Thread: Eating Right

For a person with heart disease, proper nutrition is essential to managing symptoms and preventing further complications. Not only can proper diet help slow the artery-clogging process, but when combined with careful lifestyle modification, it may even stop or reverse the narrowing of arteries.

Here are some diet tips for people suffering from a heart condition/disease:

• Serve more vegetables, fruits, whole grains and legumes. These foods may be one of the most powerful strategies in fighting heart disease.
• Choose fat calories wisely and limit total fat grams.
• Serve a bare minimum of saturated fats and trans-fatty fats (for example, fats found in butter, salad dressing, sweets and desserts).
• When you use added fat, use fats high in monounsaturated fat (for example, fats found in olive and peanut oil) or polyunsaturated fat (such as fats found in soybean, corn and sunflower oil).
• Serve a variety and just the right amount of protein foods. Commonly eaten protein foods (meat, dairy products) are among the main causes of heart disease. Reduce this nutritional risk factor by balancing animal, fish and vegetable sources of protein.
• Limit cholesterol consumption. Dietary cholesterol can raise blood cholesterol levels, especially in high-risk people. Limiting dietary cholesterol has an added bonus: You'll also cut out saturated fat, as cholesterol and saturated fat are usually found in the same foods. Give your loved one energy by serving complex carbohydrates (such as whole wheat pasta, sweet potatoes, whole-grain breads) and limit simple carbohydrates (such as regular soft drinks, sugar, sweets).
• Eat regularly. Skipping meals often leads to overeating. By serving five to six mini-meals you can help control your blood sugars, burn fat calories more efficiently and regulate cholesterol levels.

My grandmother suffered from heart condition and we had to make sure that she strictly follows a low fat diet. It is important to follow the Here are some other tips for people with heart conditions:

• De-emphasize salt as this will help control blood pressure.
• Exercising is encouraged as it strengthens the heart muscle, improves blood flow, reduces high blood pressure, raises HDL cholesterol ("good" cholesterol), and helps control blood sugars and body weight.
• Water is vital to life and staying hydrated will make you feel energetic and eat less. Drinking 32 to 64 ounces (about one to two liters) of water daily is encourage unless you are fluid restricted.

Poor diet and physical inactivity are the most common risk factors for heart disease. The role of diet and nutrition is influenced by social, cultural, economic and physiological factors, including the available food supply and cost.

The role of fat intake in heart disease is now fairly clearly established. The direct protective effect of specific diets or dietary changes is less clear but there are general health benefits in promoting healthy eating.

Overweight and obesity are risk factors for heart disease. Strategies to reduce weight involve changes to behaviour, physical activity, diet and combinations of all three. Dietary changes include salt reduction, dietary fibre increase, and an adequate intake of fresh fruit and vegetables.

You're welcome Amapola! We all know that physical inactivity and poor diet can cause us to gain more weight and if continued will lead to overweight or obesity that can cloud the function of our heart. Balanced diet and exercise is important to keep ourselves healthy and away from health risks

This is a great post! It's very informative and surely helps the members in learning more about eating right to avoid heart conditions. I do agree that changing the diet coupled with a good exercise are one of the ways to avoid getting this disease. Self discipline is very important. We all know that dieting for some is not a ver easy thing to do, especially to those who love to eat so much. Awareness is important for a successful diet. Changing your diet and lifesytle is as hard to do as well. That is why we need discpline and self control to achieve better results in maintaining a healthy body and a strong heart.

I couldn't agree with you more sasa. The reason why people have difficulty losing weight is because they love to eat so much and avoiding foods that you are used to eating is just difficult. We also know that low cal foods are not as delicious as foods that are packed with calories. That is why taking it is the way to do it best. You will not be able to maintain your diet plan if you rush it. Do not be hard on yourself and understand why you need to do it so you have a better reason to avoid the foods that you love to it. And of course drinking plenty of water and exercising is also as important as eating healthy.