[LIFESTYLE] Prevent Health Problems | Managing Cholesterol

Staying healthy plays a big role in my daily lifestyle, especially when I need to keep up with my busy schedule. I think you might have noticed that I've been posting about marathons lately, and as a matter of fact, I've already signed up for 4 marathons for the next 4 months. How crazy is that?! Haha. If you ever talk to my friends, they would tell you that I eat like a cow sometimes, because FOOD is like, hard to resist. But health wise, it's only because my metabolic rate is high, and I tend to eat more than I should since I've been into sports in high school.

You may wonder why and how on earth I keep myself healthy, well first it starts with how active you are with your lifestyle, and of course, making sure you're eating right. I personally don't believe it those eat less diets, it may work for some people, but it doesn't work for me. Living in Malaysia can be tough especially when its also known as food heaven to tourist from all around the world. So the struggle is real. But I choose to enjoy food and equivalently enjoy exercising.

Going a little personal, the reason why I'm practicing a healthy lifestyle is because I'm doing this for my mom. She had a heart attack when I was at the age of 13, where she stopped breathing for about 5 minutes and thankfully she was given a second chance in life. *THANK YOU GOD*. I think it helps when I eat healthily, the people who I stay with tends to practice eating healthy too. Not everyone understands how important it is to take care of your health until something drastic happens, so this is me giving you a heads up. I'm telling you, don't take your health for granted.

I was recently reading an article where the 2015 National Health and Morbidity Survey revealed that 47.7% of Malaysians above 18 years old suffer from high cholesterol levels. It's worst that 38.6% of these adults did not even know that their cholesterol levels were above acceptable levels. This proves that we pretty much take our health for granted, literally. One of the key factors to managing heart health is to understand what cholesterol is and how it works in the body. And this is why I'm emphasizing on ways to stay healthy and prevent risking your health by learning how to manage your cholesterol effectively.

"Cholesterol is a type of fat that cannot dissolve in our blood. It is transported through our bloodstream by carriers called lipoproteins (lipids and proteins). Cholesterol has many important functions in the body, including being part of the cell walls, producing bile acids and hormones and making vitamin D in your skin. Cholesterol can be found mostly in shellfish, prawns, red meat and egg yolk." 

-Char Siew Wei, Corporate Wellness Manager, Nestlé Malaysia.

If you have no idea what I'm talking about, well let me break it down to you. There are basically two types of lipoproteins, one is low-density lipoprotein (which is bad cholesterol) and high-density lipoprotein (which is good cholesterol). So having too much of bad cholesterol generally leads to blocked arteries and risk of heart disease while the good cholesterol protects arteries from building up fatty deposits such as plaque, thus reducing the risk of a heart disease. As simple as it is, it's really important that we are aware of the cholesterol that we are consuming.

What happens when your high cholesterol are not managed? 

Well, this might result in the build-up of cholesterol plaques that can basically harden the walls of arteries and block blood flow, which causes heart attacks usually. *yikes* I would say that if you're above the age of 20 years old, you should have your cholesterol levels checked at least once every 5 years.

How to prevent health problems?

Other than practicing a healthy balanced diet and exercising, below would be some points to prevent yourself from getting health problems:

1 | Consider being physically active to help lower cholesterol levels or simpler terms, making time to exercise in a week.
2 | Quit bad smoking habits to improve your HDL cholesterol levels and decrease your blood pressure.
3 | Maintain a healthy body weight according to the ideal BMI.
4 | Include plant sterols in your daily diet : 1.2g of plant sterols daily can be easily consumed from 2 servings of Nestlé Omega Plus milk to manage cholesterol levels.

I have to say that its great that I discovered about Nestlé Omega Plus taking an action to spread the awareness on managing your cholesterol effectively. So I'm proud to say that I'll be joining them next month on the 3rd of September at Lake Gardens (Perdana Botanical Gardens) to support the Walk-A-Mile campaign. This happens to be Malaysia's longest running walk for hearth health advocacy, organized by Nestleeé Omega Plus and Yayasan Jantung Malaysia (YJM). I'm happy to see big brands like Nestlé Omega Plus for stepping up their game in spreading the awareness for Malaysians to start thinking about their health before its too late. Its never too late to start, so if you're interested, you can register yourself at mro.myraceonline.com/wohd16/registrations to join the Walk-A-Mile 2016. Hoping to see you guys there!

Sara xx