Cholesterol is very popular and is often related to various health issues and activities. Your cholesterol level can even define what you should and should not consume and do. Having a high level of cholesterol has become a major issue which concern a lot of people. People with high cholesterol level might be exposed to various kinds of health issues, especially cardiovascular diseases. Therefore, they have to maintain their foods intake, making sure that what they consume does not continuously heighten this cholesterol level. Hence, some foods must definitely be cut out to keep cholesterol level low. Activities also contribute to lowering or heightening your cholesterol level. Certain exercises might help maintaining your cholesterol level, yet certain kinds of exercises should be avoided if you already have a high cholesterol level. Bodybuilding is one of the most disputed one.

Cholesterol and bodybuilding

Cholesterol is a waxy substance produced by the body to support digestion. Almost eighty percent of cholesterol inside the body is produced by the liver, while the rest twenty percent is contributed by the foods we consume. It is a substance required by the body to produce hormones and vitamin which support the entire digestion and health. In fact, cholesterol promotes the production of bile acid, which helps fat digestion. However, maintaining moderate cholesterol level is important, as excessive circulating cholesterol on your blood might promote cardiovascular diseases which may cause death. There are LDL and HDL cholesterol circulating inside the arteries. The former is referred as the bad cholesterol, while the latter is considered as the good one.

Bodybuilding exercises help your body gain muscles mass and may contribute to get rid of certain health problems. However, this specific exercise is often associated with high cholesterol level inside the body. It is said that people with high cholesterol should give up bodybuilding or weight training, since this exercise might accumulate body fats and therefore, boosts the cholesterol level, putting you to even a higher risk of cardiovascular diseases. Gaining muscular weight is considered similar to gaining some fats in some people. Therefore, it may raise your bad cholesterol level. Hence, if you have already had a high cholesterol level, bodybuilding might not be advised, since it may continuously keep it higher. However, some people doing bodybuilding and weight training do not really agree with this, since they think that it is not the weight lifting which causes higher cholesterol level, yet it is the diets someone with weight training activity consume.

People with high cholesterol and bodybuilding

Some people are told to give up doing weight lifting because they have a high cholesterol level, and that this exercise might heighten this already-high cholesterol level. In fact, gaining muscular weight should not contribute to boost cholesterol level. However, bodybuilding is often associated with high protein diets, and this is considered as the real culprit. Hence, it is important to combine weight lifting with healthier diets other than just full fat dairy, meats, and egg yolks. There are various healthy diets which can be combined with weight lifting exercises to maintain cholesterol level. Instead of consuming high-protein diets such as egg yolks on the day offs, which can also contribute to high cholesterol level, consuming oatmeal, plain chicken breasts, mashed potato, and yoghurt will give you much more benefits without heightening your cholesterol level. Gaining weight muscles also promotes fat gains. Hence, low fat foods which is combined with healthy lifestyle will balance your entire health condition. To lower cholesterol, you might want to consider replacing the meats you used to take with fish which is loaded with omega-3 fatty acids, which is much healthier. Replacing your snacks with fresh fruits or salad might also contribute to your cholesterol lowering project. To sum up, cholesterol is not necessarily bad for bodybuilding, as long as you can maintain other factors contributing to your LDL and HDL levels, such as diets. Balancing your exercise with healthy diets is also important. People with high cholesterol level can still do weight lifting, although it is should be limited, because gaining muscle mass sometime includes gaining unwanted fats, which may increase your LDL level.