Part of self care means taking care of our hearts. At the beginning of every year the most common new year’s resolution is to increase or becoming or increasing physical activity. Every day is a fresh start. If you have fallen off track or if you have not started on your goal. February is a great month to start again.
Heart disease is one of the leading causes of death for both women and men. Per the CDC in 2020 over 600,000 deaths were attributed to heart disease in the US. There are important things to embark upon heart healthy living.
Step 1: Understand your risk:
There are certain risk factors that are not modifiable—meaning that there is nothing that you can do to change them. This includes but is not limited to age, family history, sex being male or female, and ethnicity/race.
Now there are certain risk factors that you can modify. These include factors such as blood pressure, cholesterol, level of activity, diet high in saturated fats, diet high in salt, smoking. Addressing these risk factors can have a positive impact and lower your risk in regards to heart disease overtime.
Step 2: Educating yourself about a heart healthy lifestyle:
When treating my patients I always encourage lifestyle change and modification if possible before considering medication. Using resources such as a wellness coach or nutritionist are helpful resources to achieve your goal. Unfortunately not all insurance companies cover such wonderful preventative measures. Check with your insurance company to see if those things are covered and then discuss options of lifestyle changes with your provider.
Step 3: Making choices and taking steps:
My nutritionist said it’s not what you do 20% of the time that counts but what you do 80% of the time that is key. I have always advised my patients that depravation is not ideal for longterm sustaining lifestyle changes. But making choices to make small changes to your lifestyle are important and can be helpful. The goal of 30 min of physical activity 5 times a week recommended by the American Heart Association may be a lot to start off with so I recommend that my patients start off with 10-15minutes 7 days a week to create the habit and then slowly progress. Schedule an appointment with your provider to discuss ways to slowly incorporate healthy choices in your lifestyle to make lasting changes to begin modification of some of the modifiable risk factors.
