Your heart has a big job to do — and a healthy heart plays a huge role in your overall health. The heart pumps blood through your vessels to all your vital organs, including your brain, so chronic heart or blood vessel disease can lead to not only stroke and heart attack, but depression and decreased brain function. There are several habits that everyone should follow for better heart health, and one of the most important is a diet for a healthy heart. A heart-healthy diet means sticking to foods low in unhealthy fats, specifically saturated and trans fats. Just as important, it also means eating plenty of fruits and vegetables, whole grains, and healthy fats such as fatty fish, nuts, and avocados, which can help promote weight management and prevent heart disease

If you want a healthy heart, you have to work at keeping fit — unfortunately most of us don’t. A study conducted by the CDC found that more than 68 percent of adults are overweight, while another 35 percent are obese. Weight management is one of the major keys to help prevent heart disease. You can watch your weight by eating a healthy diet in addition to getting plenty of exercise. Exercise is one of the best ways to build a strong heart and promote weight management. Aerobic exercise, which gets your heart rate up, is best, but strength training can help your heart, too. The more exercise you get, the better, but even just an hour of exercise per week can help prevent heart disease. If you really want heart-health benefits, a brisk, 30 minute walk most days of the week is excellent exercise.

A number of health problems are linked to heart disease and can stand in the way of a healthy heart. Diabetes management is vital for heart health, more patients with diabetes die from heart disease rather than the diabetes itself. Other conditions that threaten heart health are high blood pressure and high cholesterol — you’ll need to work closely with your doctor to prevent heart disease by bringing these conditions under control through diet, exercise, weight management, and medications, if necessary. You’ll feel better and improve your heart health to boot.

Smoking causes health threats that go beyond serious damage to your lungs. It can also damage your arteries and threaten your heart. One study found that even in young people, smoking was associated with significant heart problems. If you smoke but want to commit to having a healthy heart, recognize that you may need help beating your addiction. To take charge of your heart health and overall health, explain to your doctor that you want to quit and ask for recommendations on smoking cessation programs. Worried about weight management? Add exercise to your post-smoker lifestyle to stay busy and fit.

When your stress levels go up, so does your risk of heart disease. For a strong heart, find effective and healthy ways to alleviate stress. Regular exercise is a great way to reduce stress. Learning relaxation techniques, a good laugh, and venting can all help relieve stress and promote a healthy heart.

Wow, along the lines of better late than never, the USDA just issued some new school lunch nutrition standards. It’s only been 15 years since the last standards were established. In that period of time, the obesity epidemic has sky-rocketed. As a whole these new standards seem basically sound. We are hearing about more fruits and vegetables everyday along with smaller portions. Only low-fat and skim milk will be offered as well as a lot more whole grain. Additionally schools will reportedly get more money per meal to make all of this a reality.

However, there are still some disturbing players out there that are helping shape policy. For example, Congress voted 2011 to disallow the USDA from limiting the serving size of potatoes in school lunches. There are also laws out there allowing schools to count tomato paste on pizza as a vegetable. However, the USDA seems steadfast in their efforts to make sure that beneficial changes occur. We’ll see… Here are a few details that seem promising: Calorie restriction depending upon the grade being served. The ranges go from 550 on the younger scale to 850 max for the oldest kids. Of the three ranges, each has a cap that permits no more than a 100 calorie swing. I.E. 550 to 650 for grades K-5. Additionally, not more than 10% of total calories can come from saturated fats and all meals must have zero trans fats. It would be nice to see some “rules” on protein. All in all, some decent steps are taking place. Will this be a total game changer? Only time will tell, but it’s nice to see that we are at least trying to make some positive changes.

Attached is a link to the full press release: http://www.usda.gov/wps/portal/usda/usdahome?contentid=2012/01/0023.xml

When it comes to weight loss, the buzzwords you might be hearing lately are lifestyle and change…as in, you need to make one to be successful at losing weight. It may seem like losing weight is a simple goal–do some exercise, go on a diet and voila!

While magazines and infomercials make it seem effortless, losing weight takes hard work and that often means changing different aspects of your life, like how you spend your time, how you schedule your day, and how/what you eat.

What’s Your Lifestyle Like? The reason lifestyle is so important is because how you live determines your choices and these choices decide how healthy you are and whether you’re on the road to weight loss. So what is a healthy lifestyle? The typical components include not smoking, eating healthy foods, exercising and keeping the body at a healthy weight. Where do you fall on the healthy lifestyle continuum? First, figure out how much time you spend doing the following:

• Sitting at a desk
• Sitting in a car
• Sitting in front of a TV
• Sitting in front of a computer
• Eating out at restaurants
• Drinking alcohol
• Eating fast food or junk foods
• Staying up late/not getting enough sleep

Now, how much time do you spend:

• Being active in general (taking the stairs, walking instead of driving, gardening, cleaning, etc.)
• Doing cardio exercise
• Strength training for all muscle groups with challenging weights
• Preparing your own meals and snacks and eating fruits, veggies and whole grains
• Reading food labels
• Tracking your calories
• Sleeping
• Dealing with stress in a healthy way

If you spend more time doing the things in the first list than the second, it’s time to reevaluate your priorities and decide what you really want for yourself. Living healthy means spending time and energy on your body–moving it around and paying attention to what you put into it. An unhealthy lifestyle means you can avoid expending energy, time and effort…but at what cost?

Choosing Health

As humans, we like habits and routines…so much so that we often keep doing the same things even when we know they aren’t good for us. Changing bad habits takes time and effort and, for a healthy lifestyle, you may need to change a variety of things including:

• What time you get up each morning
• What time you go to bed each night
• How you spend your free time
• How you spend your money
• How you shop, how you cook and how often you eat
• How much TV you watch
• What you do with your family and friends

Keep in mind the habits you have now were formed over many years and it’s unrealistic to expect to change them overnight.  While there will be times the old habits make an appearance before you know it, don’t let that deter you.  Get right back on track, this is a marathon, not a sprint.  While difficult, the rewards for making these changes will be endless.

Sugar, Sugar, it’s everywhere. Be aware that from the body’s perspective, sugar is sugar. Regardless if it’s cane, honey, or agave nectar. “Natural” sweeteners fall into the same category so don’t be fooled to think they are somehow better from a caloric perspective.

Drink your fruit or eat your fruit, which is it! There is no question that eating fruit is superior to drinking it. This is true for a few different reasons. One, drinking fruit invites over consumption in the form of calories and especially sugar. Case and point, it takes three to four oranges to yield 8 oz. of fresh OJ.  One medium orange has in excess of 60 calories and about 12 grams of sugar. Also when one drinks their fruit, they are bypassing the value of the fiber. Fiber slows absorption. Without it, one is facing an insulin spike, hunger, and the chance to store some dreaded fat.