Introduction
There are three main things that will contribute to better heart health: giving up smoking, exercise and eating a healthy diet. For most of us, none of these are easy to do. To be successful, you have to create an image of yourself ad a healthy individual, someone who takes care of him or her self. Living a healthy life is a lifelong commitment, not a fast fix. Poor heart health can mean trouble with other areas as well. New studies show that smoking more than 20 cigarettes a day or being overweight can lead to an increased risk of Alzheimer’s disease or other forms of dementia. Here are some tips and information that may help you to eat better. These may not help you to lose weight, but you will be learning a healthier lifestyle. For significant weight loss, you cannot go back to your old habits that led to your health problems in the first place. As you get used to a healthier lifestyle, you won’t miss the old you.
Getting Rid of Bad Habits
A food diary can help you keep track of the calories you eat each day. Simply write down everything you eat and the amount of calories in a small notebook. Be as honest and accurate as possible- this is only for you and your health. Look at the nutrition label on most foods or use a food guide to figure the calories. A dietician can help you figure out the total calories you should eat each day and there are web sites that will help.
You may be surprised at how much you are really eating and how those calories add up. Then you can decide what to cut out of your daily meals to bring your eating under control. Measure your food at home until you can “eyeball” the amount in a serving.
If you eat fast food more than once a week, you are eating way too much unhealthy food. There is an incredible amount of fat, salt and calories in most fast food. Many fast food chains are trying to improve their food, but for now, just don’t eat it. We rarely eat fast food and use it as a treat for our kinds only once in awhile. You will find that once your body gets used to not having as much fat and salt that you can’t eat a hamburger and fries without feeling sick.
Try taking your lunch to work. It really doesn’t take much time and certainly saves money. Use up those leftovers and eat salads prepared with lots of veggies, grilled meat, sunflower seeds, or raisins.
Sometimes, giving up one bad thing can really change your eating habits for the better. Perhaps you drink too many sodas or eat candy nonstop. Choose one thing to work on and try to give it up gradually or to replace it with a healthier alternative. Switch to diet drinks or non-sweetened tea instead of regular soft drinks and increase the water you drink. Many people don’t drink enough water and being even slightly dehydrated can have serious effects like headaches and being tired. Be careful if you drink flavored water; some pack a lot of calories so read the label. Many studies have shown that tea, especially green tea, can have many healthy benefits like lowering cholesterol, blood sugar, blood pressure and preventing cancer.
One way to give up things is just not to buy them in the first place. Don’t go near the candy, chips, or whatever in the store. Give yourself a different reward for giving up something. For example, apply the money saved to a movie with a friend or new clothes.
Foods to Avoid
One of the most important things you should be aware of is that the food industry does not have your good health as its main goal. The food industry is more concerned with making loads of money than your health. Therefore you should learn to read the nutrition label and avoid certain things. High fructose corn syrup is very high on the list of things to avoid as if it were poison, which really it is.
High fructose corn syrup is a cheap, incredibly sweet manufactured sweetener that affects your body by shutting off your body’s natural appetite control. In other words, instead of feeling full after eating or drinking a normal amount, you still feel hungry. Worse, HFCS is in just about everything you eat, like bread, juice drinks, ketchup, cereal, and especially regular sodas. It is easy to see how this leads to overeating and weight gain. Americans eat more sugar and manufactured sweeteners than ever before and as a result we are getting heavier and doctors are seeing an increase in diabetes. So look carefully at what you eat and try to choose foods without HFCS. If sugar is listed as one of the first 3 or 4 ingredients in a food, then most of its calories come from sugar and unless you have decided to have a treat, pass it up. Don’t worry about the fructose in fruits as it is always healthy to eat these and it does not have the effects of HFCS.
Transfats
Transfats or partially hydrogenated vegetable oils are another bad addition of foods that wreck havoc on your body. They are found in store bought cakes, cookies, and crackers and used by restaurants to fry those tasty fries and onion rings. Transfats are created by turning liquid oils into a solid form like margarine. The food industry likes transfats because they increase shelf life for food products and make food tasty. However, these nasty fats increase your bad cholesterol or LDL and lead to weight gain. That in turn, increases your risk of heart disease. Transfats are usually not listed on the nutrition label so it can be hard to determine if they are in a certain food. Look for partially hydrogenated vegetable oil on the label instead. If the nutrition label breaks down the total fat contained in the food into saturated fat, poly unsaturated fat, and monounsaturated fat, then you can determine if there is any transfat. For example, a box of Goldfish crackers lists the total fat as 6 grams. Saturated fat is 1 gram, polyunsaturated fat is 1 gram and monounsaturated fat is 3 grams. That leaves 1 gram of transfat. While one gram may not sound bad, if you eat a lot of foods with transfat (or HFCS) every day, it adds up quickly.
Polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats are the “good fats” and can help lower cholesterol. Eat foods like salmon, nuts, peanut butter, olive oil, canola oil, sunflower or corn oil to get these.
Carbohydrates
You may have been hearing how carbohydrates are bad and lead to weight gain so we shouldn’t eat them. This is only partially true. The Atkins diet certainly has been shown to work for many people, as has the South Beach diet. It is better to understand what carbohydrates do for your body and then to make choices.
Your body changes all digestible carbohydrates into a simple sugar or glucose, which the body then uses as fuel. As glucose enters your bloodstream, insulin is released to help your body use the glucose. Some foods raise the blood sugar level higher and faster than others, making your body work harder to produce enough insulin. Later, the extra insulin can cause the body not to use the stored fuel (or fat) for energy and the body becomes starved for fuel or energy. The brain then sends out hunger signals long before a meal is necessary. If you eat another meal or snack with foods that raise blood sugar quickly, or in words have a high glycemic load, the process repeats itself. For some, this can ultimately lead to greater weight gain or diabetes.
Generally, carbohydrates from processed foods like bread, pastas, and sodas have a high glycemic load while most fruits, vegetables, beans, nuts, and whole grain breads and pastas have a lower one, along with more fiber, vitamins, and other nutrients. While a healthy person of normal weight has less to worry about, it pays to select a variety of foods to eat and to eat less processed foods. Once again, Americans have developed bad habits of eating too much white bread and pasta, white rice and sweets, juice drinks, sodas and white potatoes, which all have high glycemic loads. In turn, we neglect plain fruits and vegetables, beans, and whole grains.
Remember that your health is often in your own hands. Doctors cannot always fix a lifetime of bad habits or work miracles. If you change the oil in your car and have regular maintenance work done, then why wouldn’t you take care of your own body? It is so important to teach your children about good eating habits and to set an example for them. Doctors are finding heart disease and diabetes in younger and younger people so don’t sentence your children to a lifetime of health problems.
If you or your physician feel you may be at increased risk for heart disease, we offer an intensive prevention program to assess your heart risk. This includes advanced lipid testing, as well as other new risk factor checks such as homocysteine, lipoprotein, and c reactive protein. We specialize in assessment and treatment to prevent heart disease with intensive dietary instruction, exercise prescription, and medical treatment of complex cholesterol problems and high blood pressure problems. Call and schedule your appointment to our Prevention Clinic at 870-935-6729.
