Worry about your heart due to bad lifestyle habit? You are not the one and there could be other people just like you because, they may have done something wrong with their life started by doing unhealthy habit, wrong heart healthy diet plan, never have a workout, and etc. Ask yourself, do you have a heart healthy lifestyle? If it’s a no, then you need to fix some habits that are wrong. Through our life, there are several primary things that we always do for example, eating. Anything that is related with what we put inside our mouth is really important.
Talking about heart healthy eating habit, there are many things that are connected. We start to see about main thing we do in eating. There are three time habit, breakfast, lunch, and dinner. By seeing the time table, there are still some people that do wrong thing in their life. For example, late eating time or never take a normal portion. It is caused by their huge eating appetite that always makes them to eat anything that they want or they can take more and more foods. These habits are considered as the wrong one because, it can cause bad things if it’s done continuously or in long time.
Wrong eating habit may lead you into several serious diseases and one of them, cardiovascular disease is considered as one of the serious diseases that people get. It will cause heart attack which may cause further effect inside our body. It will cause dead if it’s not treated properly so, it’s really important for us to be more cautious in treating our body. In this way, we need to control our heart healthy habits by doing a healthy diet for heart. It’s really important to reduce the portion of our food and start to have healthier foods for us.
What is Healthy Diet for Heart?
First of all, let’s find out what is heart healthy diet for heart. As its name, it’s a diet plan that is designed to maintain our heart’s health. The diet takes several steps that must be obeyed by people. It’s related with any foods that are good and bad for our heart. Besides, we also know about how much portion that we should take for the heart healthy foods that we are going to eat. There are many benefits that we can get if we take this plan. The diet plan helps us to get healthy heart which is far away from any problem especially, cardiovascular disease that may happened anytime. Either you are a person with cardiovascular disease or not, it’s really important to consider in taking this diet plan.
What Kinds of Benefit that We Will Get?
As mentioned above, we can get plenty of benefits if we take this diet plan. Without further ado, let’s find out the benefit of this diet.
- It reduces the amount of LDL cholesterol (bad cholesterol) and total cholesterol inside our body. Automatically, it also reduces the risk of cardiovascular disease.
- By limiting the amount of sodium-food, it makes us free from high blood pressure. Healthy blood pressure also affects our body in getting HDL cholesterol (good cholesterol)
- The diet plan is really important to reduce our weight. Generally, overweight is the source of any kind of bad disease such as, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and etc. It’s also suggested for people with hereditary disease.
- By achieving healthy diet plan, we can get healthy body which will affect our psychology. We will feel better and motivated.
What To do Before Running a Diet
If you are ready to take the diet plan, there are some information that you need to know. We can’t do it carelessly and here are things that you need to know.
- Before you go for the diet, you need to see the doctor for having general check-up. Check-up is functioned to see your body condition. If your body is okay and you can go for it so, you can take the diet. However, not all foods are allowed to consume. Therefore, the doctor will tell you about things that you need to and not allowed to eat.
- At some sentences, we suggest you to eat it based on proper portion. In this case, you can eat any kind of foods that are recommended but, it’s good as long as it’s under normal portion. For example, over-consumed nut may cause fat accumulation inside your body since, fat contains of high fat.
- Luckily, there are some websites that can help you to see what kind of diet plan that is good for you for example, ChooseMyPlate from US Department of Agriculture.
How to Apply the Diet?
Are you ready to find out which food that you will eat? First of all, let’s see about what kind food that is allowed for people with cardiovascular disease. We all know that there are some restrictions given for people with this problem. Therefore, there are only few foods that people are able to eat. The worst thing is, people can’t eat what they want. We understand that you want to eat anything. Unfortunately, you are not allowed to eat foods based on your favor. Low calorie food and tasteless food are your best friend when you are having cardiovascular disease.
As time goes by, people become more creative. By following some suggestions given by the doctor, there are various kinds of foods that are made. In this case, we are going to help you by giving any information about foods that are allowed to eat for people with cardiovascular disease. However, people who are healthy are allowed to follow the heart healthy diet plan. There is no special restriction whether the food is given only for sick people or normal people because, all foods that are written below are very healthy and nutritious.
