Can I Manage My High Cholesterol With Intuitive Eating?
Written by Isabel Vasquez RD, LDN
When you realize diets aren’t for you and you’re ready to find another way, it’s normal to feel lost and confused at first. You may feel confident that another diet is not the answer, but you may ask yourself, “how can I prioritize my health without dieting?”
It’s normal to have a lot of doubts and questions. A common question I hear is “how can I manage my chronic health condition with intuitive eating?” You might wonder, “how can I stop dieting if I need to adopt certain eating patterns to manage this condition?”
High cholesterol is a common concern in our Latine community so in this blog, we’ll talk about what high cholesterol is and how you can use a non-diet approach to manage your high cholesterol. Spoiler alert: it is totally doable!
What is high cholesterol?
High cholesterol is a measurement of increased risk for cardiovascular disease, specifically atherosclerosis (a buildup of plaque in the blood vessels). It is checked through a lipid profile done via fasting blood work that checks your LDL, HDL, triglycerides, and total cholesterol levels.
High LDL levels are associated with atherosclerosis leading to increased risk for heart disease or stroke.
High HDL levels, on the other hand, are desirable because HDL helps prevent the buildup of cholesterol in the arteries. It’s generally associated with decreased risk of atherosclerosis.
High Cholesterol in the Latine Community
In the Latine community, there is certainly increased concern about high cholesterol as we are often told this is a common condition in our community.
Interestingly, according to the CDC, foreign-born Hispanics (this is the terminology the studies use to qualify this population) have about half as much heart disease as US-born Hispanics, but they do have about 45% more high total cholesterol.
Hispanic individuals are also less likely than non-hispanic whites to die from heart disease.
An issue that has been found among our Latine community is the lack of awareness of and treatment for high cholesterol. According to a 2015 study published in the Journal of the American Heart Association, “Among Hispanic/Latino adults with HC [high cholesterol], almost half (49.3%) were not aware of their condition and only 29.5% were receiving treatment.”
Those with lower rates of controlled cholesterol include younger adults, women, those with lower income, those uninsured, and more recent immigrants.
I would hypothesize that some reasons for this are lack of financial access to quality healthcare and lack of time off work to tend to medical needs.
A 2012 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that when it comes to heart disease risk in the Hispanic/Latinx community, “age- and sex-adjusted prevalence of 3 or more risk factors was significantly higher (P < .001) among participants with less education (16.1%), those who were US-born (18.5%), those who had lived in the United States 10 years or longer (15.7%), and those who preferred English (17.9%).”
One of these risk factors is high cholesterol, and the others are hypertension, ob*sity (I stand against this stigmatizing term but unfortunately it is widely used in medical studies. Read our blog on the issues with pathologizing weight), diabetes, and smoking.
It is interesting that those who have undergone less acculturation have less risk factors, especially as it relates to demonization of our cultural foods.
How Intuitive Eating Helps Manage High Cholesterol
So, how could intuitive eating help manage cholesterol levels?
When it comes to chronic disease risk, we often talk about modifiable risk factors and nonmodifiable risk factors. As the names suggest, nonmodifiable risk factors are those that you cannot change, such as genetics, age, or sex assigned at birth.
Modifiable risk factors are those that are related to individual behaviors, so they are ones you are more likely to have control over.
With high cholesterol, modifiable risk factors include:
tobacco use
physical activity levels
diet
stress
sleep
alcohol consumption
Joyful Movement
Joyful movement is a central part of intuitive eating. It involves finding movement that feels good for you, whatever that looks like. Because let’s be real, if you enjoy it, then you might actually stick with it!
Regular physical activity has been shown to improve cholesterol levels, among many other markers of health. This is independent of weight changes, so you don’t have to move with the intention of changing your body shape or size.
When it comes to finding joyful movement, it doesn’t just have to be an intense gym session. It can be pole dancing, walking your dog, salsa dancing, cleaning the house–the options are endless! Get creative and find what works for you.
Stress REduction
The INTERHEART study actually demonstrated that the impact of stress on cardiovascular disease risk is comparable to the impact of stress on hypertension. Some ways to reduce stress with intuitive eating include:
No more stress from having to stick to an overly restrictive diet
Less stress on the body from restricting food and over-exercising
Tending to your emotions in a way that serves you
All of these can help reduce stress and manage high cholesterol.
Gentle Nutrition
You can also utilize gentle nutrition, the final principle of intuitive eating, to add nutrition throughout your day. When it comes to high cholesterol, replacing some saturated fats with unsaturated fats and adding more fiber can help.
Overdoing saturated fat can increase LDL cholesterol levels, the kind we want to decrease. Unsaturated fats, on the other hand, can raise HDL levels and decrease LDL levels. Sources of unsaturated fat that we often have in our Latine dishes include oil and avocado.
Fiber, specifically soluble fiber, is awesome at helping our bodies excrete cholesterol. Common sources of soluble fiber in our Latine dishes include beans, oats, papaya, and avocado.
These nutrition changes can be made from a place of abundance. What can you add? No more lists of what to cut out.
Adding unsaturated fats and fiber can help you feel satisfied and protect your health without adopting an all-or-nothing mindset.
It’s not about entirely eliminating certain foods or certain food groups. It’s about making little changes that are sustainable and enjoyable for you when it comes to pleasure, satisfaction, and health.
Final Thoughts
It is absolutely possible to manage a chronic health condition through intuitive eating. When it comes to high cholesterol, finding joyful movement, reducing stress, and adding nutrition are all evidence-based means of managing cholesterol that are central to intuitive eating!
For more support, we offer a 3-part masterclass on intuitive eating to help you improve your relationship with food, your body, and movement.
If you liked this post, you may also like:
Can I Manage My Diabetes With Intuitive Eating?
