Checking my cholesterol levels

cholesterol testI love cake (you might have noticed), but I also like to stay healthy and have a day job in public health. I enjoy yoga, go to dance classes when I can and generally try to have a fairly balanced diet.

There are lots of ways to monitor your health but one of the easiest and quickest health checks you can do is for cholesterol levels in your blood. According to the British Heart Foundation around 7 million people in the UK are living with heart and circulatory disease, there have been several government campaigns about healthy eating in the last few years and all sorts of adverts talk about people’s cholesterol levels – the ones that stick in my mind most are the margarine ones because one of the best ways to enjoy baking and reduce your cholesterol intake is to swap butter in recipes for a low cholesterol margarine.

This week I received a free home cholesterol testing kit available from Push Doctor and was happy to find out that my cholesterol levels are low enough to give me a green smiley face (150mg/dl if you want the technical level). The colour doesn’t show up well in the photo but it was a definite pale green. It’s reassuring to know that I’m keeping healthy in spite of my baking addiction. If you would like to order your own free kit go to Push Doctor and fill out the form.

The test itself is really easy, align the test strip in the holder – be brave for a millisecond while you touch your fingertip with the sterile lancet (if I can do it anyone can – I hate needles with a passion), then put the drop of blood on the test strip and turn over. The little hole can be matched to the colour chart on the other side and the emoji shows how good or bad your cholesterol levels are. 

Heart shaped macronsOf course if you want to limit cholesterol in a recipe even more then you could always try one with no butter or margarine like my heart shaped macrons – you might need to miss out the filling though!

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