7 Heart Healthy Habits

By Hana A. Feeney, MS, RD, CSSD • For Active.com

This month, take a moment to assess your lifestyle. Are you living a heart-friendly life or you are heading for disaster?  Preventing heart disease requires attention to many aspects of your life. Consider these heart healthy habits. Which ones can you add to your heart-healthy lifestyle?

Exercise Regularly

Your heart is a muscle that needs to be worked regularly to stay strong and healthy. Aim for at least 150 minutes of cardiovascular (heart pumping) exercise each week. Keep track of your activity on a calendar and count your weekly minutes. Don’t forget strength training twice a week and a relaxing type of exercise at least once a week. Yoga and tai chi are examples of activities that can help you focus on breathing, patience and quieting your mind.

Eat Your Fruits and Veggies

Fill half of your plate with colorful fruits and vegetables at each meal and snack. Eat the veggies and fruit first.  This healthy habit is sure to pay off. Last month a European study reported that eating eight servings of veggies and fruits per day reduces the risk of dying from heart disease by 22 percent. Think eight servings sounds like a lot? First, consider what a portion size really is: one small carrot, half a banana or one small apple. Incorporate a portion or two of vegetables and fruits into each meal or snack that you eat and you are sure to reach this target.  Here are some tasty strategies to reach the goal of eight servings per day:

• Breakfast: Use salsa with your veggie egg scramble.
• Snack: Keep a piece of fruit on your desk to remind you to eat a healthy snack.
• Lunch: Always include a veggie soup or a colorful salad.
• Snack: Keep snack size portions of unsweetened dried fruit and nuts in your desk or purse.
• Dinner: Steam or roast a mixture of veggies. Save leftovers for a tasty salad topper, to blend into a soup or to serve as a colorful salad.
• Dessert: Try grilled nectarines, poached pears or baked apples. So tasty!

Even if you don’t reach the target of eight servings per day, there is still a 4 percent risk reduction per portion of vegetables or fruits that you eat each day.

Aim for Color

One of the reasons that vegetables and fruits are cardio-protective is that they are full of bioactive plant chemicals, called antioxidants, that protect blood vessels and arteries from the damaging effects of high cholesterol, high blood pressure, high blood glucose, the environment and diets that are high in fat, sugar, and flour. Try to eat a variety of colors every day, even every meal.  These are some examples of antioxidant-rich vegetables, fruits, nuts and beans from each of the color categories.

• Red: strawberries, tomatoes, watermelon, red beans
• Orange/yellow: carrots, sweet potatoes, oranges, butternut squash
• Purple/blue: eggplant, blueberries, purple cabbage, black beans
• Green: spinach, broccoli, kiwi, arugula, green cabbage, green lentils, green peas
• White: cauliflower, onion, garlic, pear, apple, white beans, banana
• Brown: pinto beans, almonds, pecans, sunflower seeds, lentils, hummus

Broaden Your Carbohydrate Repertoire

If your carbohydrate intake comes primarily from whole grain breads, cereals and pasta, you are moving in the right direction by choosing 100 percent whole grain foods, but you are still lacking the fiber and antioxidants you would get from a more varied diet. Starchy vegetables, intact whole grains and beans are generally lacking in our diets. Try something new this week, so that you can work toward the goal of eating a flour-based grain (cereal, bread, pasta, crackers, etc.) only once a day. Here are some ideas for simple sides to swap out pasta and bread

• Starchy veggies: Roasted sweet potatoes or Yukon gold potatoes, mashed acorn squash or a handful of corn tossed onto a salad
• Intact whole grains: Quinoa cooked in part water and part coconut milk, brown rice tossed with diced veggies and an olive oil vinaigrette, or homemade oatmeal packets made ahead for a quick breakfast
• Beans and lentils: Hummus, lentil soup, black beans scrambled in eggs, lentil or bean salad mixed with diced veggies and olive oil vinaigrette

Prioritize Your Proteins

Choose fish most often, skinless poultry often and red meat least often. Aim for at least one or two palm-sized servings of fish each week. Skinless poultry and eggs are also great options for getting protein. Egg yolks have developed an exaggerated bad reputation due to their cholesterol content. Choose omega-3 whole eggs and mix in a few egg whites with one whole egg for a heart-healthy high protein breakfast. Limit red meat, which includes beef, lamb and pork, to one palm-sized serving or less per week. Red meat carries the highest risk of heart disease, cancer and overall mortality compared to other types of protein.

Take an Omega-3 Supplement

Salmon, sardines and herring are examples of oily fish that provide a significant amount of omega-3 fatty acids. Most Americans are deficient in these essential omega-3 fatty acids, which increases the risk for high blood pressure, heart attack, diabetes and stroke.  If you aren’t eating oily fish at least once a week, consider a molecularly distilled omega-3 fish oil supplement. Molecular distillation is a process that removes mercury and other toxins in the supplement.

Assess Your Personality

Do any of these personality traits describe you? Each of these factors is associated with heart disease—and the strongest risk of heart attack is found in people with a clustering of these characteristics. Depressed. Anxious. Hostile. Angry. Impatient. Competitive. Uptight.  The links between heart disease and certain personality traits are clear and teach us that we must learn how to cope with emotions and stress. Channel your energy into something positive. Learning how to effectively and healthfully cope with life allows you to make better food and exercise choices.