Food doesn’t just fuel your body—it sends powerful signals that shape how your cells, hormones, and metabolism function every day. The choices you make at each meal influence how your body handles fats, sugar, and inflammation, all of which play a role in long-term heart and metabolic health. Understanding what’s happening inside your body can help you make choices that truly support your well-being.

Eating the right foods is one of the most effective ways to improve your cholesterol and protect your health. HDL is known as “good” cholesterol because it helps remove excess cholesterol from your blood. LDL is called “bad” cholesterol because it can build up in your arteries and increase the risk of heart disease (1). High triglycerides—another type of fat in your blood—also raise your risk for heart and metabolic diseases (2).

Following a diet that raises HDL, lowers LDL, and reduces triglycerides can help decrease inflammation, improve insulin sensitivity, and lower your risk of heart disease and type 2 diabetes (1,3).

1. Healthy Fats

Saturated fats are usually solid at room temperature and are found in foods like butter, cheese, whole milk, fatty meats (such as beef and pork), and tropical oils like palm oil. Eating too much saturated fat can raise LDL cholesterol and increase your risk of heart disease (4).

It’s better to choose more monounsaturated fats and omega-3 fatty acids. These healthy fats can improve your cholesterol levels and support heart health (5–6).

What Are Monounsaturated Fats and Omega-3s?

These are types of healthy fats that support your heart, metabolism, and cholesterol balance.

• Monounsaturated fats
  • Found in olive oil, avocados, olives, almonds, cashews
  • What they do: help raise HDL (“good” cholesterol) and support heart health
• Omega-3 fatty acids
  • Found in walnuts, chia seeds, and flaxseeds
  • What they do: reduce inflammation, lower triglycerides, and support healthy cholesterol levels

How They Improve Your Lipid Profile

Raise HDL (“good” cholesterol):

• Monounsaturated fats—like those in olive oil and avocados—can increase HDL (“good” cholesterol), which helps remove excess cholesterol from your blood (1,5).

Lower LDL (“bad” cholesterol):

• Omega-3 fatty acids—found in nuts and seeds—can help reduce LDL (“bad” cholesterol), the type that can build up in arteries (6–7).

Lower triglycerides:

• Omega-3s are especially effective at lowering triglycerides by reducing how much your liver produces and helping your body clear them from the blood (6–7).

Best sources:

• Extra-virgin olive oil, avocados, olives, almonds, cashews, macadamia nuts, chia seeds, flaxseeds, walnuts, hemp seeds, and algae oil.

Studies show that people who eat more unsaturated fats—especially from olive oil—have healthier HDL and LDL levels. Omega-3s provide additional benefits by lowering triglycerides (5–7).

2. Soluble Fiber

Eating foods rich in soluble fiber can help improve cholesterol levels. This type of fiber binds to cholesterol and bile acids (digestive helpers made from cholesterol that assist in breaking down and storing fat), allowing your body to eliminate them rather than reabsorbing them. This process prompts your liver to pull more LDL cholesterol from your blood to create new bile acids, which lowers LDL levels (8).

Foods high in soluble fiber—such as oats, beans, lentils, apples, citrus fruits, and flaxseeds—can reduce LDL cholesterol by 5–10% when eaten regularly (8).

• Lowers LDL: Soluble fiber reduces how much cholesterol your body absorbs from food, prompting your liver to use more LDL cholesterol to replace what’s lost (8).
• Supports HDL: While fiber doesn’t directly raise HDL, it helps HDL function more effectively by keeping fat and sugar metabolism balanced (1,9).
• Lowers Triglycerides: Soluble fiber slows how quickly your body absorbs sugars and fats, helping lower triglyceride levels (9).

Best sources: Oats, beans, apples, citrus fruits, and flaxseeds.

3. Antioxidant-Rich Foods

Antioxidants and polyphenols—nutrients found in plant foods—protect cholesterol from damage and support heart and metabolic health.

• Improves HDL Function: Antioxidants help HDL (“happy”) cholesterol work more efficiently to remove excess cholesterol and reduce inflammation. Foods like berries and leafy greens are especially rich in these compounds (10–11).
• Reduces LDL Oxidation: When LDL (“lousy”) cholesterol becomes oxidized, it can stick to artery walls and form blockages. Antioxidants prevent this oxidation, making LDL less harmful (10–12).

Antioxidants also lower inflammation and improve how your body uses insulin, helping regulate blood sugar and reduce the risk of diabetes and other metabolic conditions (9–12).

