Can The TLC Diet Change Your Life? Here’s How to Make It Work for You

It’s not uncommon to have high cholesterol. Millions of Americans live with the condition, despite its many health risks. While medications can help keep cholesterol under control, what you eat is also an important part of managing the potentially harmful cholesterol in your bloodstream. There’s something out there called the TLC diet — and this is definitely an eating plan you don’t want to miss.

 

What is the TLC diet?

The Therapeutic Lifestyle Changes (TLC) diet was created to help Americans lower their cholesterol and improve overall heart health. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, of the millions of adults in the United States with high LDL (“bad”) cholesterol, fewer than 1 out of every 3 have it under control.

Out-of-control cholesterol puts your heart at risk, increasing your chances of dying from chronic disease. People with high total cholesterol — high LDL (“bad”) cholesterol and low HDL (“good”) cholesterol — have double the risk of heart disease compared to those with normal cholesterol.

Since heart disease is currently the leading cause of death among both men and women in the U.S., experts at the National Institutes of Health developed the TLC diet in an effort to make heart disease prevention more straightforward for the general public.

With an emphasis on trimming large amounts of saturated fat from your plate, the TLC diet might be the motivation you need to eat healthier and decrease your risk for multiple diseases. You might even be able to lose weight. Let’s look closer at all the ways TLC can change your life.

Benefits

The US News & World Report ranks the TLC diet No. 4 on its list of Best Diets Overall. It also comes third among diets promoting heart health, and fourth among diets that promote healthy eating. If that is not enough to convince you, here are all the ways following the diet can make you healthier.

Heart health

Since the whole purpose of the TLC diet is to help you lower your LDL (“bad”) cholesterol, it’s no surprise that following its guidelines puts you at a much lower risk of a multitude of heart problems. But the main reason for this is because the diet discourages you from eating terrible foods by helping you replace junk food with healthy alternatives. There aren’t any restrictions, other than a calorie limit, but that in itself makes you think twice before ordering an entire plate of sweet potato fries at dinner (sigh).

Physical activity

This diet, unlike most other diets out there, calls for at least 30 minutes of exercise most or all days of the week. This not only benefits your heart, but your mood, appetite, and chances of losing weight as well. Just make sure you’re doing something you aren’t going to wake up dreading the morning of. Yes, exercise can be fun! Even something as simple as going for a brisk walk for at least 30 minutes can make a difference, even in terms of losing weight over time.

Weight loss

Can you lose weight and improve your overall cholesterol at the same time? Absolutely. While this isn’t a diet designed specifically to help you lose weight, it does require that you eat fewer calories every single day. Even though eating fewer calories aren’t the only factor that promotes weight loss, many people who struggle with their weight do so because they are simply eating too much. Reducing your calorie intake, either to 2,500/1,800 or 1,600/1,200 per day can make a huge difference.

Surprisingly, that isn’t the only part about this diet that could set you up for weight loss success. Its emphasis on less fat, more fiber doesn’t just lower your bad cholesterol. It also promotes satiety, or feelings of fullness. Fiber is a slow digesting carbohydrate, which means it causes a slower release of sugar into your blood. That, combined with moving more slowly through your digestive tract, discourages you from overeating — a huge win for shedding pounds while eating good food.

Now that you know some of the possible benefits of going on the TLC diet, here are the rules you would start following if you decided to give the diet a chance.

Guidelines

Following the TLC diet might be time-consuming for some people, especially since you will have to pay a lot more attention to food labels and restaurant menus as you go. Avoiding large amounts of saturated fat isn’t easy. High-fat foods are just everywhere, it seems. These guidelines should help you stay on track and answer any questions you might have about what the TLC diet entails specifically.

Calories

The TLC diet does involve counting calories, which does help some people hold themselves accountable, stay on track, and stick to their goals. If you plan on following the diet just to lower your LDL cholesterol, your allotted calorie limit rests a bit higher — 2,500 for men and 1,800 for women.

If you also want to lose weight while getting your cholesterol under control, you can do that, too. You will just need to eat fewer calories. Men will consume up to 1,600 calories per day on the TLC diet, while women should consume 1,200.

Saturated fat

Even though it isn’t nearly as harmful as trans fat, saturated fat isn’t something you can eat in excess without devastating consequences. Harvard Health warns that too much saturated fat in your diet can raise your LDL (“bad”) cholesterol, which increases the chance that plaque will build up in your arteries. Resulting blockages to your heart can lead to heart attacks, strokes, and death.

This is why developers of the TLC diet have set a limit of less than 7 percent of daily calories from saturated fat. This is slightly lower than the generally recommended dietary guideline of 10 percent.

Soluble fiber

We hear a lot about fiber when discussing digestive issues and disorders, but this important nutrient serves more than one vital purpose in terms of keeping you healthy. Soluble fiber, found in foods like beans, whole grains, fruits, and vegetables, is an extremely important resource when fighting high LDL (“bad”) cholesterol. It helps prevent large amounts of potentially harmful cholesterol from entering your bloodstream and clogging your arteries.

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