Why people become more creative in creating foods? Let us ask you something. Do you really enjoy just by eating plain food? If it’s not then you need to find anything that will help you to go through this problem. All foods are given are not as plain as pure boiled chicken breast which is seen through menu, information or even TV program. Besides, there are also other things that you can eat for yourself so, it becomes an enjoyable thing for you. Without further ado, here is a heart healthy food list that you can eat if you are in diet. There are three parts written, breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
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Breakfast
As a starter part, people need to get enough energy to start their activity. In this case, there are several things that you have to know. Having a breakfast is really important to increase your stamina and add energy before going outside and doing your daily activity. Without a breakfast, it’s as similar as a car that doesn’t get enough gasoline. In addition to its main function, breakfast is also really important to improve your cognitive function especially, your brain function and other benefit that you can get for having a breakfast. Since it’s really important, you need to get enough breakfast.
One of mistakes that people always make is, they just eat everything since, they have a wrong mindset. Since it’s considered as early part, people love to eat anything without realizing of food that is really good and suitable. Though it’s good, it doesn’t mean that it’s suitable for your body. Most of us may eat bread and milk mixed with various menus based on our favor. We bet that you feel really bored for having the same menu that you always get. Therefore, we like to give a recommendation of healthy and delicious menu for breakfast.-
Fruit and Vegetable
It’s really fun to have a bowl of fruit or salad with heart healthy vegetables. It’s really fresh and fun to have it. Either fruit and vegetable can be considered as complete thing that is good enough to fill your needs against any good things for your body. From vitamin to fiber, fruit and vegetable have it. However, make sure to mix it with other food or be creative in making it such as, smoothie, oatmeal, and etc.
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Oatmeal, Wheat, and Bread
We put three kind of foods that are known as primary and popular choice chosen by people for their breakfast. Each of them is really good and delicious. The good thing is, you can mix it with other food like fruit jam. Combining one of them with other is really easy so, you can feel really great.
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Egg and Salmon
If you want to add fat for your breakfast, salmon or egg can be a great combination for your breakfast. Both have tons of nutrition and delicious. It’s also really easy to create new heart healthy recipes by mixing it with other food so, it could be a great thing for you. Salmon has omega-3 while egg has protein, calcium, and other nutrition.
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Lunch
When the clock hits around 12 PM or 1 PM, it’s time for you to have lunch. It’s based on what time of lunch that you usually take so, it’s really important to stick on your daily time. Actually, what is the function of lunch? Lunch is functioned as a step to maintain your body metabolism. Besides, lunch provide you another energy that is banished or used before after having a breakfast. Since you may feel hungry, you may take anything especially, huge portion of food.
Ideally, lunch for cardiovascular disease is focused on low fat and low sugar food. Add more fruit and vegetable to get enough nutrition for your health. The other thing is, you can add other food which is really important to add more energy for example, you can get chicken breast to boost your energy. In addition to chicken breast, here are some foods that you can take.-
Carb (Rice or Potato)
Adding carb is a must because, you need to exchange used energy with a new one. Carbohydrate can give you enough energy so, you can add mash potato or a small portion of rice for your lunch.
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Vegetable Soup
Be creative in combining any kind of vegetable that you really love. Corn, carrot, broccoli, or other thing can be really good. It’s also really easy to eat this one so, it can be a great thing that can make people feel really satisfied for them.
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Fruit Juice or Smoothie
Last but not least, you can add a sweet finishing by adding fruit juice or smoothie. Beware, never add sugar so, you need to pick sweet fruit that has natural sugar that can help you to enjoy your lunch or, you can have a small glass of smoothie since, you already fill your stomach with enough energy.
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Dinner
After a tiring day, it’s time to go back home and have a delicious plate that will nourish your body and fill your hunger. However, people with cardiovascular disease must be really selective in choosing lunch. Primarily, they need to choose any foods that are suitable and proven to maintain heart’s disease. Besides, you also need delicious and increase your appetite. So, it’s really important to find the best combo that can make you feel really happy for having a lunch.
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Steak and Salmon
A plate of steak or salmon can be really delicious. For steak or salmon, you can mix it with vegetable or mash potato to fill your carb needs. Don’t add too much salt since, it can increase blood pressure that affects your heart. It’s easy to cook mash potato because, you only need to boil it and other vegetable.
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Pasta
To change rice, you can add pasta. It’s really enjoyable to eat a bowl of pasta but, it’s not wise if you still use fatty sauce on the plate. A mix of olive oil with salmon and vegetable can be an alternative way to increase your appetite though you have different kind of pasta that is different than the usual one.
