In this frigid tundra we call Connecticut (will it EVER stop snowing this winter?), I needed a break from the salad thing. Something hearty and filling and warm. Something that I could make for dinner that would yield lunch leftovers.
Casting about for a new Lo-Co recipe to meet these demanding criteria, I turned to one of my favorite sources, Cooking Light. There I found a crock-pot recipe with 53 reviews and 4 stars (my minimum requirement for trying any new Cooking Light recipe) that looked interesting.
Then I hesitated.
First of all, this vegetarian recipe has 19 ingredients –
Going on a statin to reduce cholesterol has long felt like an inevitability to me, since I have a family history of high cholesterol. But what’s odd is that cardiovascular disease is not what ultimately ‘gets’ my relatives. So that got me to wondering why lowering my LDL and overall cholesterol is so important.
Serendipitously, my friend Tina posted a comment with a link to an enlightening 2008 article in Business Week: Do Cholesterol Drugs Do Any Good? In this excerpt the author, John Carey, states that statins DO help people who have cardiovascular issues, but for those who simply have high cholesterol but no current cardiovascular disease,
The whole “It’s Important To Exercise Daily to Lower Cholesterol” thing is really bugging me. (Possibly because I didn’t exercise yesterday or today. No elliptical, no tennis, nada.) But daily exercise as a goal feels unreasonable to me. It seems like overkill — I mean why daily? Why is daily so critically important?
And aren’t I exempt because I’m already in decent shape?
Searching for that exemption led me online, where I found the opposite. Turns out, there is a concrete reason why exercising daily is important to lowering LDL, no matter what kind of shape you are in (there are probably many reasons,
We all know that salad – without too much dressing, of course – is a healthy lunch or dinner choice.
But here’s the trouble. I don’t really like salad. I don’t like making it. I don’t like eating it. For me, salad is just not very appealing. And for dinner? Frankly, I find it a bit sad.
But it is a good Lo-Co option. And it’s easy to get it quickly on the table. So at 6pm when – again – I have not planned a Lo-Co dinner, I can make a salad for myself and serve my husband and son something totally different,
For me, food is the most interesting AND most difficult part of this Lo-Co quest. I enjoy cooking, so searching my cookbooks (and buying new ones!) for recipes to jump-start this Lo-Co journey has been fun. That said, I am starting to enjoy it less, as the pressure mounts to PLAN and then actually MAKE a healthy dinner every day…or at least most days. Or, more accurately right now, some of the time.
But there’s more to the Lo-C0 equation than just diet.
There is also exercise. Now here’s the thing – I’m in decent shape.