Best sources: Berries, dark chocolate, leafy greens (such as spinach and kale), and green tea.

Why This Matters for Your Health

Keeping your cholesterol levels in a healthy range supports not only your heart but your entire metabolism. Balanced cholesterol is linked to:

• Better insulin sensitivity and blood sugar control
• Less inflammation throughout the body
• Lower risk of heart disease and stroke
• More stable energy and easier weight management

Choosing the right foods—sometimes called precision nutrition—helps you get the best results for your cholesterol, metabolism, and overall health (9). Precision nutrition means personalizing your diet to fit your unique needs, preferences, and health goals. At Tula, we focus on selecting nutrient-dense foods that work best for your body’s chemistry and lifestyle. This means making thoughtful choices—like emphasizing healthy fats, soluble fiber, and antioxidant-rich foods—that support heart health, metabolic balance, and lasting wellness. By listening to your body’s signals and using clinical guidance, you can build a nutrition plan that truly works for you.

Sending Health Your Way!

The Tula Clinical Team

Reviewed by:
Aubree RN, BSN
Austin MS, RDN, CSR, LDN, CD

Improving cholesterol is important not only for heart health, but also for supporting healthy blood sugar, reducing inflammation, and promoting overall wellness. Notably, these benefits can be achieved without strenuous or high-intensity exercise (1).

What Movement Does to Your Lipids

Lipids are fats in your blood that your body uses for energy, hormones, and cell health. Your lipid panel includes three main components: HDL, LDL, and triglycerides—each playing a different role in how your body moves, stores, and clears fats.

Consistent physical activity can:

• Increase HDL (“happy” cholesterol): Helps carry extra cholesterol from your blood to the liver for removal (1).
• Decrease LDL (“lousy” cholesterol): Reduces cholesterol that can build up in arteries and cause heart disease (1).
• Lower triglycerides: Reduces blood fats that rise with poor diet or insulin resistance (1).

How Movement Helps Your Body Move Lipids

Triglycerides: When you move—walking, running, or lifting weights—your muscles need more energy. Your body pulls fuel from the bloodstream, especially triglycerides, and from fat stored in your tissues. Both are broken down into fatty acids that muscles can use for energy (4–6).

An enzyme called lipoprotein lipase (LPL) sits along blood vessel walls and “cuts” triglycerides into fatty acids for muscle use. Exercise increases LPL activity, helping more triglycerides be cleared from the blood and used for fuel. Over time, this supports healthier triglyceride levels and lipid balance (5–7).

HDL & LDL:

HDL and LDL are carriers that transport cholesterol through the bloodstream since cholesterol cannot travel alone.

• LDL delivers cholesterol to tissues; excess LDL can stick to artery walls.
• HDL carries extra cholesterol back to the liver for removal.

Exercise changes how the liver handles cholesterol. Physical activity increases the number and activity of LDL receptors on liver cells. These receptors pull LDL out of the bloodstream, reducing circulation and preventing buildup on artery walls (4–6).

At the same time, exercise stimulates HDL production and function. HDL particles travel through the bloodstream, collect excess cholesterol from tissues and arteries, and return it to the liver—a process called reverse cholesterol transport (8–9).

Together, these effects lower harmful LDL, raise protective HDL, and keep cholesterol moving efficiently (12–14).

Aerobic vs. Strength Exercise: What’s the Difference?

Both types of exercise are beneficial, with slightly different effects (15–17).

Aerobic exercise (brisk walking, jogging, swimming, cycling) is especially effective at:

• Raising HDL
• Lower triglycerides
• Improving fat clearance from the blood (16–22)

Strength (resistance) training (weights, resistance bands) helps:

• Lower LDL
• Lower triglycerides
• Improve insulin sensitivity, supporting healthier lipid levels (16, 25–28)

Doing both together provides the strongest improvements in cholesterol balance and heart health. A randomized controlled trial showed that combining aerobic and resistance exercise significantly raised HDL and lowered LDL and triglycerides in people with metabolic syndrome and type 2 diabetes (1).

Why This Helps Metabolic Health

Improved lipid profiles support:

• Enhanced insulin sensitivity
• Lower blood pressure
• Reduced inflammation
• Better glucose control

Physical activity also boosts lipoprotein lipase activity, helping clear triglycerides and improve insulin function, especially in people with diabetes (2)

Small is Better than Nothing

You don’t need a gym or special equipment. Simple movements—like 10-minute post-meal walks, gentle stretching, or dancing at home—can:

• Stimulate muscle uptake of glucose
• Regulate post-meal blood sugar
• Improve lipid profiles

Even low-to-moderate intensity activity can reduce LDL and triglycerides in people with type 2 diabetes and enhance medication effectiveness (3).

