So You Have High Cholesterol...

After my 21st birthday, I got a physical to make sure I was healthy and alive. They looked perplexed when I came in though because, according to my doctor, I only need a checkup once every five years, since I'm in the prime of my life. They did the normal tests, and the doctor said he'd only call if something was up.

I got a call Tuesday from a nurse telling me that my cholesterol was 217, and the doctor wanted it to go under 200. The number 217 means nothing to me, so I just figure I need to cut my cholesterol intake by about 10%. So I ventured onto the web to find out what in my diet I could keep, and what I had to do away with.

Here's my top three foods I will miss:

1) Cheese. I love cheese. There is such a great variety of cheeses out there with nuances in flavor. I would literally buy a block of cheese and crackers and demolish it. Unfortunately, cheese is also high in cholesterol. It breaks my heart but I will have to say goodbye to cheese.

2) Italian Cold Cuts. Goodbye salami, pastrami, and corn beef. In a quarter pound corn beef sandwich, I was taking in 96 mg of cholesterol. A quarter pound roast beef sandwich, on the other hand, has only 34 mg of cholesterol.

3) Fast Food. I'm not sure how exactly I'm going to do this once I get back to school (or even at Berkeley), but I'm going to have to cut fast food. That's going to start with the burritos from Qdoba, lamb gyro from Greek Lady, and chicken carbonara from Quizno's. That was pretty much my diet back at Penn.

My new favorites I'm going to be getting cozy with:

1) HUMMUS! I think it's going to have to be my cheese replacement. It's so good, and has no cholesterol.

2) Roast beef, chicken, and turkey. These are replacing my Italian cold cuts.

3) Orange Juice. A study from the University of Western Ontario, found that three glasses a day of orange juice--any orange juice--for four weeks raised HDL levels 21 percent and improved the ratio of good to bad cholesterol by 16 percent.

4) Oatmeal and Cheerios.

5) Wheat bread

So that's the plan. I'm hoping by making little tweaks in my diet and substituting little things that I can make a big difference. I'm going to have to figure out how it'll work at school though.
I also think I'm going to get my cholesterol check more than once every five years. Tracking progress I think is a pretty important part of keeping a goal.