Heart Health!
megabeln
Posts: 36 Member
Your heart pumps your blood 12,000 miles a day and beats—with the force it would take your hand to squeeze a tennis ball flat—100,000 times a day, 36 million times a year. It can create enough pressure to squirt blood thirty feet, and during an average lifetime, it produces 2.5 gigajoules of power. This is a muscle that could beat up all the other muscles in the neighborhood with one chamber tied behind its back. This is a muscle worthy of RESPECT.
It deserves respect not only because of its awesome power but because, if it doesn’t get it, it will get back at you in a very big way.
Too often, we think of “heart-healthy” as a little wimpy—the spinach salad instead of the juicy steak, the cup of minestrone instead of the bowl of chili—but there’s nothing wimpy about the heart. It’s a Maserati of a muscle—powerful, flexible, impressive. All it needs is the right fuel, a little spin now and then to blow out the dust, and regular check-ups. And if it doesn’t get them, it will leave you on the side of a road you don’t want to be left on the side of. It’s a muscle you don’t want to tick off.
So, in honor of February as Heart Health month, let’s take a look at those three maintenance issues: the fuel, the little spin, and the check-ups.
The Right Fuel
Just as you wouldn’t dump inferior fuel with a bunch of impurities into your Maserati’s gas tank, you need to keep your heart happy with a diet of fuel it can use, and avoid clogging up the works with things it doesn’t like. Read some labels and limit your trans fats and hydrogenated oils (margarine, fast food, fried food, etc.), refined carbohydrates (like white bread), and refined sugar (cakes, cookies). Add olive oil and garlic to your cooking to lower cholesterol and improve flavor. Sometimes it’s just a matter of making small changes, such as swapping a bagel and a slab of cream cheese for a whole wheat English muffin with a tablespoon of peanut butter, or swapping sugar-frosted choco-blob cereal and whole milk for a whole-grain cereal, fat-free (or even 2%) milk, and a tablespoon of chopped almonds.
The Right Exercise
You can’t expect your Maserati to perform well if you never take it out for a spin—blow out the pipes, so to speak—and your heart muscle is no different. If it never really gets going, it gets out of shape and flabby. I’m not talking about running marathons here, but a brisk half-hour walk at least three times a week can make a big difference. The other health benefits that come from exercise can also help you ward off illness, a nice benefit this time of year.
Aerobic ("oxygen-producing") exercise is the key here—walking, running, biking, swimming, etc. for an extended period of time. When your breathing and heart rate increase, you get more oxygen into your system and more blood circulated around your body, which puts extra oxygen into your cells and tissues. That’s why getting exercise gives you more energy, rather than making you feel tired.
Of course, before you start an exercise program, talk with your doctor. Once you have the okay, try these tips so you stick with it:
• Put exercise on your calendar for specific times each week. Don’t wait for “a convenient time” to present itself because it never will.
• To avoid injury, start slow, and increase the time you exercise gradually. You didn’t get out of shape in one day, and you won’t get back into shape in one day.
• Stretch gently before and after exercising to avoid injury.
• Drink lots of water.
The Right Check-ups
Surely you wouldn’t run your Maserati 10,000 miles without a check-up to be sure all its levels are right. Let’s call your annual heart check-up the 35-million-beat check-up. The check-up looks primarily at two things—how well the fuel lines are working and how gunked-up the fuel is.
Blood-pressure checks will determine whether your circulatory system is letting the heart pump blood freely or your veins and arteries are narrowing because of deposits from bad fuel or tightening from stress or other issues. A little blood will check your blood sugar (an indicator for diabetes and other issues) and lipids (cholesterol and triglyceride levels). Elevations in these may indicate your heart is starting to get ticked off, and that it’s time for a little respect.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t like having to ask questions like “Is that good?” when a doctor tells me my numbers. Since knowledge is power, here are the levels you should be shooting for.
Total Cholesterol
Normal level - up to 199 mg/dL
Best level – under 180 mg/dL
LDL (“bad”) Cholesterol
Normal levels - up to 129 mg/dL
Best level: under 100 mg/dL
HDL (“good”) Cholesterol
Normal level: no lower than 40 mg/dL for men and 50 mg/dL for women
Best level: over 60 mg/dL
Triglycerides (not recommended for routine screening)
Normal level - up to 149mg/dL
Best level - under 100mg/dL
Blood Pressure
Normal - below 120/80 mmHg
Let’s make February the month we all start showing a little respect to the most powerful muscle in our bodies by giving it the right fuel, the right exercise, and regular check-ups. By the time Valentine’s Day rolls around, let’s be sure we’re “showin’ a little love” to the Maserati of muscles, the source of all that love.
