Maintaining a Healthy Lifestyle and Diet

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Where to start: Healthy diet, healthy lifestyle

Adopting a healthy lifestyle is an important step toward achieving and maintaining healthy cholesterol levels. The Heart and Stroke Foundation recommends:

  • Eating a diet that is lower in saturated and trans fats, and includes plenty of fruit, vegetables and whole grains
  • Being physically active, and accumulating 150 minutes of moderate- to vigorous-intensity physical activity per week in bouts of 10 minutes or more
  • Achieving and maintaining a healthy weight
  • Limiting excess alcohol intake
  • Being smoke-free

Healthy eating – an important part of managing your cholesterol levels

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What is a cholesterol-lowering diet?

A cholesterol-lowering diet is nutritious and balanced

Choose foods from each of the four major food groups: vegetables and fruit; grains; milk and alternatives; and meat and alternatives.

  • Follow a lower-fat diet with 20% to 35% of calories from fat. That’s equal to 45 to 75 grams of fat per day for women and 60 to 100 grams per day for men.
  • Avoid trans fat, which is found in foods made with shortening or partially hydrogenated vegetable oil, such as fast foods and many packaged foods. Trans fat raises “bad” LDL-C and lowers “good” HDL-C levels.
  • Reduce your intake of foods that are high in saturated fat, such as fatty meats, and dairy products such as butter, cheese, cream or homogenized milk.
  • Choose healthy unsaturated fat found in oils (olive, canola, peanut, safflower, sunflower and corn oils; not coconut, palm and palm kernel oils, which are saturated oils), nuts and fish.
  • Include more vegetables and fruits, whole grains, legumes and nuts in your diet.

The foods that raise your blood cholesterol the most are saturated fat and trans fat. Dietary cholesterol only has an effect in some people. Foods that have high levels of dietary cholesterol include egg yolks, organ meats (liver, kidney), shrimp, squid and fatty meats.

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Healthy eating – an important part of managing your cholesterol levels

A heart-healthy diet includes foods that are high in fibre

A healthy adult needs 21 to 38 grams of fibre a day, but the average daily Canadian intake is about 14 grams. Good sources of fibre are fruit and vegetables, and whole-grain products such as bread, wild and brown rice and oatmeal.

There are two kinds of fibre: soluble and insoluble. Soluble fibre may help lower cholesterol and control blood sugar. The best sources are oatmeal and oat bran; legumes such as dried beans, peas and lentils; and pectin-rich foods such as apples, strawberries and citrus fruit.

When shopping, check food product labels for 100% whole grain or 100% whole wheat with the germ at the beginning of the ingredient list, and check the fibre content in the Nutrition Facts table. Products with 2 grams of fibre or more are a healthy choice.

Patient Support Program

HDL-C=high-density lipoprotein cholesterol; LDL-C=low-density lipoprotein cholesterol
Please note: Your Repatha® package may be different from that shown.

Do you have questions?

Connect with the Amgen Canada Medical Information team for help by phone at 1-866-502-6436 or email at medinfocanada@amgen.com.