Sending Health Your Way!

The Tula Clinical Team

Reviewed by:
Aubree RN, BSN
Austin MS, RDN, CSR, LDN, CD

Stress is Normal…and Even Helpful!

Stress is a normal physical and emotional response that helps motivate us to stay safe, healthy, and engaged in our lives. When experienced in manageable amounts, stress can actually be beneficial. For example, feeling stressed about a relationship may prompt someone to communicate more openly and work through challenges. Similarly, stress related to work responsibilities can motivate us to stay focused, meet deadlines, and perform well. In these situations, stress serves a helpful purpose—it pushes us toward growth, problem-solving, and positive action.

How Our Brains Are Wired

Our brains are beautifully designed to protect us. They naturally pay close attention to potential challenges—a pattern researchers refer to as negativity bias or threat-focused attention (7). This built-in system helped our ancestors survive by quickly detecting danger in their environment. Today, it continues to operate behind the scenes, keeping us alert and responsive even during relatively calm moments. While this protective mechanism serves an important purpose, it can also keep the nervous system in a heightened state of alert—sometimes even when we are safe and our basic needs are fully met (8).

Awareness is the Key to Calm

The first step to finding calm is simply noticing what your mind is doing. Without awareness, the brain can continue scanning for concerns, and the body may respond to those thoughts as if they were real threats. For example, you might be at home on a day off with nothing urgent happening yet still feel stressed about your to-do list. Even though you are physically safe, your body can react as though there is danger nearby.

Over time, this constant activation can make stress feel overwhelming. When stress remains turned on, it can affect both emotional and physical health and may even influence things like blood sugar levels.

So, How Do I Manage It?

When you begin to recognize how your mind tries to protect you by constantly scanning for concerns, it becomes easier to step out of stress loops. For some people, simply pausing and asking, “What’s okay about this moment?” can be surprisingly powerful. Often, the answer is “nothing is wrong right now.” We tend to emotionally respond to problems that haven’t happened yet—and may never happen at all. This question helps bring awareness back to the present moment.

As the saying goes, to imagine how things might go wrong is to suffer twice.

It’s also important to acknowledge that while stress isn’t always helpful, some situations genuinely do warrant a stress response. Certain experiences aren’t fair or fixable, and in those moments, allowing yourself to safely feel and process emotions—both comfortable and uncomfortable—is healthy and necessary.

Try these tools to help keep stressful thoughts in perspective:

• Ask Yourself: Will this matter in 5 minutes, 5 days, 5 months, or 5 years?
• Examine the thought: What evidence supports this thought? What evidence goes against it? What more balanced or realistic thought could replace it?
  • When looking for evidence against the thought, focus only on the facts.
  • Notice whether you’re jumping to conclusions, making assumptions, or overgeneralizing. Words like “always,” “never,” and “everybody” are often clues that a thought can be reworded in a more helpful, accurate way.
• Try grounding: Notice
  • 3 things you can see
  • 3 things you can hear
  • 3 things you can feel (9)We can always tune into our surroundings to give our minds a break from stressful thinking. If this works well for you, repeat it as often as needed, or focus on just one sense—such as noticing everything you can see.
• Practice gratitude through writing:
  • 3 good things about yourself
  • 3 good things that happened today
  • 3 things you’re looking forward to
  • 3 things you like about yourselfIf you enjoy this exercise, aim to practice it twice a week, choosing new answers each time. Writing things down helps you track progress—and over time, you’ll build a personal record of positive moments and strengths.

While your mind is powerful and these thought-based tools can reduce stress, physical strategies are just as important:

Successful stress management looks different for everyone. What works well for one person may not work for another, and that’s completely normal. Take time to reflect on which strategies feel most helpful for you. If you find yourself feeling stuck or not noticing much relief over time, consider talking with your therapist, HealthCoach, or another qualified health professional about your experience. Support can help you find approaches that are better suited to your needs.

Sending Health Your Way!

The Tula Clinical Team

Austin MS, RDN, CSR, LDN, CD
Aubree RN, BSN

Staying hydrated is more than just quenching thirst. Water plays a critical role in keeping your body functioning optimally—from regulating blood sugar to supporting heart health and maintaining a healthy waistline. Even mild dehydration can affect key health indicators such as A1C, blood pressure, and waist circumference, making hydration a simple yet powerful tool for overall wellness.

