The Cardiologist's Wife's Chocolate Too! Diet:

              No Sugar, Low Fat *&* Low Carb

HDL the good cholesterol train, “I think I can, I THINK I can...!”

What, really, is cholesterol?

We've heard it a million times: Keep your cholesterol down, too much cholesterol is bad for you -- but what, really, is it? What does it look like?

It's a fatty, waxy substance that has no calories, and is found in every cell of your body. Your body makes all the cholesterol it needs, tiny amounts, to make hormones, vitamin D, build cell walls, & provide substances that help you digest foods. For millenia, man often starved in winter, and his body still made all the cholesterol he needed.

Blood is watery, cholesterol is waxy. Like oil & water, the two don't mix. To travel in the bloodstream, cholesterol is carried in what's called lipoproteins, which are tiny packages made of lipids (fat) on the inside and proteins on the outside. Two kinds of lipoproteins do this carrying: Low-density lipoprotein (LDL, the bad one), & high-density lipoprotein (HDL, the good one).

Think L for lousy; H for healthy. And instead of "packages," think of lipoproteins as trains. More about that in a second.

Health problems arise when there's too much L/bad cholesterol in your bloodstream. It is found primarily in foods from animal sources: whole-fat dairy products such as milk, cheese, and ice cream; also all meats, egg yolks, and fish & chicken (which, yes, contain bad cholesterol but don't contain saturated fat).

Now back to seeing lipoproteins as trains.

LDL is the dirty litter train. It leaves Metabolism Central – the liver -- and begins its circuit dumping sticky, gummy cholesterol in every artery. Finished, it returns through the veins back to the liver where it picks up another load. Back and forth, dumping and clogging…as long as the liver’s owner keeps supplying it with saturated fat and bad cholesterol.

HDL the good train, meanwhile, is traveling the same artery tracks, trying to clean up. An exhausting job, with all that burger and cupcake mush squeezing into the intestines -- worse, pushing good HDL down and bad LDL up! Outnumbered! But HDL struggles on, trying to clear the muckey tracks.

One day, if healthier eating has started, something happens. LDL returns to the liver and finds -- what’s this? Less fat? Glycogen depleting, starting to break down stored fat for energy? Because it’s owner’s on a diet? Nooo!

Yes, says HDL, suddenly stronger, and, "Outta my way!" Fast, the HDL train makes enough clean-up trips to fill the town dump.

The body has astonishing powers to self-heal. Its owner just has to help it.