In this post I will talk about triglycerides. But first I will just briefly touch upon the importance of becoming your own health detective. Knowing your numbers is critical for getting an understanding of how you are doing on the inside. You cannot manage what you cannot measure. So if you want to achieve your best health and also work with disease prevention – get to know your numbers!

Our blood has two different types of fat

Our blood has mainly two different types of fat, one of them is cholesterol and the other one is triglycerides. The trigs are used as an energy source and what is not used is stored as fat on our bodies. Cholesterol is used to build and repair cells and create different types of hormones. High triglycerides may contribute to hardening of the arteries or thickening of the artery walls (arteriosclerosis) — which increases the risk of stroke, heart attack and heart disease. Extremely high triglycerides can also cause acute inflammation of the pancreas (pancreatitis).

Triglycerides reflect your way of eating

Triglycerides is a health marker that reflects our way of eating. High values often come from eating a diet containing fast carbs and / or a high alcohol consumption. But also if you are obese or have diabetes type 2 or a sedentary lifestyle.
What I appreciate is that you as an individual have the power to do something about the situation if this value should be high. Unless it is something you have inherited of course. In general my way of eating consists of whole foods, healthy fats, a good amount of protein (30%) and around 10-20% of complex carbs (nature’s carbs). I also have an active lifestyle where I incorporate both resistance training and aerobic exercise.

How to lower your triglycerides

The number of trigs can for example be influenced by the way you eat and that is what I am teaching on this blog by showing you the different meals that I eat.

Other ways to lower your trigs are:

• Limit sugar intake
• Exercise regularly
• Each time you eat you increase insulin and insulin resistance can contribute to high trigs, aim for eating maximum three times per day.
• Limit alcohol intake

My numbers

What you see on this picture is my trigs over the last four years. As you can see the way I life my life – my lifestyle – caters for lower levels of trigs. It is reassuring to see this fact and it proves that how I eat is very beneficial for my health. I have talked about the benefits of measuring earlier on this blog. I have said it before and I will say it again, you cannot manage what you cannot measure. To read more about this you can go hit..