Oatmeal, A Heart Health Champion #83

"3 grams of soluble fiber from oatmeal daily, in a diet low in saturated fat and cholesterol, may reduce the risk of heart disease."  "Whole grain and sodium free."  These are health messages directly from oatmeal packages.  Yes, I believe oatmeal has been one of the major factors in my heart rehab and recovery.  How you may ask?  My weight has dramatically reduced.  I eat oatmeal at least once daily sometimes twice.  It has contributed to my weight loss by being a healthy food replacing unhealthy fatty foods I was eating previously.  And I find oatmeal filling and satisfying. Along with weight loss oatmeal has helped me successfully reduce my total and LDL cholesterol levels.  So I continue to recommend and suggest, oatmeal should be a daily regular part of your new eating healthy lifestyle.

Oatmeal contains a special fiber know as beta-glucan.  This fiber has been shown to reduce cholesterol up to 23%, helping to significantly reduce the risk of heart disease.   It also contains a unique and powerful antioxidant, avenanthamides, which prevent free radicals from damaging cholesterol and maintains the health of the blood vessel arterial walls.  Oatmeal has been found to be especially helpful for women with high blood pressure, or high cholesterol levels.   Eating oatmeal daily has been found to be beneficial to diabetes patients.  The soluble fiber helps regulate blood sugar levels. There are several non health benefits to having oatmeal regularly.  It is convenient to prepare, is inexpensive, it is tasty, easy to keep on hand and doesn't easily spoil or lose freshness.  I use the old standard one minute whole grain oatmeal (Quaker brand).  Do not use instant. You will lose some of the health benefits. I make my own oatmeal.  I prefer a thin consistency, sort of soupy rather than thick.  Contrary to suggested containers mixture ratio I use 70% water to 30% oats.  I add nothing else to it.  No salt, absolutely no milk or butter.

Some things to you may want to consider when thinking about how serious you are of starting to exercise on a regular basis.  Depending on what stage of rehab you are, exercising is going to strengthen your heart and cardiovascular system.  It will help your circulation and improves your body's use of oxygen.   You will begin to look fit, healthy, and you will feel good about yourself.  What are some good exercises for you?  Brisk walking, swimming, cycling are all good activities and exercises that strengthen and maintain a strong cardiovascular system.   For the surviving heart attack victim and heart patient, these are all too strenuous for those in the initial stages of recovery.  As we have repeated many times, who better than your cardiologist to point you in the right direction when seeking initial advice on your exercise and exertion capabilities.   Activities as cycling, and swimming you very well could be doing sooner than you would think.  Walking is one of the best to start with, gradually increasing your speed and distance, and endurance.  Exercises that increase your circulation and heart rate should be approached in the same manner as walking, with gradual easy to obtain increases.  It is kind of like knowing that how much weight you can lift, is not what you are attempting to accomplish.  How many times, how often, and being consistent without over exerting yourself are the initial goals you should work towards.   When I started it was small baby steps.  I did not try to get strong physically, I worked on endurance and stamina.  Being able to not physically exhaust myself so easily was my initial goal.  You know looking back I have forgotten how easily I would just exhaust myself while doing so little.  I would go to the store with Cindy,  just to get out of the house and be doing something.  After just a short period of time of following her, I would have to go find somewhere to sit down and rest.

In finishing I would like to briefly go back to omega-3 fatty acid health benefits.  According to WebMD, medical studies have shown heart attack survivors who increase their levels of omega-3 and reduce cholesterol have a reduced risk of death from further heart attacks.  In addition to most fish other sources of omega-3 are soybeans, broccoli and spinach.