Take Care of Your Heart with Good Food Habits

Taking care of your heart can never be emphasized enough. But it needs to be protected from more than just heartbreaks. Luckily, it is easier to protect it from diseases than from heartbreaks.  

You just need to keep certain things in check and make some adjustments to your lifestyle to ensure that your heart beats in its perfect rhythm.

Here’s your complete guide to good eating habits and foods for heart health.   

1. Control your portions 

Adding healthy options to your diet is a good start. But you also need to make sure that you don’t overeat. Stuffing yourself with extra calories does no good to your heart. 

So, a good food habit is to control the portions you consume. Using small plates and bowls for serving is an efficient hack to control portions. Also, eating low-calorie foods like fresh fruits and vegetables and avoiding refined, processed foods works wonders. 

2. Add more veggies and fruits to your diet 

Fruits and vegetables are some of the most accessible foods that help your heart. They offer several vital vitamins and minerals along with dietary fiber. Add to that the low-calorie count and you are looking at an amazing heart-healthy food item. 

However, it often proves difficult for people to add these healthy options to their diet. One easy way to add vegetables and fruits to your diet is to make them as readily available as possible. You can keep some vegetables and fruits washed and cut in your refrigerator as an easy healthy snack. Keeping a fruit bowl in your sight can also work as a great reminder for you to eat them often.  

3. Choose whole grains

Whole grain flours unlike refined flours carry the complete nutrition offered by the grains. Refined flours like Maida lose as much as 97% of the nutritional value found in the whole wheat flours. Thus, whole grains become the obvious better choice for your heart.

Replacing refined grains with whole grains would thus be a good food habit to inculcate. A good start would be replacing your bread and noodles. Oatmeals and high-fiber cereals could be a good follow-up.  

4. Limit unhealthy fats

Everyone knows cholesterol now as it continues to turn into a household name in urban India. High blood cholesterol levels can cause severe damage to the heart, including heart attacks and strokes. 

Thus, limiting saturated and avoiding trans fats is essential to improving your heart health. Try replacing your high-fat foods like butter with some low-fat substitutes like low-fat yogurt. Monounsaturated fats like Olive oil and canola oil and polyunsaturated fats found in avocados and certain fishes are also good foods for heart health. 

While the mentioned substitutes will help you improve your heart’s health, it is necessary to use them in moderation as all types of fats are high in calories.

5. Choose low-fat protein sources

To further control your fat intake, you should opt for low-fat protein sources. Skinless chicken breasts rather than fried chicken patties and skimmed milk over whole milk would be a good start. 

Fishes rich in omega-3 fatty acids like salmon, mackerel and herring can work towards lowering blood fats. Beans, peas and lentils are all good low-fat sources of protein. Replacing the animal protein with plant protein will not only lower your cholesterol levels but also increase your fiber intake.   

6. Reduce the salt (sodium) in your food

Increased salt intake could mean increased blood pressure which could then lead to complications for your heart. Thus, there is no alternative to limiting your salt intake. 

As per the American Heart Association, healthy adults should have no more than 2300mg of sodium in a day. 

The food cooked at home is often light on the sodium content and thus the major chunk of your salt intake comes from processed and packaged foods. So, steer clear from processed food as much as possible.      

7. Create daily menus

Now that you know about the heart-healthy foods you need to consume, you should start planning your meals accordingly. 

Plan out your meals for each day of the week with diverse healthy dishes. A detailed and diverse plan would ensure that you don’t wander off to unhealthy choices in confusion. Also, you don’t get bored of your healthy diet choices when you add diversity to your meals.  

Conclusion 

So, to keep your heart healthy you need to make some changes to your lifestyle and eating habits. 

When planning out your meals, try to focus on whole grains, fresh fruits and vegetables. Try replacing the high-fat protein sources and limit your salt intake by avoiding processed foods.

These changes in your food habits should be accompanied by regular exercise, as just like any other muscle, the heart also needs to be stretched regularly.