Eating for a healthy heart doesn’t have to be hours of hard work. You can use supermarket foods and mix and match these easily available items with fresh to come up with a day’s eating plan that’s healthy, easy and will help lower your cholesterol. I’ve put together a day’s eating plan for a busy working woman who needs to shed weight.

It gives you plenty of ‘heart protectors’ like fibre, vegetables, oily fish and sterol milk without overloading you with kilojoules (calories). It’s quick so you get more time to head out for a brisk walk or do a gym class which will greatly help your efforts both to lower cholesterol and shed those extra kilos.

  This post is sponsored by HeartActive milk 

HeartActive is a delicious, 99% fat free milk enriched with plant sterols, which are proven to help reduce cholesterol. Research shows that consuming plant sterols everyday in milk can reduce cholesterol by an average of 10% in three weeks. HeartActive is currently available in a 1 L carton with an extended shelf life (45 days from production) compared to ‘regular’ white milks with a shelf life of 14 days.

Breakfast

Don’t skip breakfast! Choose a high-fibre cereal option or a quick blender smoothie for one:

• Bowl of bran cereal or untoasted muesli or other cereal *
• 1 small banana, sliced
• 2 tablespoons sultanas or raisins
• 1-2 tablespoons oat bran (optional)
• ½ cup low-fat milk (e.g. Heartactive)

* Best choices for your heart are cereals based on oats, barley or psyllium, as they’re high in soluble fibre, which sweeps cholesterol out of the bowels.

OR

Blender smoothie made with:

• 1 cup low-fat milk with sterols (e.g. Heartactive) or any low-fat milk
• 1 small banana, sliced up
• 1 tablespoon honey, sugar or maple syrup
• 1-2 tablespoons oat bran or wheatgerm 

AM snack

• 4 small or 2 large crispbread or 2 rice cakes topped with
• reduced-fat cheese or peanut butter 

Lunch

Use the single-serve cans of tuna or sardines so you get your serve of oily fish with their omega-3s into your system. Serve them up as:

Tuna and butter bean salad. Mix together these items at work:

• Small can (110 g) tuna, drained
• ½ cup canned butter beans, drained
• ½ cup macaroni spirals or cooked rice
• handful of mixed lettuce leaves

OR

Tuna and salad on bread:

• 1 thick or 2 thin slices of grain bread e.g. Burgen topped with
• Small can (110 g) tuna, drained
• Top with any salad leaves or 1 tomato, sliced

OR

• 1 slice thick rye bread toasted and topped with
• 3-4 canned sardines, drained and mashed onto the toast/li>
• Topped with 1 sliced tomato plus a squeeze of lemon
• Mug of minestrone or vegetable soup (optional)

PM snack

• Carton of low-fat berry yoghurt
• Handful (50 g) of almonds, walnuts or macadamias

Dinner

Chicken is always handy and can be jazzed up in different ways. Add a serve of carbs and be generous with the veges or salad:

• 2 chicken kebabs topped with lemon yoghurt (blend some grated rind and lemon juice into natural yoghurt)
• 1/2 cup cooked brown rice or quinoa
• large serve of steamed green beans or broccoli
• large serve of steamed carrots (cook all three veges together to save washing up)

OR

• 1 chicken breast, marinated in pesto and slow-baked
• 1 jacket baked potato (cook at the same time as the chicken)
• large serve of steamed broccolini or zucchini

Dessert

• Carton 150 g of fresh blueberries or strawberries
• With 1 scoop of ice-cream or thick yoghurt (low-fat Greek is good)

Before bed

• 1 cup of hot milk with a spoon of Milo or Horlicks

Buy a carton of low-fat or skim milk for cereal, hot milks, smoothies, tea and coffee. To lower cholesterol, Heartactive is ideal as it contains plant sterols that actively block the absorption of cholesterol into the body.

You don’t have to buy ordinary skim milk as any of the low-fat milks have around the same low-fat content but with much better flavour. If dairy is a problem for you, opt for a low-fat soy drink instead.

Need personalised advice?

If you want to know precisely how to reduce cholesterol or need personalised advice or have another dietary problem e.g. type 2 diabetes which often goes hand and hand with cholesterol, it’s best to make an appointment to see an Accredited Practising Dietitian. Go to www.daa.asn.au and click on Find an APD to find a dietitian near you.

HeartActive is a delicious, 99% fat free milk enriched with plant sterols, which are proven to help reduce cholesterol. Research shows that consuming plant sterols everyday in milk can reduce cholesterol by an average of 10% in three weeks. HeartActive is currently available in a 1 L carton with an extended shelf life (45 days from production) compared to ‘regular’ white milks with a shelf life of 14 days.