Along with Valentine’s Day, February also means Heart Disease Awareness month.
We are here today to talk to you about some surprising ways to keep your heart healthy—not through prescriptions or bypass surgery, but through simple changes to the menu. Making significant dietary and lifestyle changes allow many people who suffer with coronary heart disease, high cholesterol, obesity and/or high blood pressure to reduce or even eliminate their dependence on medications and avoid invasive surgical procedures.
You see, most cardiovascular disease is diet-related – primarily caused by elevated cholesterol levels.
Here’s the GOOD news:
Evidence suggests that a plant-based diet may not only protect against but even reverse heart disease.
How?
Since our bodies make plenty of cholesterol for our needs, we do not need to add any in our diet. Cholesterol is found in all foods that come from animals: red meat, poultry, fish, chicken, eggs, milk, cheese, yogurt, other dairy products as well as highly processed foods. One can use many sites that calculate the nutritional value of all kinds of foods. Armed with this you can take control of your diet.
No foods that come directly from plants contain cholesterol. Therefore people can reduce their cholesterol levels dramatically simply by changing the foods they eat. By incorporating more plant based foods high in nitrates, antioxidants, fibre and potassium can help significantly.
We get it…people are resistant to change, the idea of altering their dietary habits, which is necessary to prevent the development of cardiovascular disease (and all chronic diseases), is often perceived as a restriction, some sort of punishment or something.
Guess what? There is one simple solution to this:
Focus on the positive.
Yep, that’s it. Accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative. Paint the picture of how great you will feel eating healthier, exercising more often… rather than thinking of what you can’t have think of what you will have.
To help you, your partner, family member, or anyone struggling with change, we have included 2 Podcasts on how to “Transition to a healthier plant based lifestyle”:
Please spread the LOVE & heart healthy awareness by sharing this information with family and friends.
With our utmost love and respect,
P.S. There are two other important factors that contribute to a healthy heart:
- Get at least 7 hours of sleep per night.
- Check out this handy sleep tracking sheet
- Exercise everyday – like today! Here’s one to get you started:
- The Ultimate Take Anywhere Workout
