How to Become Heart Healthy #145

You have now begun the New Year and hopefully are considering how you can  become healthier.   And I am speaking especially to those who are wanting to be heart healthy.  We always know there are 3 basic principles that apply to our heart health.  Exercise, weight control, and eating healthy foods.   Other than having long lasting heart damage or defects, if we can achieve all 3 of these goals over a period of time, and with proper medical treatment,  our cardiovascular health should greatly improve to being what is considered healthy and normal.  

How do we accomplish that through exercise?  As a beginner, and as a recovering heart patient you will reach a point where exercise is realistic and not damaging to your recovery. Set a goal for yourself, a realistic goal that is attainable and can lead to other goals.  Perhaps walking a minimum distance for starters, and then slowly implementing gradual increases.   I have told so many times the old story of how my first goal was to walk down the driveway, pick up the morning newspaper, and walk back without having to stop and rest.  This was 3 or 4  weeks after heart surgery.   My next goal was to walk down the road to a point 150 yards away stop rest and come back.   And so forth and on until a few weeks later I was easily walking (not a torrid pace) one mile.  And so on and so on you keep growing your strength.  Remember you're in this for the duration.  It took me 6 months before I could consider doing exercise other than walking. You are going to get stronger, and can change to a healthier lifestyle.  Regardless of when you start exercising or in what form, set short attainable goals, and the most important of all pick a time and place that you can exercise as a regular routine.  Establish a specific day and time for exercise and be loyal to that routine.  The secret to getting successful results in exercise is not how fast you can run, or how much weight you can lift.   It is being dedicated to a regular, consistent, exercise routine.   Listen,  most of us are past the point in age and life when building muscles and becoming an endurance runner is our goal.  We want to be as healthy and physically fit as we can and keeping our goals focused on those 3 basic heart healthy principles.   There are people at my fitness center who are extremely physically fit in muscle, body tone, and an atheletic body. Both men and women.  And 90 percent of them are not youngster under 35 years of age.  It is about equal in numbers of men and women.  I exercise along side those people and they are not the ones who lift the most weight, and flex the largest muscles.   You want to know what sets them apart from others?  A regular exercise routine, consistency, and being health oriented.   I can tell you by individual what days and about what time you will find each one of them working out where I do.

Urban healthy food myth......  Fat and sugar free is always better?   Not necessarily so. Why?  Because in most "diet, sugar free, and fat free"  products there are almost always substituted, manufactured, and derived from chemical, products added back in.  Most so called healthy vegetables oils are produced from processes that include, solvents, soap, bleach, and hexane.  Hexane is a solvent made from crude oil.   Fat free pretzels are made from refined flour of which the grain has been stripped of natural nutrients and synthetic vitamins and minerals added back in.  These type fat free product result in empty carbohydrates, which spike blood sugar glucose, which create food cravings for more to satisfy the appetite. The same can be said for fat free yogurt.  Manufactured emulsifiers and thickening agents are added to replace the removed fat to enhance the yogurt product consistency.

Later on we will get more into this aspect of eating healthy foods. Which is educating yourself as to what is and is not healthy for you to eat.