Rebagay acknowledged that most of us will occasionally treat ourselves to something with trans or saturated fats, but he advised us to follow a Mediterranean diet as often as we can.
“It’s filled with polyunsaturated fats, healthy, lean protein, predominantly from plant resources, but things like salmon and fatty fishes like that are very important,” he explained. “But the overall message is vegetables, vegetables, vegetables, and lots and lots of dietary fiber, and then supplementing that also with nuts, legumes and healthy grains. Those are the kinds of things that can help lower the LDL cholesterol.”
He also suggested trying a plant-based vegan diet.
“That has also really been shown to really help lower your sticky bad cholesterol,” he said.
Of course, changing your diet probably won’t happen overnight. That’s why the doctor recommended taking “baby steps.”
“I think it’s something that we just have to experiment with,” he said. “The joy of food is that we can experiment with things that we like, and with these diets, there’s so many options that we can have to fill our diets with. So I always try to engage my patients to find things that they like, and if you don’t like broccoli, try sweet potato. There’s so many things out there that can really help sustain us in a healthy way.”
We also chatted with Rebagay about how much we should exercise, which demographics are facing high risk for cardiac disease and the secret to longevity — according to his 85-year-old patients with incredibly healthy hearts. Listen to the full episode here or wherever you get your podcasts.
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This article originally appeared on HuffPost.