Hydration and Blood Sugar (A1C)

Can being dehydrated cause high blood sugar? Yes! When your body lacks enough water, blood becomes more concentrated or thicker, which can elevate your glucose levels. Research has shown that low daily water intake is associated with an increased risk of developing hyperglycemia (high blood sugar levels) (1). Adequate hydration helps your body maintain normal glucose concentrations and supports proper insulin function, helping your body to work like it was made to. This makes drinking water an important habit for blood sugar control.

Tips for staying hydrated:

• Drink water consistently throughout the day rather than all at once.

• Include hydrating foods like cucumbers, watermelon, and oranges.
• Keep a reusable water bottle handy as a visual reminder and a simple tool you can use for success.

Hydration and Blood Pressure

Water helps regulate blood pressure by supporting kidney function and maintaining proper blood volume. When your body is dehydrated, blood vessels may constrict, and blood pressure can rise. Adequate hydration ensures that the cardiovascular system can efficiently deliver nutrients and oxygen throughout the body, helping to keep blood pressure within a healthy range.

Simple strategies:

• Start your morning with a glass of water to kickstart hydration.

• Balance water intake with electrolytes if you sweat heavily during exercise or work in hot environments.

Hydration, Lipids, and a Healthy Waistline

Hydration may also influence lipid profiles and body composition. A study in older adults found that higher water intake and better hydration markers were associated with higher HDL (“happy”) cholesterol and lower LDL (“lousy”) cholesterol and triglycerides (2). Proper hydration supports metabolism, satiety, and fat utilization, which can contribute to a reduction in waist circumference over time.

Practical tips:

• Drink a glass of water before meals to help control portion sizes. (Just to note that those with bariatric surgery need to consult with their doctor, as this isn’t going to be the same guidance for them.
• Enjoy a glass of water before each meal to help manage your portion sizes and prevent overeating. However, if you’ve had bariatric surgery, it’s important to talk with your healthcare provider first, as this advice may not be suitable for everyone.
• Swap out sugary drinks for water or unsweetened beverages to nourish your body and give your metabolism a healthy boost.
• Track daily water intake using the myTula App hydration tracker to stay accountable.

How It Works

When you hydrate properly, your kidneys can filter waste more efficiently, blood becomes less concentrated, and hormones that regulate appetite and metabolism work optimally. Staying hydrated keeps vasopressin—a hormone that increases when you’re dehydrated—in a healthy range. This helps support better blood sugar control and reduces the body’s tendency to store fat. (2,3). Together, these effects combine to help maintain healthy blood sugar levels, support blood pressure, improve lipid profiles, and promote a leaner waistline. Even small, consistent hydration habits can help your body maintain a healthy metabolism.

Sending Health Your Way!

The Tula Clinical Team

Reviewed by:

Gaby MD (Venezuela)
Aubree RN, BSN
Austin MS, RDN, CSR, LDN, CD

Stress isn’t just an emotional burden—it has real effects on your body. Chronic stress can influence blood sugar, cholesterol levels, blood pressure, and even waist circumference. By learning to manage stress effectively, you can support key health indicators and improve overall metabolic and cardiovascular health.

Stress and Blood Sugar (A1C)

When the body experiences stress, it demands quick energy. To help you respond, stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline signal the liver to release stored glucose into the bloodstream. This surge of glucose provides fast fuel—but it can also raise blood sugar levels when stress happens frequently. Stress responses are a natural part of life and help your body stay alert and energized when needed. But when stress becomes constant, the repeated blood sugar spikes that follow can raise A1C over time. (1,2).

Tips to manage stress for better blood sugar:

• Incorporate short breathing exercises or mindfulness breaks throughout the day.
• Engage in light physical activity, such as walking, which can reduce stress hormones and improve insulin sensitivity.
• Practice consistent sleep habits to buffer the effects of stress on blood sugar.

Stress and Cholesterol (LDL & HDL)

Ongoing stress can raise “lousy” LDL cholesterol and lower “healthy” HDL cholesterol (3, 4). This happens because stress hormones can trigger inflammation and signal the liver to produce and release more fats into the bloodstream. Over time, this shift can put extra strain on your heart health.

Practical strategies:

• Use relaxation techniques like meditation, yoga, or progressive muscle relaxation.
• Limit caffeine and alcohol intake, which can exacerbate stress responses.
• Encourage social connection or talking with a trusted friend to reduce psychological stress.

