a workout program you want to complete, it fits because it’s not really designed to deal with exercise, but more with food & mindset o Local Pittsburghers: I may be doing a Desire Map/Core Desired Feeling Workshop between Christmas & the New Year to kick of 2017 or perhaps the first week of January. Stay tuned on my social media and here on the podcast. As long as I continue to feel better, I am hoping to get this together. It’ll be very limited spots so I’ll be sure to post in The Ladies Dish Podcast group when I have that together. If it goes well, I may offer it as a virtual class. We will see 🙂
• Joy o I’m trying to put together a 21dsd group locally for January - so i’ll give more info out about that in a future episode!
The “it” List (5:33)
• Shea Moisture - Baby Nighttime Soothing Shampoo and Bath Milk with Manuka Honey and Provence Lavendar
LDP's Sponsor - The Nutritional Therapy Association The NTA is an amazing organization that certified all three LDP co-hosts as Nutritional Therapy Consultants. We all highly recommend the NTC course or NTP (Nutritional Therapy Practitioner) course to anyone interested in pursuing an education in holistic health and learning how real, whole foods help heal the body from the inside out. Visit www.nutritionaltherapy.com for more information and to download a registration packet!
Today’s Cholesterol (8:43)
Definition: lipid molecule produced by every cell in the human body. It is a required substance to maintain our cell membrane’s structural integrity and fluidity. Cholesterol is the precursor to our steroid hormones (stress & sex hormones), bile acids, and Vitamin D. Cholesterol is also a powerful antioxidant and important in the production of neurotransmitters.
Cholesterol in the body doesn’t come from food. So what this means is the cholesterol you eat - aka dietary cholesterol - has little to no effect on your blood level cholesterol (the kind that shows up in your routine bloodwork).
Why is this? Cholesterol is such an important part of how our bodies function that our bodies have VERY efficient mechanisms for keeping blood cholesterol in check. So if we eat more cholesterol, our body produces less.
So if you have high blood cholesterol, chances are you’ve got some inflammation somewhere in your body that your liver is pumping out cholesterol to go and fix. Think of cholesterol as a bandaid forming over inflammation in your body.
LDL + HDL Cholesterol • LDL - low density lipoprotein - commonly known as the “bad” • HDL - high density lipoprotein - commonly known as the “good” • Mythbusting: One is not better than the other! They just have different functions!! • We typically think of our arteries getting “clogged” but what actually happens is LDL rushes to spots of inflammation and is deposited into our arteries, which causes the walls to expand and therefore the artery just becomes more narrow.
Cholesterol and our Hormones (18:50)
• Cholesterol is a precursor to SO MANY HORMONES… Especially every sex hormone in our body. Most of your hormones are going to be impaired if you are eating low-fat and fat-free because you are depriving your body of these critical building components.
• 3 pathways cholesterol can go down…. o Cholesterol -> Pregnenolone ♣ -> Progesterone (sex hormone) ♣ -> Cortisol (stress hormone) ♣ -> DHEA -> Androstenedione -> Sex Hormones (testosterone)
• If you are chronically stressed, you can suffer from something called the Pregnenolone Steal… this is what I was suffering from as my body was struggling to have a steady cycle and working through fertility. Since all pathways start with cholesterol to pregnenolone, if you NEED cortisol because you are stressed, your body will shuttle the use of pregnenolone to make cortisol. Your body will prioritize survival over fertility.
About ⅓ of western men and women are infertile and increasing numbers of young people are growing up with abnormalities in their sex hormones because people have been and are still fighting animal fats and cholesterol. So if you want healthy hormones stay away from low-fat foods and go for the full fat versions, especially dairy.
The Cholesterol Myth/History (26:07)
• Heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and obesity have all INCREASED since we introduced the low-fat and fat-free craze. And what’s more interesting is that heart disease is a relatively new epidemic. • First heart attack was in 1912… by 1960 there were over 500,000 recorded deaths.
Two big Hypothesis have come from this era… spoiler alert, both are FALSE! • Lipid-Hypothesis: high blood cholesterol leads to heart disease • Diet-Heart Hypothesis: dietary fat & cholesterol raise blood cholesterol
What does this mean for you (36:25):
• Eat healthy fats, saturated fat, cholesterol-rich foods without fear. It is healthy and will help support your body. o Grass fed butter or ghee, coconut oil, avocados, nuts and seeds (if tolerated), eggs (with the yolk!), cold water fish and shellfish (salmon, sardines, shrimp), olives, olive oil (dark container), bacon • AVOID corn, canola, crisco, shortening, mayo, fake butter, margarines. • A more important measure of how healthy your heart and arteries are would be your triglyceride count which indicates your circulating blood fat. • Don’t freak out about a “high” cholesterol reading, but aware of the facts.
Resource we Love: Balanced Bites Master Class – there’s an amazing module about Cholesterol that dives deep into the subject and the numbers.
Thank you for joining us this week for Episode 55. Remember to subscribe in iTunes so you don’t miss a future episode!
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