Weekly
Healthy Advice From VÄXA
Eat
Your Heart Out: How Nutrition Effects Your Cardiovascular
System
Your
heart is your most active muscle, and to keep it healthy you
need to prescribe yourself a full body treatment that includes
a nutrition plan that will help it to continue pumping strongly
for many years to come. While genetics does play a strong
role in your cardiovascular health, your diet and exercise
also contribute immensely. By choosing a diet that is rich
in heart healthy foods, you can maintain, or even improve,
your overall cardiovascular health. Focusing on the nutritional
value of the foods you eat can give you an edge toward achieving
a healthy heart.
There are some simple do's and don'ts that you can follow
to focus on the health of your heart. The first don't is eating
foods that are high in sodium; paying attention to the sodium
levels listed on packages will surprise you. Buying a can
of green beans seems like it would be a healthy eating choice
because it is a vegetable; however, the sodium levels of canned
vegetables tend to be very high. Opting for fresh or even
frozen green beans is a healthier alternative. Also, foods
that are high in saturated fat, or hydrogenated fats, should
be avoided because they result in high cholesterol, one of
the leading contributors to cardiovascular disease. Smoking
is a definite don't as well; it is one of the main contributors
to heart attacks and other heart related illnesses.
Some of the dos that you can easily incorporate into your
lifestyle are:
-
Eat your soup, salads and vegetables first, so you're not
as hungry and you end up eating less of main course foods
that tend to be higher in calories and fats.
-
Fill your diet with heart healthy foods such as fruits,
vegetables, whole grains, lean proteins, and foods that
are high in antioxidants like green tea, and richly colored
berries.
-
Exercise your heart for at least twenty minutes a day. Increase
your heart rate through aerobic exercise like walking, jogging
or other cardiovascular workouts.
-
Do not drink alcohol to excess.
-
If your family has a history of heart disease, you need
to be very proactive about keeping track of your cholesterol
levels.
In
addition to these steps, you can also incorporate supplements
into your diet that can be beneficial to your heart. Vitamin
E, Vitamin C and Vitamins B6, B12 and Folic Acid are all extremely
beneficial. Minerals such as Magnesium and Chromium have shown
to have positive cardiovascular system effects as well.
Of course, it can be difficult to try and incorporate all of
the nutrients that you need to into your everyday meals. The
time it takes to learn what is healthy, and then to actually
come up with meal plans and prepare all of the foods can be
overwhelming, to say the least. |
