Good Diets to Follow That Lower Cholesterol & Fat

An unhealthy, high-calorie diet can contribute to high cholesterol levels, as well as high blood pressure and becoming overweight. These problems greatly increase your risk of developing obesity-related diseases, such as heart disease, stroke and type two diabetes. By limiting your intake of dietary cholesterol, salt, sweets and unhealthy saturated fats, you can help to get your body back on track.

DASH Diet

By limiting intake of salt, fats and high-cholesterol foods, the DASH Diet can help lower your cholesterol levels fast. DASH stands for Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension, and as the name implies, this plan was originally designed to help people lower their blood pressure. It can also help lower your cholesterol by helping you lose weight and reducing the amount of salt and fat in your diet. It's also a high-fiber diet, and fiber is essential in lowering your cholesterol. This diet promotes whole grains, fruits, vegetables, low-fat dairy, lean meats, nuts, seeds, legumes and limited fats and sweets.

MyPyramid

The MyPyramid Plan was created by the United States Department of Agriculture and is designed to conform to the needs of people with high cholesterol. MyPyramid is based upon the USDA's Dietary Guidelines for Americans report, which recommends that people with high cholesterol limit their dietary intake of cholesterol to less than 300mg per day. The primary food groups that the free MyPyramid tool recommends includes whole grains, veggies, fruit, fat-free milk and limited lean meats.

AHA Diet

The American Heart Association offers a comprehensive resource of information at their website, Heart.org, for those with high cholesterol. They provide free cholesterol-lowering meals that are low in fat and high in nutritional value. The AHA suggests reducing the amount of saturated fat in your diet, eating more seafood, reduce salt intake, use liquid fats instead of solids and increasing fiber intake.

Low Cholesterol Diet

Dr. Frank W. Jackson, M.D. of Jackson, Siegelbaum Gastroenterology offers a free diet plan at his website, GICare.com, for people looking to lower their cholesterol and fat. His diet plan closely resembles that of the AHA diet recommendations -- limit sodium intake, decrease cholesterol intake, reduce saturated fat intake, increase fiber and reduce caloric intake. Dr. Jackson shows you which foods to choose and which to avoid. For instance, you should avoid deep fried seafood, and instead choose baked fish.