Tracked as a cap
Cholesterol tracking
- Unit
- mg
- Default cap
- 300 mg
- Direction
- Stay under
What it is, and why people track it
Dietary cholesterol is the cholesterol in food, distinct from blood cholesterol, which is what a lipid panel measures and what clinical risk is about.
Guidance here has genuinely shifted. The 2015 US Dietary Guidelines dropped the specific 300 mg limit, noting that saturated fat has a larger effect on blood lipids for most people, while still advising that intake be kept low. AIM keeps the metric because plenty of people are still asked to watch it, and because a metric you can turn off is better than one you cannot turn on.
Setting your number
AIM caps it at 300 mg a day, the long-standing label figure. If your clinician has given you a different number, use theirs.
How good is the estimate?
Follows directly from identifying animal-source foods, so it is as good as the identification. Eggs and shellfish dominate it.
Questions
- Should I still limit dietary cholesterol?
- Guidance has moved. The 2015 US Dietary Guidelines removed the specific 300 mg limit while still advising that intake be kept as low as practical, and current advice emphasises saturated fat more. Follow your clinician's advice on your own numbers — AIM is not medical advice.
Also in this group
Sodium
A cap, defaulting to 2,300 mg a day. Most sodium is not the salt shaker, which is why an estimate from the meal itself is more useful than a note to “use less salt”.
Potassium
A goal, not a cap — most people fall short. Potassium is the counterweight to sodium in blood pressure guidance and is missing from most macro trackers entirely.
Calcium
A standard metric with a 1,000 mg daily goal — worth watching on a dairy-free or plant-based diet, where the shortfall is easy to miss.
Iron
An 18 mg daily goal by default. One of the most common reasons someone starts tracking a specific nutrient — usually after a blood test.
Track cholesterol without a database search
AIM estimates it on every meal from a photo or a sentence, and lets you correct anything it got wrong just by saying so.