Hello! I've been a lurker on this subreddit for a while and I based my plan off of what other people have done, so here's how I got here.
I am a 26F, no known medical problems, BMI 21. I will say, I grew up in a pretty unhealthy diet home (ate fast food/fried food/meat for most meals, little veggies. Both my parents also have high cholesterol.) Due to this, I've had lipid panels since the age of 10. At 10, my total cholesterol was 206, with an elevated LDL and normal HDL and trigs. My pediatrician was attributing this to diet, but my family didn't really change their eating habits. My cholesterol ran between 203-211 (always elevated LDL driving this) from ages 10-18 with no intervention. My diet was definitely better than in childhood, but for sure room for improvement.
Since then, as an adult I've had:
3/2022: total 216, LDL 139.
12/2025: total 236, LDL 154, HDL 72
4/2026: total 192, LDL 120, HDL 58 (Post changes!)
Pretty much all my doctors have said a statin isn't necessary because of my age, and no one in my family ever took this seriously. But my numbers started to scare me and I want to live a long life!
So over about a 4 month period (December to now), I tracked my saturated fat intake to consuming less than 10g per day, increased fiber intake to at least 20g per day with oatmeal, beans, whole wheat. I started drinking green tea 4-5x a week, and also drank 1-2 cups of Metamucil nightly. Completely cut out red meat, egg yolks, butter. Still ate cheese but I was buying low fat options and weighing it on a food scale. I don't exercise a ton, tried to get 10k steps in per day but that was pretty inconsistent.
I'm happy with my drop in LDL, but I was kind of hoping for more. I would totally be open to a statin, but since it doesn't seem like I'll be put on a statin in the near future, I'd love more advice on how to continue to lower my LDL.