Cholesterol is one of those things that has a bad reputation. Limit your dietary intake! Watch out for eggs! Beware of cheese and butter! Or at any rate, that\’s what I always heard in my younger years.

When I was with the nutritionist day before yesterday, we got onto that subject; and she says that the rules have changed. A bigger problem than dietary cholesterol itself is saturated fat. I don\’t eat much meat or poultry; and I don\’t have hot dogs and/or bologna every week. I\’ve cut way back on snacks that might be high in saturated fats and trans fats; and I work to limit cheese to a few ounces per week. So why is my cholesterol level high?

Thus far my dietary efforts have been aimed at calorie control and curbing the carbs. It helped, too: my A1c level was 6.2; and now it\’s 5.6. That\’s still top-of-normal, though, so my work isn\’t over yet! In fact, I don\’t think it ever will be.

I\’ve begun to examine the labels on my ride foods for fat and cholesterol content. Take, for example, Fit Crunch bars. The Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough variety does, in fact, contain 16 g of total fat per 3.1 oz/88 g bar; and half of it is saturated fat. And the bar has 30 mg of cholesterol.

I avoid using those bars as casual snacks as much as possible; and when I\’m on a long ride, I need the energy. But do my long rides really burn off all that fat? Should I change what I use for ride food?

I see that my diet needs some further adjustment. I don\’t want to have to go on statins any more than I want to take diabetes medications!