Understand Nutrition, Diet & Your Heart
If you're worried about heart disease, one of the most important things you can do today is to start eating a heart-healthy diet. A balanced diet that is low in saturated fat and trans-fats and high in monounsaturated fat, omega-3 fatty acids, fruits, vegetables and whole grains will protect your heart by:
- Lowering "bad" low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol and blood pressure levels,
- Limiting inflammation of the arteries,
- Warding off diabetes and
- Helping you lose weight or maintain a healthy weight.
If you've already experienced a heart problem, chances are you've heard about a heart-healthy diet before. But it's not enough to know what to do. You have to make changes, and that's not easy. It may seem overwhelming at first.
SecondsCount.org can help. These pages offer practical tools, tips and support to show you how to eat a healthy diet. While you don't need to change everything about your diet all at once, the more you take these nutrition recommendations to heart, the better off your heart will be.
Above all, don't forget eating is fun. So, take time to learn how to adopt fun, heart-healthy eating for the whole family, too. It'll make you want to continue eating this way every day of your longer, healthier life.