Heart Health this valentine’s day
Taking this valentines day to talk to you about heart health. Perhaps not what you were thinking when you typed that heart emoji out to your valentine this morning, but an important conversation nonetheless.
Cardiovascular diseases are the number one leading cause of death globally. You might be sitting there looking down at your phone thinking, wow, well I have bad genetics, or I’m too old to fix this now, or my doctor told me that my conditions are irreversible.
While I’m not here to replace your doctor or to tell you to stop taking any medications that you might already be on, I’m here to tell you that you are not too old to fix any health state, its not all based on your genetics, and if your doctor is telling you your only option is lifelong medications, it might be time for a new doctor.
If you put these 4 simple behaviors into your daily lifestyle, you can reverse, treat and prevent up to 80% of your cardiovascular health. Unfortunately, according to Dr. Mark Hyman, a functional doctor, stated in 2021 that only about 3% of Americans actually practice a heart healthy lifestyle.
Behavior 1: Not smoking
Behavior 2: Minimum of 150 minutes of exercise a week
Behavior 3: Eating primarily a whole foods diet (no refined ingredients—basically less pantry items and more fresh vegetables, fruits and high quality proteins)
Behavior 4: Having a healthy body fat percentage
Again, most people think that if they have bad genetics, that they are likely just going to get heart disease anyway, but 80% is preventable by lifestyle choices. That’s a huge amount.
One of the biggest drivers of heart disease, and really the base of almost all diseases in the body, is inflammation. Inflammation in small amounts is actually healthy. You need inflammation after a cut, or bruise to heal. However, it’s the chronic inflammation that drives up all other levels in the body. Constantly being in fight or flight mode, stress, loneliness, lack of sleep, refined fats and sugars, lack of exercise are all factors that affect inflammation which then increases our body fat percentage, slowly blocks our arteries, causes hypertension and high cholesterol levels.
The ways that we can lower inflammation in the body is simply by those 4 behaviors and lifestyle changes that we can bring into our lives. By simply not smoking, you are saving yourself from so many risk factors, improving not only your lung health, but your overall health. That is a huge must. You can eat completely healthy and exercise everyday, but if you smoke, you are basically just adding a bunch of poisons to your body.
By exercising a minimum of 150 minutes each week, increase serotonin and dopamine, your feel good hormones. It decreases your stress levels, your fight or flight response and if you do it with other people or in a group setting, it could help with feelings of community and loneliness. Exercising also increases your heart rate and burns body fat and builds muscle over time. All great directly correlating benefits.
By eating primarily a whole foods diet, you are nourishing your cells with all of the antioxidants and vitamins that they need. Food is not just calories, they are information, so if you eat good food, food with good information, your cells can use them to your benefit. One of the worst killers out there are refined sugars, which basically everything that you eat out has, as well as refined seed oil and canola oils. This directly increases your inflammation in the body and these are all found in convenience food, fast foods and any packaged product at the grocery store.
Having a healthy body fat percentage is also key. Having a high body fat percentage, even if you’re skinny, but you have more fat than muscles, this is a huge problem as those are the people that are most often overlooked. They are told they are healthy, when in fact they are not and are just as unhealthy and often have pre-diabetes just like the overweight people with the high body fat percentage.
Overall, it is quite simple to better your lifestyle and better your cardiovascular health. Stick to the 4 behaviors as much as you can and you will see what a difference it makes.