Meet Meg. She’s a 66-year-old personal trainer and massage therapist professionally. She was also a nutrition coach for a while, retiring in 2023. Outside of work, she was also a physique pro. What’s a physique pro? It’s basically like a bodybuilder, minus the steroids. Anyways, Meg is fit, athletic, and despite that, had high cholesterol for as long as she remembers. Until October 2024, when it surprisingly went from high to emergency high, and her doctor wanted to put her on medications.

She negotiated with her doctor to try it on her own for 3 months and if by then she hasn’t normalized her cholesterol levels, she’d try the medications.

Fast forward 3 months, and her cholesterol levels are now perfect. How did she do it? That’s what we’ll talk about in this article.

But if you’d like to hear Meg tell her own story, check out this 11-minute video:

And if you need help either improving your own cholesterol levels, or more broadly, improving your heart health, we have a program just for you. It’s called the “Healthy Heart Program.” If you want to see whether you qualify for this service, just fill out the application form on our home page.

Meg’s Life Before

Meg has been at a healthy weight her entire life (hovering around 119 pounds). She’s a personal trainer and nutrition coach, and at the age of 50, she decided to challenge herself and enter a physique competition. Like I said earlier, a physique competition is like bodybuilding, but without steroids. After 8 years of competing, she retired at age 58.

Additionally, in the past she has struggled with drug and alcohol addiction, and at the time of this writing, she’s 31 years sober.

As someone who’s fit to begin with, she was already lifting weights 5 days per week, doing body part splits (on Monday, she’d work one body part, Tuesday, a different body part and so on). She was also doing some light walking as well.

In other words, Meg was no slouch.

Yet, despite everything, she had high cholesterol her entire life. Yes, it ran in her family, so she had the genes for it.

Fast forward to October 2024, and her high cholesterol spiked even higher, so her doctor recommended statins. She read about the side effects of statins, and didn’t like them. But she didn’t want to die, either. She wanted to see if there are other alternatives that are equally effective, with none of the side effects. There are.

In December 2024, I published my cholesterol book. She picked it up, implemented everything, and in 3 months, normalized her cholesterol levels.

How Meg Normalized Her Cholesterol Levels

Specifically, what did Meg do?

  • As a former physique competitor, she understood the importance of protein, but her fibre wasn’t high enough. She increased it to the levels that I recommend in my book. Interestingly enough, she thought that meant eating more vegetables, but in my book, I explained how vegetables are actually a pretty poor source of fibre, and what are the real best sources of fibre. Meg’s preference was for beans (which are an awesome source), but there are over 20 others that I list in the book that have more fibre than vegetables.
  • Saturated fat: contrary to popular belief and even her doctor’s belief, saturated fat doesn’t actually worsen cholesterol levels, triglycerides or the risk of heart disease. It doesn’t improve it, either, mind you, but in general, research shows that it’s quite benign.
  • She started taking red yeast rice – one of only 5 effective supplements for cholesterol levels (there’s plenty of other supplements that claim to be effective, but the research doesn’t back it up).
  • She changed her workouts. Instead of doing 5 body part split workouts per week, she switched to full body workouts 3 times per week, and high intensity cardio 3 other times per week.

That’s why I love athletes and former athletes – their uncommonly impressive compliance. She literally followed everything to the letter. Fortunately, I recognize that most people aren’t athletes. That’s why in my books, I give ridiculously simple strategies that anyone can do – whether they’re an athlete or not.

Meg’s Results

Effort is nice, but results are nicer. So what were Meg’s results? Here’s a comparison:

  Before After
Total cholesterol 7.2 mmol/l (278 mg/dL) 5.3 (204 mg/dL)
LDL 5.0 mmol/l (195 mg/dL) 3.1 mmol/l (121 mg/dL)
HDL 1.8 mmol/l (68 mg/dL) 1.8 mmol/l (71 mg/dL)
Triglycerides 1.0 mmol/l (92 mg/dL) 0.7 mmol/l (65 mg/dL)

How Her Life is Different Now

Meg was already fit to begin with. It’s hard to see changes in someone who’s already fit and active, but Meg experienced them anyways. What was different in her life now? Quite a few things.

  • Without deliberately trying to lose weight, she lost 7 pounds. It’s much harder to make a lean person leaner than an obese person leaner.
  • She has more energy.
  • Her mood is better. In the past, Meg has struggled with clinical depression (she’s currently on Lexapro) and mood disorders. She didn’t do anything deliberate for her mood (medications, therapy, winning the lottery, petting puppies, etc.), and yet, even that improved as a side effect.

Meg Kruse 2

Meg Kruse 2