Healthy Colorado: Holiday heart health

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo (KRDO) -- Heart health should always be top of mind, but this time of year with specialty meals and parties it can be easy to let nutrition slip a bit. But there is one guide helping people achieve better cholesterol.

"Heart disease is our number one killer and so this is a really important disease to try and mitigate and try and prevent," says Dr. Elizabeth Klodas, a practicing clinical cardiologist and founder of Step One Foods. "If you look at nutrition it is one of the most impactful things that affects this process."

Nutrition is number one for Dr. Klodas. She's helped tens of thousands of people with cholesterol management through diet.

"The idea behind Step One is taking out all the guess work and work out of doing that with just two servings of ready to eat foods that you eat a day," says Dr. Klodas. "And they have been tested in a rigorous clinical trial performed at Mayo Clinic and with that we found that Step One Foods has been proven to work in most people with many seeing statin levels, medication level cholesterol reductions in as little as 30 days with delicious food and little lifestyle changes."

This time of year she emphasizes fresh foods. Dr. Klodas says holiday treats are fine in moderation, but there's one you might want to pass on.

"Eggnog, I have to say love the taste but this is such a high calorie beverage and it just has saturated fat, cholesterol and added sugar so when it comes to heart health and especially cholesterol management it is about the worst drink you can have," says Dr. Klodas.