It deserves respect not only because of its awesome power but because, if it doesn’t get it, it will get back at you in a very big way.
Too often, we think of “heart-healthy” as a little wimpy—the spinach salad instead of the juicy steak, the cup of minestrone instead of the bowl of chili—but there’s nothing wimpy about the heart. It’s a Maserati of a muscle—powerful, flexible, impressive. All it needs is the right fuel, a little spin now and then to blow out the dust, and regular check-ups. And if it doesn’t get them, it will leave you on the side of a road you don’t want to be left on the side of. It’s a muscle you don’t want to tick off.
So, in honor of February as Heart Health month, let’s take a look at those three maintenance issues: the fuel, the little spin, and the check-ups.
The Right Fuel
Just as you wouldn’t dump inferior fuel with a bunch of impurities into your Maserati’s gas tank, you need to keep your heart happy with a diet of fuel it can use, and avoid clogging up the works with things it doesn’t like. Read some labels and limit your trans fats and hydrogenated oils (margarine, fast food, fried food, etc.), refined carbohydrates (like white bread), and refined sugar (cakes, cookies). Add olive oil and garlic to your cooking to lower cholesterol and improve flavor. Sometimes it’s just a matter of making small changes, such as swapping a bagel and a slab of cream cheese for a whole wheat English muffin with a tablespoon of peanut butter, or swapping sugar-frosted choco-blob cereal and whole milk for a whole-grain cereal, fat-free (or even 2%) milk, and a tablespoon of chopped almonds.
The Right Exercise
You can’t expect your Maserati to perform well if you never take it out for a spin—blow out the pipes, so to speak—and your heart muscle is no different. If it never really gets going, it gets out of shape and flabby. I’m not talking about running marathons here, but a brisk half-hour walk at least three times a week can make a big difference. The other health benefits that come from exercise can also help you ward off illness, a nice benefit this time of year.
Aerobic ("oxygen-producing") exercise is the key here—walking, running, biking, swimming, etc. for an extended period of time. When your breathing and heart rate increase, you get more oxygen into your system and more blood circulated around your body, which puts extra oxygen into your cells and tissues. That’s why getting exercise gives you more energy, rather than making you feel tired.
Of course, before you start an exercise program, talk with your doctor. Once you have the okay, try these tips so you stick with it:
• Put exercise on your calendar for specific times each week. Don’t wait for “a convenient time” to present itself because it never will.
• To avoid injury, start slow, and increase the time you exercise gradually. You didn’t get out of shape in one day, and you won’t get back into shape in one day.
• Stretch gently before and after exercising to avoid injury.
• Drink lots of water.
The Right Check-ups
Surely you wouldn’t run your Maserati 10,000 miles without a check-up to be sure all its levels are right. Let’s call your annual heart check-up the 35-million-beat check-up. The check-up looks primarily at two things—how well the fuel lines are working and how gunked-up the fuel is.
Blood-pressure checks will determine whether your circulatory system is letting the heart pump blood freely or your veins and arteries are narrowing because of deposits from bad fuel or tightening from stress or other issues. A little blood will check your blood sugar (an indicator for diabetes and other issues) and lipids (cholesterol and triglyceride levels). Elevations in these may indicate your heart is starting to get ticked off, and that it’s time for a little respect.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t like having to ask questions like “Is that good?” when a doctor tells me my numbers. Since knowledge is power, here are the levels you should be shooting for.
Total Cholesterol
Normal level - up to 199 mg/dL
Best level – under 180 mg/dL
LDL (“bad”) Cholesterol
Normal levels - up to 129 mg/dL
Best level: under 100 mg/dL
HDL (“good”) Cholesterol
Normal level: no lower than 40 mg/dL for men and 50 mg/dL for women
Best level: over 60 mg/dL
Triglycerides (not recommended for routine screening)
Normal level - up to 149mg/dL
Best level - under 100mg/dL
Blood Pressure
Normal - below 120/80 mmHg
Let’s make February the month we all start showing a little respect to the most powerful muscle in our bodies by giving it the right fuel, the right exercise, and regular check-ups. By the time Valentine’s Day rolls around, let’s be sure we’re “showin’ a little love” to the Maserati of muscles, the source of all that love.
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