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Blood Fats and Your Diet

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Reduce Your Weight To A Healthy Level

People who are overweight often have high blood-cholesterol levels. Losing weight can help bring down this level. A diet low in fat and saturated fat is the best way to lose weight and lower your blood cholesterol at the same time. High-fat foods are high in calories. Eating low-fat foods lets you eat the amount you're used to, but with fewer calories.

Sound easy, doesn't it? This is probably the hardest thing to do. It means that you need to eat just the right foods and amounts to lose weight. Yet you still need to eat a nutritious diet that controls your blood values and fluid gains.

Good low-fat choices are foods like pasta and rice, and whole-grain breads and cereals. Fruits and vegetables as well as dried peas and beans are low in calories and high in fiber, too. Be sure to watch the different levels of potassium in these foods. These foods can fill you up so you are not hungry, but they are low in calories.

Try to eat 3 to 6 servings of bread, cereal, pasta, or rice each day. For example, use graham crackers for a dessert instead of cookies. Ask your nutritionist how many servings you should eat. How much you should eat depends on how much you weigh now.

Try to eat 4 to 6 servings of fruit and vegetables a day. Choose a low-potassium fruit for a snack instead of cake or pie. Check your potassium lists for serving sizes and levels of potassium.

Here are some other low calorie choices you can make:

• When you choose special diet foods, pick those that have no calories or are lower in calories than regular types.

• Drink low- or no-calorie drinks.

• Use a low-calorie sugar substitute instead of sugar or honey.

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