Heart By Keeping Your Heart Healthy Diet
They are forgetting about sodium. Lowering sodium intake is also important, especially regarding a heart healthy diet.
Of course, it is significant to watch your fat intake, as fat as calories. It is also significant to watch for and lower bad fats like saturated and hydrogenated, and to eliminate trans fats. All fats are not created equal.
It is significant to add good fats. Include more mono-unsaturated fats, such as olive oil, nuts, nut oils, and avocados. It is also significant to include fish oils, especially from fish high in Omega 3's like salmon. You may need to supplement with high-quality fish oils to make sure you get enough Omega 3 essential fatty acids.
Increase your intake of fresh vegetables and fruits. Include a variety of colorful fruits and vegetables. You may have heard it said, “Eat around the colors of the rainbow”. Most folks don't eat enough fruits and vegetables daily, or enough variety. Many diets say to eat 4 to 6 servings a day. Experiment and try new foods, new tastes and new varieties of fruits and vegetables. Eat more variety, and you'll get more variety of nutrients.
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Try adding one new (nutritious and heart-healthy) food a week. Perhaps you don't eat dark leafy greens like spinach or not very often. Try a spinach salad (leave out the bacon), or a chicken breast stuffed with spinach, or add spinach to a pasta or soup recipe. Even when eating green salads, try different types of greens.
This helps you get used to new foods and tastes. This is a good step as long as you don't drown the salad in most salad dressings. Choose more heart healthy extra virgin olive oil-and-vinegar salad dressings and avoid the high sodium and saturated fat in most creamy and dairy-based salad dressings.
Include fresh garlic. This not only adds a lot of flavor, but fresh garlic is excellent for your heart: a win-win situation. You can find a way to add fresh garlic to almost any dinner recipe or side dish. If you don't like preparing fresh garlic you can use tools like a garlic press, garlic slicer, garlic peeler, even a small food processor, or a herb grinder, to help you out. Today you can also find jars of already-peeled, chopped or minced, fresh garlic in the grocery store. Learning to work with fresh garlic is worth it.
Decide no salt or salt free seasonings. This is probably one of the most important steps when cooking heart healthy recipes. You need to get the salt out and flavor in. Sometimes folks forget to use enough seasoning. They may be used to cooking with seasonings that had a lot of salt in them, so they are more careful, almost too careful.
When adding no salt seasonings, you can and should be generous. Increase the amount of seasoning, and you increase flavor; just make sure it's a flavor you like. Furthermore, get a variety of no salt seasonings, as you can get tired pretty fast of eating the same flavor over and over.
Over the past several decades, the diet eaten by the average American has gotten progressively worse. Not surprisingly, as our diets have become less healthy, incident rates of heart disease have risen precipitously. The good news? There are plenty of steps that can be taken to implement a heart healthy diet and avoid heart disease.
Where to Start
Nowadays, it is not uncommon for a single meal to contain well over half of the daily recommended intake of either of these nutritional components. Our focus on convenient foods that are ready right away has placed nutritional value at the bottom of our collective list of priorities when selecting food.
Of all the changes that a person can make on their road to a heart healthy diet, limiting your intake of saturated and trans fats provides the largest benefit. Keeping these two dietary components in check helps to reduce your blood cholesterol and, in turn, lowers your risk of developing heart disease. When choosing foods based upon their fat content, be wary of butter, cream-based sauces, and hydrogenated margarine. As a rule, keeping your fat intake under 25% of your total daily calories can work wonders on keeping your heart healthy and strong.
Keeping it Going
On your next trip to the grocery store, keep your eyes peeled for products that are made with whole grains. Not only are entire grains a great source of fiber, they also play a key role in regulating blood pressure. In short, these unrefined grains are a powerful ingredient in your heart healthy diet. Instead of grabbing a loaf of white bread, opt for the whole-grain bread instead. Another great way to integrate entire grains into your diet is via oatmeal. This tasty treat can be combined with berries for an even yummier snack.
Eat Your Vegetables (and Fruits too)
Remember mom's famous words? For children, they can be a source of disdain, or even terror. As an adult, however, it is important to understand that your mother was right—eating your vegetables IS an important part of staying healthy. For this reason, your heart healthy diet will never be complete if it does not include regular servings of fruits and vegetables.
Amanda Paul is the writer and content manager for Bistro MD, one of the nation's industry leaders in home delivery of delicious meals designed for a lighter, healthier you.
It’s a said reality that everybody knows at least one person who is suffering from heart disease. Both the lifestyles we lead, our genetics, our environments, all of these influences the severity and prevalence of heart disease in the western world. Staying safe is paramount, and for that reason, we set up this little article.
In this piece, we give you some advice on the best ways to prevent heart disease and to minimize its risk. Remember that a large part of fighting this issue is making lifestyle changes regularly, making changes that stick, that you will adhere to for a long time.
Get some exercise
First– do anything. Yes, there are better options, there are types of exercise that are more beneficial to the health of your heart than others. In fact, Johns Hopkins Medicine advises you to get a combination of multiple types. Still, do anything.
Too many people obsess over the appropriate type of exercise, they pontificate and procrastinate, but end up never actually getting down to it. Exercising improves circulation, thus lowering your blood pressure. Exercise strengthens your heart, it reduces the risk of getting diabetes, and it also regulates blood glucose levels. Trust us, you really do want to get some exercise under your belt.
Talk to the professionals
This one seems like a no-brainer, and yet too many people simply refuse to do it. Talking to the professionals is the best way you can be certain that what you are doing for your heart is good. Think about it – do you have reason to worry? Do you have a history of heart illness, of elevated blood pressure in your family? Did any close relatives die from heart diseases? What’s your cholesterol like? Your blood pressure levels?
If needed, we suggest you contact a professional specialist cardiologist and actually get checked out. Getting a professional’s look might be precisely what you need to prevent anything possibly getting worse.
Get enough sleep
A vital part of staying healthy is getting enough sleep. A lack of sleep means a high risk of cardiovascular diseases. In fact, it doesn’t matter how old or young you are, this can truly lead to heart issues. Sleeping too little can cause disruptions and lead to inflammation. So, attempt to get at seven and a half hours per night.
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