5 Steps To Prevent Heart Disease
I was surprised one day when Chuck, our supervisor, wasn’t at the office before I was. Chuck was as accurate as an atomic clock. As I entered the building I immediately sensed that something was wrong. It was as quiet as a church and no one was talking. Christine, who sat in the cubicle next to mine, poked her head around the divider. “Did you here about chuck”, she asked, her face appeared pale.
“No,” I responded, “What about him?”
Christine went on to tell me that Chuck had collapsed about an hour before I had arrived and had been rushed to the emergency room in an ambulance. “They think it is a heart attack,” Christine said. Needless to say the office was in shock. Chuck died two days later and it really hit us all hard, he had 3 kids, 13, 12, and 10.
Don’t Let It Happen To You
It is true that we do not have complete control over our fate, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t take steps to lessen our chances of having a given event occur. For instance, if you never do car maintenance your chance of having a car crash increases and it is the same with heart disease.
The Number One Step To Preventing Heart Disease
Lose weight and/or maintain a proper weight for you body. Carrying extra fat on your body is a major contributor to heart disease. This is especially true if you carry your fat in your abdominal area. A fat stomach is an indicator of future heart disease.
Fighting our weight gain may seem like a onerous task and it often has deep psychological roots that can be almost impossible to sever, but the rewards are worth it, very worth it. The thing to keep in mind is that most weight reduction plans work if you follow them. So the trick is to find one you can follow. It doesn’t end there because you need a plan to keep the heart disease causing fat away once you have eliminated it.
The Number Two To Preventing Heart Disease
Exercise is a very important step in preventing heart disease. You heart is a muscle and it benefits from exercise just like any other muscle. Again, this can be a difficult thing to accomplish because it takes time and we are busy. It can also be boring but the benefits are enormous.
The trick is to find an exercise we can do at least 3 times a week for 30 minutes that we enjoy. I thought that it was impossible until I played racquetball. After discovering this sport, I couldn’t wait to exercise. The lesson here is to explore until you find what you like. Exercise is the twin sister of dieting. The combination of the two has unbelievable benefits.
The Number Three Step To Preventing Heart Disease
Eating the right kinds of foods. This also goes well with the first two steps and provides fantastic benefits. Yes, it is hard to eat foods we don’t really like so find heart healthy foods you do like and load your diet with these.
A general rule of thumb is to go heavy on proteins, healthy fats, and produce and go very light on refined sugars and starches.
Number Four Step To Preventing Heart Disease
This one is harder than it sounds: Drink 64 ounces of water a day. This isn’t a hard and fast number because the actual optimum amount of water your body could use each day depends on a large number of variables. Examples are, weight, height, physical activity level, environmental temperature, humidity, etc. Suffice it to say, 64 ounces of cold water a day is a good rule of thumb.
The reason this can be hard is because it causes frequent urination at first. (Your urination will decrease as your body adjusts to your increased water intake.) Then there are those of us who hate water. Well, dump in some Crystal Lite or the like and guzzle away . The bottom line is DRINK YOUR WATER!
Number Five Step To Preventing Heart Disease
Sleep! Getting 8 to 9 hours of sleep a night gives the body a chance to do its regeneration. Sleep affects not only our weight control, psychological well being, stress levels, and body system maintenance but it helps maintain your body’s cardiovascular system. People who get enough sleep each night have reduced health problems across the board.
Excuses Or Benefits
There are always a million excuses as to why we don’t do what we should do and too many people use these excuses until disaster strikes. Those that survive heart disease become highly motivated and suddenly can do all kinds of things they claimed they could before they nearly died. Those that don’t survive leave the rest of us behind to grieve.
There are great programs like The Every Other Day Diet and The 7 Minute Diet that can get you started on having a healthy heart. If you take these two programs alone and add determination and follow through you very well could avoid disaster and give you and your family a long healthy life.
