An important health concern is heart health. A lot of information circulates around the internet on the heart-healthy diet aspect. As rightly said, diet is the most important aspect to be analyzed in the context of cardiac health. What we eat, how frequently we eat, and how much we eat are to be carefully analyzed if any cardiac issues prevail. Many doctors give instructions about keeping a healthy diet, especially a heart-healthy diet. Based on your eating habits and also the amount of physical activity, your heart functions.
People often tend to ignore the cardiac issues they might be going through. Sometimes, until diagnosed, they may not even know they have a heart condition. Doctors do their role really well to give the appropriate treatment and medicines that are necessary as per the patient’s health. A good and healthy lifestyle helps the heart to function normally.
Let’s Have A Look At The Three Points About A Heart-healthy Diet:
1. What you eat
A cardiologist, at all times, to encourage a heart-healthy diet will always ask you the first question about your eating habits. A protein-induced diet with fibers and some carbohydrates is what an answer is expected from you. But, unfortunately, cardiologists never get to hear these words from the patient’s mouth.
They need to repeat the diet plans for various patients again and again. A simple thing is having a diet rich in protein will give you energy and keeps you active. Keeping in mind the heart-healthy diet, some modifications are necessary. Some instructions the cardiologist may give you are:
- Include salads in your diet like cucumber, carrot, tomatoes, etc.
- A good bowl of sweet corn will give you the necessary fiber intake.
- If you’re a non-vegetarian, some amount of grilled chicken will also do in order to keep fit.
- Green leafy vegetables are a savior when it comes to a heart-healthy diet. Green vegetables are rich in iron, potassium, and anti-oxidants that help proper blood circulation to your heart and brain.
- Fruits intake and natural fruit juice intake will also help you loads. It is suggested by cardiologists for a heart-healthy diet, to have fruit juices instead of directly consuming sugar via tea or coffee.
- This is a good way to cut down on direct intake of sugar.
2. How frequently do we eat
For a heart-healthy diet, frequency of eating is also important. Less frequency will give you weakness and lower blood pressure levels, lower blood sugar levels which in turn make you consume more energy. More frequent and unnecessary eating will lead to obesity and lethargy issues. So, the point is, keep the eating habits normal. Strike a balance between the intervals of your eating. Everybody’s digestion and metabolism are different. Observe your metabolism and maintain a lifestyle according to the same. Some instructions by cardiologists are:
- Watch how frequently you eat. It means, sometimes people are habitual to stress eating. Due to work or personal life stress, people tend to do stress-eating unknowingly and gain weight.
- Keep the frequency according to your digestion and metabolic rate. E.g. some people feel a bit hungry during evening tea. They want to have something before the tea in small amounts at least. Some may not be hungry at evening tea time. This is the small difference between the metabolic rate of people.
- Make a mindful decision about eating and abide by it. According to cardiologists, know or watch what you eat. People often eat something only out of temptation. So, to maintain a heart-healthy diet, keep a mindful track of the same.
3. How much do we eat
In the context of a heart-healthy diet, you need to keep a watch on the quantity too. According to studies, it takes 7 to 8 minutes for the body to signal the brain about the fullness of a person. A person being satiated or not is decided by the body and the brain. Surprised to know? But it is a fact. What we eat and how much of it we eat is a major factor in our heart-healthy diet. Here are some guidelines by a cardiologist in terms of the quantity of food to be consumed:
- When starting to eat, take the normal quantity you take. Post that, hang on for 2 minutes before you take the next serving. After taking the next serving, take a bit lesser than the first as you won’t be able to eat as much as the previous one. Either you will waste it or do compulsive eating to finish it. It’ll lead to obesity.
- When we are properly hungry, the acid in the stomach churns down the food and pushes it simultaneously for digestion. Excessive eaten food takes time to digest as you weren’t as hungry as you thought. So, keep a bit of time frame in between servings.
- Avoid temptations while eating. To maintain a heart-healthy diet, do not fall prey to temptations. People are tempted to eat due to the taste and aroma of the food and often end up being super full. Then it takes time to digest leading to health issues like fatigue and obesity which directly impacts the heart.
A golden piece of advice by cardiologists
Sweat it out:
Keeping in mind whatever you’re age, some amount of sweat via exercise is necessary for each and every individual. Slight jogging, brisk walking, etc are some activities that need to be done by every person. Especially in the current sedentary lifestyle we are in, a good, brisk walk or a small jog is a must.
With that, to avoid belly fat also, some amount of core muscle exercises needed to be done. People tend to not take the advice seriously and then they have to deal with issues like cholesterol, blood pressure, or diabetes. The point is, every individual needs to sweat it out at least for 10 to 15 minutes a day. Half an hour a day with breaks in between is the cherry on the cake. But remember, no eating too much of that cherry-topped cake! Just kidding.
Conclusion:
As we conclude, these are some of the essential guidelines given by cardiologists when we asked them. So if you’ve read the article it is quite simple. Diet and a bit of exercise so to sweat a bit that will help to reduce body fat, is the best way to keep your heart healthy. A heart-healthy diet, and what all should go in it, if you need to revise, you can scroll up and read it again.
Life is a gift given to us by God, we must learn to keep it active and fit. Let’s all make a promise to maintain a healthy lifestyle, eat nutritional food, limit alcohol and smoking, have a good workout session till we sweat and always follow the taken promise right now. Let us know if you’re doing this or not. We’ll tell you about us too!
