Diet for a Healthy Heart

Can what we eat contribute to a healthy heart? Can our diet support heart health after a heart attack? If you've asked yourself these questions, read on. The foods you eat can be a part of a heart healthy lifestyle, if you make some smart choices and stick with them. That's the topic of my Steemit blog about diet and heart disease.

What we eat can make a difference in heart health – both positive and negative. That said, while diet can influence heart health, it’s only one of the important factors involved in the variety of illnesses we commonly think about related to the catch-all term “heart health” – which include high blood pressure, stroke, heart attack, atherosclerosis (plaque-clogged arteries), and high cholesterol. Genetics (family predisposition), physical activity, stress management, and smoking are all important contributors as well.

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I'd love to hear what you think about nutritional contributions to heart health. How does healthy eating fit into your lifestyle? Do you think the other factors are more important (like exercise and stress management)???

The lifelong goal is to seek a stable weight AND a heart healthy lifestyle – from childhood on. For many women (and men!), healthy eating and weight maintenance have come at the expense of caring for other family members. So many people approaching age 40 or older consume diets contributing to high cholesterol and artery-clogging, have a lack of physical activity, can’t manage stress, and smoke. Oftentimes, a heart attack is the unexpected outcome of poor diet, genetic tendencies, and inactivity (people often know their lifestyles are not heart healthy, but don’t know what to do!). This occurs after years of poor eating habits – not the occasional piece of cheesecake!

Food is not medicine, and will not replace medical care for the treatment of heart disease. Healthy eating can help lower the risk of heart disease for many people, if done consistently over time.

While we hope that the “wake up call” of eating for a healthy heart does NOT come after a heart attack, there are thousands of people needing this information. In reality, the diet to lower risk factors to prevent a heart attack is just about the same as the best diet to consume after heart attack.

So, what to eat for a healthy heart? I have an easy plan that starts with what I call the “3 Cs”, all supported my recent medical studies: Calorie Counting; Cholesterol/Saturated Fat Reductions; and Compliance.

Calorie Counting: Maintain a stable weight, or lose weight if you’re willing to. Even not gaining is a help. If you monitor calories, you’ll naturally lower your fat intake as well. Plus, you won’t tend to consume to much of “heart healthy” foods that are highly caloric – like nuts and olive oil.

Cholesterol/Saturated Fat Reductions: Cholesterol comes from two sources: the diet and our own livers, that make it. We can’t control the amount of cholesterol our livers produce (that’s genetic), but we CAN limit the cholesterol we eat in foods. While reductions in dietary cholesterol and saturated fat (artery-clogging) can often help lower blood cholesterol, and limit plaque formation, it is not always the case, and medications must often be used when lifestyle alone is insufficient. Cholesterol is a waxy, fatty substance that our bodies need a small amount of. Saturated fats come from animal fats (in contrast to vegetable fats), and contribute to plaque formation. This is a big area of improvement for many people – and the single biggest area of focus when it comes to heart health.

Compliance: While we use the word diet, that’s really wrong – because you can always go “off” a diet, but I like the term lifestyle, because that indicates “forever”. For the diet changes to have any influence on long term heart-health, it must be done DAILY, not “when I remember”. This is the hardest part of the heart-healthy diet for many.

There are two very similar eating plans: The American Heart Association’s TLC (Therapeutic Lifestyle Changes is the gold standard, while some studies have compared this with the Mediterranian-style diet (the main difference here is that there’s almost no red meat), and found similar effects.

HERE IS THE SIMPLE LIST OF FOOD GROUPS TO CONSUME:

Generous fruits and vegetables (all colors) Healthy Fats: fish, nuts, olive/canola oil Protein: LEAN meat, fish, poultry Fish (2 x/wk; skinless white meat poultry, very lean cuts of meat, including red meat; limited amounts of nuts, soy proteins Fiber rich starches (20-25 grams/day); up to 4 whole eggs a week (whites ok) Not fat or lowfat dairy products

REQUIREMENTS:

Total Calories (vary): To maintain: Take your present weight, multiply by 12- a rough idea…., so, 150 pound person needs 1800 cal; a 200 pounder is 2400 cal).
The calorie distribution is an example of someone who needs 1800 calories/day.

Total Fat: 25% - 35% of calories (450 - 600 calories per day)

Protein: about 15% (270 calories per day)

Carbohydrates (fiber rich): 50% - 60% of calories (900 – 1100 per day)
This means fruits, veggies, and starchy CHO – like bread, rice, potatoes, cereals

Cholesterol: Less than 200 mg per day (if no heart disease, or heart attack, this is 300 mg per day).

If the total fat intake for the day is 25% - 35% of calories, it can be divided into the following calories: best rule of thumb, keep saturated as low as possible…

Fat is broken down into saturated (bad) and unsaturated (good). Within the healthy, unsaturated group there is “mono” and “poly”

Saturated: less than 7% of daily calories (125 calories or less)
(This is 10% of calories if no heart disease: 180 calories)

Monounsaturated (like olive oil): up to 20% of calories (up to 360 calories daily)

Polyunsaturated: up to 10% of calories (180 calories)

An important reference point: a tablespoon of ALL fat has about 120 calories!

What about salt intake? 2500 mg or less per day (heart healthy) is the goal; 2000 mg or less per day with heart disease (check with your doctor!).

Other dietary strategies which might be helpful:

Plant stanols (or sterols) can be included, at 2 grams per day. These are often found in functional foods like PROMISE active yogurt (nothing to do with dairy, but 2 grams plant stanols); Cocoa Via chocolate bars; Benecol margarine.

A final thought on red wine and chocolate, that always come up in discussions of heart healthy eating. While these products do have antioxidants, so do many other foods. I suggest using these foods as part of your daily indulgence calories - 100-200 calories daily - which is part of a deprivation-free lifestyle. Use these "free" 200 calories wisely. If you like chocolate, go for it. A glass of wine, fine! Don't start eating candy or drinking alcohol is you don't already do it, for the perceived health benefit. It's just not true!