What Red Meat Can I Eat ? #91

I remain so enthusiastic about exercising that I am surprising myself.  It has become more of a hobby rather than something I do to regain my cardiovascular health.  I look forward to going, although there are only certain times I will go, and I can not share that information with you.  I have added a few new exercises to my routine.  I am back to doing the assisted chin up strength exercise.   It and the leg lift extension are a couple of my favorites.

I am also doing some push ups. Now let me tell you the details.  First of all, I don't think I have been capable of doing a push up in at least 35 years or more.  I tried a few years back and could not get off the floor.  I thought at the time it was more normal not to be able to do it than to be able to do it, and that satisfied me at the time.  I do remember my arm and shoulder muscles being too weak to move my bulk more than a hairs breath off the floor. The more I strained to lift the more everything would quiver.  Now you could not have been worse than that!  The first week I went to my current fitness center some aging badly guy, not quite as old as me, dropped to the floor out of no where and did about 25 push ups.  Right in front of me! And his face didn't even turn red. I thought what the heck was that about ? I not sure, but I think he was putting me on notice about who was running the show for us old guys.  I thought for a moment I might have to go get Cindy and let her teach him a lesson...you know my heart and all I couldn't address the situation.......

 As I got more into my exercise routines, I was continuing to build my arm and shoulder strength as a result of doing exercises designed to increase my cardiovascular circulation.  A few months ago, I begin to try and do push ups from the floor, and was able to raise my body to forearms length, but only once.   I was concerned and careful not to exert to much force on my chest incision area, even thought it was healed completely.   I still felt the need to be cautious about too much stress there.  But as I grew stronger and could do more pull ups and chin ups, I begin to attempt doing a heart patients push ups.  From a horizontal bar 12 inches above the floor, you extend your body and take the same position as the traditional push up from the floor.  I now do two sets of 6 each.  You should not attempt to do these until you are completely healed and strong enough.  You will know if you are strong enough to try it.   If you don't feel that strong do not attempt it.

I have not changed any of my eating habits, maintaining the same healthy only foods attitude we have discussed many times.  I know some new readers are recent heart attack survivors and are wanting to know what red meats they can eat.  That is a complicated subject and has been discussed many times in depth.  Some as recently as in January and February, so refer to those postings. In brief, there is a lot you must consider as a heart patient when deciding on which red meats to eat for protein.   First of all, processed meats should not be eaten period.  Heart patient or not!  These include hot dogs, sausages, canned meats, luncheon meats, deli meats, did I leave any out?  Oh I did, well add those to the do not eat this thing called meat list.   There is not one processed red meat you can eat that will not increase you LDL cholesterol and lead to further coronary artery blockage.  And we won't go into all the chemicals from the preservatives used in the meat  processing.   Hamburgers are out also. There is not a red meat I can suggest you eat for cardiovascular health benefits.  And that pretty well tells you what you should do about eating red meats as a heart patient.   Well, what about me you may ask?  Yes, I do eat some red meats.  Small, extremely small amounts, in some soups my wife makes, and that is not often.   I even gave up spaghetti, my favorite. 

During our next posting I will go into what I think are the best overall foods for a recovering heart patient to consider.    Oh, and that old guy doing the push ups, when I see him now I just sort of stare and grunt and he goes the other direction.   Yeah, this heart patient is doing the push ups now.