Five Heart Healthy Tips

You know your heart is important. You know you need to take care of it, but maybe you’re not quite sure how to do that. Preventing heart disease means making choices today that will pay off for the rest of your life. Here are five heart healthy tips to take better care of your heart.

1) Types of Fat Matter

Limit saturated fat and trans fat. You can do this with some simple lifestyle tips like cutting the visible fat off the edges of your meat and limiting butter, cream, etc as condiments or mixings. Another way to limit saturated fat is doing meatless Monday meals and adding more plant based proteins.

Increase your healthy fats (unsaturated fat) by looking for foods like avocados, nuts, olive oil and fish. Eat fatty fish two times per week for a protective effect on your heart. The omega-3 found in fatty fish reduces your risk of heart disease and stroke. There is a catch – watch out for mercury. Best choices are salmon and tuna.    

2) Keep the sodium down

Reduce the amount of added salt.  For those of you who like to season heavily, it would be an easy fix to use more herbs, lemon juice and salt free seasoning products to help increase the flavor while protecting your health. 

Watch out for canned and processed foods that use sodium to extend the shelf life. Instead try fresh or frozen options.  

3) Eat more fruits and veggies 

If you’re at all familiar with me, then this one shouldn’t surprise you because I talk about it all the time, but it’s so important. Fruits and veggies are low calorie, vitamin and nutrient dense foods that help with almost every aspect of improving a person’s life. These have been proven to help with every aspect of heart health and should be eaten as much as possible. Fresh or frozen is always preferred over canned, as stated above those are often higher in sodium. 

4) Choose whole grains 

The increased fiber intake from whole grains has been shown to help reduce blood pressure, which allows the heart to push blood to the body with more efficiency. This alone will lead to great health benefits including decreasing your risk for hypertension and cardiovascular disease. Some of the best foods to keep in the house include whole grain breads and flour, high fiber cereal, oatmeal, brown rice, barley and buckwheat. 

5) Be active

The American Heart Association recommends 150 minutes of moderate-intense exercise (brisk walking) every week or 75 minutes of intense exercise (jogging) every week. Additionally two days a week you need strength training exercise that works all the major muscle groups. 

If you are not already putting into practice all of these heart healthy tips, then pick one tip to really concentrate on this week. Make it a priority this week to take care of your heart that is working so hard for you!