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Chicken Breast
Even it’s a special case for people that love to eat fried food, you can have fried chicken that is fried with olive oil but, there are special cases for the chicken. The chicken should be skinless so, there is only pure fat on its body. Besides, use olive oil to fry it. Last but not least, don’t fry it too long. As long as it’s cooked enough or in well done condition then it’s good for you.
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What to Do and Don’t While Having a Diet?
Based on some information taken, there are several things that you need to watch for. Diet is not always related with how much food that you need take. There are also other things that you need to know for example, heart healthy meals that must and must not eat, nutrition, and other things related with it. Some healthy heart tips written below are really important to be noted.
- Maintain the balance of calorie in order to get healthy and normal body weight for long-term effect.
- Consume high nutrition food and beverage such as, fruit, vegetable and cereal that has fiber.
Dietary guidelines of American suggested us to fill half of our plate with fruit and vegetable. The reason is because fruit and vegetable has many nutrition needed for our body such as, fiber, vitamin, mineral, water, and etc. For meat, people need to eat lean meat. It’s really easy to find lean meat for example, you can take meat fillet and chicken breast that doesn’t have any fat. Besides, nuts and eggs are needed to fill your body with nutrition. However, people need to eat it carefully because, either nut and egg has more fat so, it’s really important to not eat it in huge portion. If you feel hungry, a bowl of cereal with low-fat milk is really good for your breakfast or snack time. - Make a limitation of total fat around 25 % – 30 % from daily calorie, with less than 7 % – 10 % of saturated fats and less than 1 % of unsaturated fat. Fat limitation is really important to reduce the amount of fat inside our body and reduce the risk of cholesterol development since, it’s known as the cause of cholesterol.
- Make a limitation of dietary cholesterol for less than 200 – 300 mg per day. It means that you need to watch out more for any high-cholesterol food inside your body.
- Keeping LDL and total cholesterol at healthy rate by reducing the consumption of high cholesterol food, fat, and sodium. Also, you need to increase the amount of HDL cholesterol by consuming nutritious food and workout.
- Take less of salt consumption. Generally, people are only recommended for having less than 2300 – 2400 mg of salt for a day (around a spoon of tea). It can be more less for any people with specific medical condition (stroke, cardiovascular disease, and other related disease that force people to take less salt consumption)
- Eat more potassium-food such as, banana, date palm, dry apricot, raisin, prune, and avocado. Potassium food is really good to reduce blood pressure.
- Have a workout around 30 minutes as minimum time requirement for a day as a good heart healthy activities.
- Eat in moderate portion
There is a reason about why people should eat in moderate portion. Obesity is known as common thing that people face nowadays. In addition to lack of workout, the other thing that brings obesity is because of food portion. It’s really satisfying while having a big bowl of something that you really love especially, spaghetti, pasta, lasagna, or other thing that you really love. In order to achieve healthy heart, you only need to eat food in small portion frequently. It’s normal if you eat more than three times (general time table). It also helps our body to avoid metabolism crash that will disturb metabolism process and avoid high blood sugar level that increase the risk of diabetes. - Water is better than sweet beverage
Having a can of soda is really fun. Fizzle taste with sweet carbonate soda may boost your day. However, it’s not good for your health. Soda has lot of artificial sugar that is hard to digested. The only thing that you can take is water. Water is good because, it can help our body to get enough mineral and water. Besides, water is really important in helping everyone in digesting their food. Therefore, it becomes a great thing to loss much fat.
What do The Expert Says about The Diet?
We may ask ourselves whether is it necessary or not for us to take it. Sometimes, we often try to seek information through books or internet about the diet and any steps that we need to do. In order to clear it, the expert already approves it. As taken from Dietary Guidelines from Americans, there is a connection between diet, cardiovascular disease, fat, sodium, saturated fat, and etc.
Conclusion
After reading some explanations given above, we bet that most of you may be give up before achieve results. It’s understandable due to complex habits that people need to do in order to achieve healthier life and heart. However, determination and consistency is really needed for this one. You need to put it really simple. Healthy heart means that you can get healthier and happier life. There is no worry toward any future problem that will disrupt you.
In addition to food portion, there is also other thing that you should know, nutrition. It will be useless if you only reduce amount of food that you eat everyday. You need to know for any nutrition for heart health that you need so, you can fill your body with enough nutrition even you are in diet. It’s really important since, not everyone really knows about it so, you need to realize it more. Last but not least, you need to be consistent in doing it so, you can achieve healthier life. Therefore, you may feel better and energized by doing heart healthy diet plan.
