5 Tips in Ensuring a Hearty and Healthy Lifestyle

When you say a hearty healthy lifestyle, the first thing that we can think of is the heart, right? The heart is perhaps the most valuable part of our body since it pumps blood that delivers the oxygen to the body. If we run out of blood, then we would simply die. If the heart covered with cholesterol, then it won’t function well enough to produce enough blood for the whole body. This is how serious the heart to us. So we must take care of our heart. Below are some tips to taking care of our heart.

Hearty Healthy Lifestyle Changes that we should Implement to our Lives:

To keep it straightforward, there are 3 main principles, composing of diet, exercise and stress management

1. Eating Right. If you want to lower your cholesterol level, refrain from eating foods that are high in saturated fat and trans fats. It means that you should only eat chicken and turkey breast, fish 3-4 times/week. The omega-3’s found in fish helps to lower blood pressure and reduce the risk of blood clots as well as reduces inflammation. This also translates to not eating any milk or yogurt that is above 1% milk fat or any cheese that is above 3% milk fat.

Choose foods that drag cholesterol out of the body and have been shown to lower blood cholesterol by up to 25%. Beans and peas (especially red kidney beans, chick peas and lentils), oat bran and oatmeal, psyllium husk fiber (2-3 tsps/day), ground flaxseed (2 Tbsp/day) and fruits/vegetables containing soluble fiber (apples, pears, peaches, plums, spinach, kale, broccoli) are excellent examples of these foods. Folate and potassium that comes from orange juice help increase heart rate and reduce cholesterol. Eating sweet potatoes, tomato, soybeans and bananas will ensure to keep a constant potassium/sodium ratio.

You could get magnesium from pumpkin seeds, Brazil nuts, spinach and unrefined grains. According to the Oct 2008 issue of the Journal of Nutrition, there is a 17% reduction of serum CRP concentrations of consumers from 1 serving (20g) of dark chocolate every 3 days. In general, shoot for a diet rich in vegetables (6 servings/day), fruit (4 servings/day), olive oil or canola oil, fish, whole grains, oatmeal, green tea, mushrooms, sesame seeds, and flaxseeds.

2 . Exercising 30 minutes daily. According to the New England Journal of Medicine on Aug. 4, 2005, the risk of heart disease becomes twofold if you have a sedentary lifestyle, and close to 1/2 of all patients over the age of 12 are physically inactive.

3. Managing Stress Level. If you are worried, anxious or scared; there will be more stress hormones that get released which affects cardiovascular tissue. Because of this, stress has an indirect effect on our heart health.

4. Knowing and controlling blood pressure and cholesterol level. BY monitoring and controlling blood pressure, you can reduce the risk of stroke by up to 40%, risk of heart disease by 50% and risk of heart failure by up to 25%. The best way to lower a blood pressure is by minimizing the intake of salt. Other things that we can do to lower our blood pressure are following a healthy diet, achieving and maintaining a healthy weight, and increasing physical activity.

5. No Smoking! If you quit smoking for 24 hours then your chances of suffering from a heart attack decreases. Second hand smoke is more dangerous than first hand smoke. We need to stay away from anything that will expose us to second hand smoke.