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Lowering Your Cholesterol With Regular Exercise

The last article was written for people unable to do 30 minutes of continuous exercise at a moderate intensity.  This article will be for everyone else.  If you are relatively healthy and have been diagnosed with hypercholesterolemia (a fancy medical term for high cholesterol), your doctor has undoubtedly told you to exercise and change your eating habits.  Some doctors are great at telling you how to proceed.  Unfortunately, some are not.  Below are some basic exercise guidelines to get you started. 

To decrease your cholesterol 10 to 15%  it is recommended that you burn about 1,500 calories each week doing aerobic exercise for 12 to 16 weeks.  This is equivalent to exercising about 3 to 4 hours each week.  To accomplish this, you can exercise consistently each day, or your can stagger your exercise throughout the week.  30 minutes each day or 1 hour 3 to 4 times per week.  One hour per day can seem like a good chunk of time, so splitting that up into 2 – 30 minute sessions or 3 – 20 minute sessions will serve the same purpose.  On a brighter note, once your cholesterol has dropped to an acceptable level, you’ll be able reduce your weekly amount of exercise to the “normal” 30 minute sessions 3 to 4 days a week.  Many people find that they don’t want to.

Acceptable exercises, as mentioned in previous articles, can be just about anything that increases your heart rate.  Biking, jogging, walking, dancing, kick boxing, rowing, skating, skiing, climbing stairs, are all good examples.  Don’t be afraid to try new things.  Do a variety of exercises to keep your routine from growing stale.  If it bores you, you’ll be less likely to do it consistently.  You should strive to work at about 75% of your maximum heart rate.

Expect it to be difficult at first, especially if you’ve been fairly sedentary up until now.  As you work at it, it will get easier.  At the end of the 12 weeks, you might also be pleasantly surprised to find that you’re actually enjoying your daily exercise routines.