{"id":1135,"date":"2013-02-13T00:00:59","date_gmt":"2013-02-13T00:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/skinnygeneproject.dreamhosters.com\/?p=1135"},"modified":"2013-02-13T00:00:59","modified_gmt":"2013-02-13T00:00:59","slug":"5-love-languages-for-a-healthy-heart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.skinnygeneproject.org\/5-love-languages-for-a-healthy-heart\/","title":{"rendered":"5 Love Languages For A Healthy Heart"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cI love you with all my heart\u201d <\/strong><\/span>one term of endearment you may hear or say this Valentine\u2019s Day.\u00a0 But how healthy is your heart<\/strong>?\u00a0\u00a0 Are you doing all you can to keep your heart beating strong for your loved ones?\u00a0 This Valentine\u2019s Day show your love to your heart by speaking these five \u201clove languages\u201d<\/strong>!<\/p>\n

1. <\/span>WEIGHT<\/span><\/strong> – Yes, your weight plays a major role in your heart health. If your BMI is over 25 kg\/m2 (that is the<\/p>\n

\"Healthy<\/a>

photo: eatingright.org<\/p><\/div>\n

overweight\/obesity range) and\/or if you have extra love<\/em><\/strong> around your midsection, you are at a higher risk for heart disease, including heart attack and stroke.\u00a0 The good news is that you can improve your heart health<\/strong> by losing weight.\u00a0 \u00a0To achieve weight loss, try to focus on exercise, food selections, and portion sizes.<\/p>\n

2<\/span>. FAT<\/strong><\/span> \u2013 Of course fat plays another major role in heart health! Be alarmed if your diet is loaded with higher fat foods<\/strong>, specifically foods high in saturated fat from animals including beef, pork, poultry fat and whole or 2% dairy.<\/p>\n

Guidelines<\/span>: Saturated fat should be limited to 7% of your total calories, due to its contribution to increasing your blood cholesterol. Following the American Heart Association\u2019s guidelines, a heart healthy 2,000 calorie diet should be limited to 65 grams of total fat and 15 grams of saturated fat.<\/p>\n

3. \u00a0SODIUM<\/strong><\/span>\u2013 Our bodies need a little bit of sodium (a.k.a. salt), though too much sodium can raise your blood pressure<\/strong> – not in the heart throbbing, good loving type of way<\/em> – and increase your risk of heart disease including, heart attack and stroke.<\/p>\n

Guidelines:<\/span> The average American takes in 3,800 mg of sodium per day, which is nearly 2 times the recommended intake of ~2,000 mg per day for a heart healthy diet<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Helpful Tips<\/span>: To lower your sodium intake, be sure to read the labels of any food in a package, jar, or can.\u00a0 These processed foods have a lot of sodium to help preserve them to sit on the shelf.\u00a0 Look for foods with reduced sodium label claims, such as \u201cSodium-free\u201d, \u201cVery Low Sodium\u201d, or \u201cLow Sodium\u201d.\u00a0 Another route is to go for the foods without packaging, especially the lovely colorful fresh fruits and vegetables!<\/p>\n

4. CHOLESTEROL<\/strong><\/span> \u2013 Increased circulating cholesterol in your bloodstream can slowly make its home on the walls of your blood vessels, narrowing those important passage ways from your heart to your brain, lungs and other important parts of your body<\/strong>.\u00a0 Our bodies naturally make cholesterol; therefore, it is important to limit the cholesterol in our foods to keep our blood flown properly!<\/p>\n

Helpful Tips<\/span>: One of the most important foods to be aware of when limiting your cholesterol is eggs!\u00a0 One egg has 213 mg Cholesterol which is enough for your entire day!\u00a0 Try to substitute those eggs with a cholesterol free egg substitute, just as it claims 0 mg of cholesterol and no fat! \u00a0Double heart loving bonus!<\/p>\n

\u00a05. FIBER<\/strong><\/span> \u2013 Fabulous, functional fiber can also help keep that lovable fiber heart of yours healthy<\/strong>. \u00a0Specifically soluble fiber, which binds with cholesterol and then takes a lovely ride out of the body, in turn reducing your blood LDL cholesterol (that\u2019s the \u201cbad\u201d one).<\/p>\n

Helpful Tips<\/span>: To maximize the benefits of soluble fiber, include fruits, such as apples, bananas, pears, plums, peaches and citrus fruits, vegetables, such as carrots, brussel sprouts, broccoli, and chick peas, whole grains, such as barley, oats, psylium, and beans in your diet.<\/p>\n

Renew your love for your heart and commit to making these heart healthy changes!<\/p>\n

Have questions? Please don\u2019t hesitate to contact us<\/a>, we\u2019re here to help!<\/p>\n

By Emily Barr, MS, RD, CNSC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cI love you with all my heart\u201d one term of endearment you may hear or say this Valentine\u2019s Day.\u00a0 But how healthy is your heart?\u00a0\u00a0 Are you doing all you can to keep your heart beating strong for your loved ones?\u00a0 This Valentine\u2019s Day show your love to your heart by speaking these five \u201clove… <\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[111,76],"tags":[1221,429,1222,1223,471,73,110,74,434,201,216,78,248,1224,1225,258,81,82,83,1226,706,1227],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p90Iz0-ij","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skinnygeneproject.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1135"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skinnygeneproject.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skinnygeneproject.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skinnygeneproject.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skinnygeneproject.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1135"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.skinnygeneproject.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1135\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skinnygeneproject.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skinnygeneproject.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skinnygeneproject.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}