Stress and Blood Pressure

In a world where multitasking is the norm, we often overlook the power of simplicity. The constant juggling of tasks can lead to decreased efficiency and increased stress, making it difficult to achieve our goals.

By focusing on just a few changes at a time, we can give our full attention to each task. This helps us do better work and reduces the stress of trying to do too much at once. We not only improve the quality of our work but also make it easier to turn these actions into lasting habits. Forming habits is key to making lasting changes.

The Science of Habit Formation

Habit formation involves doing the same action over and over again in specific situations until it becomes automatic and you don’t have to think about it anymore. Habits ultimately shape our lives. So how do you form habits? In the book “Atomic Habits” by James Clear, it suggests you list out the habit you would like to form and then answer these 4 questions surrounding this habit.

1. How can I make this behavior obvious?
2. How can I make it attractive?
3. How can I make it easy?
4. How can I make it satisfying?

Coming up with answers to these questions for the behavior or habit that you would like to change or make can empower you as you build better habits. When you consistently do actions in familiar situations, like when you are building a habit, the more regularly you repeat the action, the more you come to automatically perform that behavior.

Research indicates that, on average, it takes about two months (approximately 66 days) for a new behavior to become automatic (5). However, it’s important to note that this timeline can vary widely from person to person. Some habits—especially those that are more challenging—may take more than 150 days to form. If you find that it’s taking longer for your new habits to stick, you are not alone; everyone’s journey with habit formation is unique, and progress may happen at a different pace for each individual.

Start Simple

Oftentimes when we start on something new, we put really high expectations or rules surrounding our actions or expectations. While for some this may be empowering, for many others it can place unnecessary amounts of stress in their lives. The trick is to simplify the new behaviors you want to add to your routine.

For example, if someone wants to start exercising more each day, they may be tempted to join a gym and try to go every day. The idea of this may be overwhelming and demotivating, or burnout may occur because it’s not sustainable in the season of life you’re in. However, if you just commit to putting on your tennis shoes right after dinner each night, it may then put you in the habit of thinking about moving your body more—whether it be going outside for a leisurely stroll or watching evening news on your treadmill. The act of wearing tennis shoes is typically connected to increased body movement, which increases the likelihood of you incorporating activity more often.

You can apply this concept to any health-oriented behavior you wish to implement. Instead of trying a strict new fad diet for a short period of time, take note and think about healthy nutrition habits that you currently have in your life or would be easy to add. For example, do you eat a piece of fruit each day? Instead of “fries with that,” can you opt for “an apple with that”? Or how about your afternoon coffee run where you order that latte or other specialty drink for your pick-me-up? Save some time and money with some herbal tea at the office. After consistently doing this for a couple of months, choosing other healthy options can become second nature!

Sending Health Your Way!

The Tula Clinical Team

Reviewed by:
Aubree RN, BSN
Austin MS, RDN, CSR, LDN, CD

When you’re trying to eat healthier—especially if you’re managing blood sugar, inflammation, or gut health—it helps to know which protein sources give you the most support. That’s why we created a Protein Scoring Table that ranks foods based on three key things: health benefits, cost, and protein quality.

This scoring system makes it easy to compare different protein sources and choose the ones that are most balanced, affordable, and effective for your goals.

Our protein scoring system is built around three main pillars: health, cost, and protein quality. First, the Health Score (rated from 1 to 5) evaluates how beneficial each protein is for your body. To do this, we look at key factors such as nutrient density, anti-inflammatory properties, blood sugar impact, and gut health support—including whether a food provides fiber, prebiotics, or probiotics. The higher the health score, the more a given protein supports your overall wellness.

Next, we consider the Cost Score. This is where affordability comes into play. We calculate the average cost per ounce of protein for each food, ensuring a fair comparison between different sources. In our system, lower cost means a higher score, so affordable options are rewarded for being more accessible. It’s important to note that the more expensive the protein, the lower its cost score will be. This approach helps you spot proteins that offer the most benefit for your budget, allowing you to make smart, cost-effective choices without sacrificing nutrition.

Finally, we evaluate Protein Quality on a scale from 1 to 5. This score reflects how complete and useful the protein is for your body. We examine whether the food contains all essential amino acids, how easily it’s digested, and the amount of protein you get per serving. High-quality proteins score better here, ensuring your body gets what it needs for muscle repair, energy, and overall health.

By combining these three areas—health, cost, and quality—our scoring system offers a clear, balanced way to compare protein sources. Whether you’re looking for the healthiest, most affordable, or highest-quality protein, this system helps you choose foods that fit your needs and goals.