How to Eat Your Way to a Healthier Heart

The old saying: you are what you eat is based on a lot of truth, especially when it comes to your heart health. What you eat plays a giant role in your heart health – and every other aspect of your physical and mental health.

If you want to know how to eat healthier to benefit your heart, Dr. Daniel Rieders of Peninsula Integrative Cardiology in San Ramon, California, explains more about what to eat.

How your diet affects your heart health

Your heart health is affected by what you eat. Your body runs on a proper balance of certain foods, including the following:

Macronutrients

These refer to general food categories, which provide the building blocks of a healthy diet, including:

• Carbohydrates
• Protein
• Fat

Micronutrients

These refer to vitamins and minerals that your body needs, such as:

• Calcium
• Vitamins like A, D, E, and K (these are fat-soluble, and you can get too much of them)
• B vitamins (these are water-soluble, and your body excretes any extra that isn't needed in your urine)

You need to ensure that your diet includes the proper amounts of each of these foods, which you can achieve by eating various foods with fresh ingredients.

Getting enough – but not too much

A lot of information refers to the standard American diet, which is notoriously lacking in the healthy foods we should eat. The statistics are grim: more than 95 percent of Americans don’t get enough beans, greens, orange vegetables, or whole grains.

In addition, most Americans consume far too much animal food and processed plant foods, such as cookies or chips.

The higher your score on your diet, the greater the variety of foods you eat, which means you’re doing better at meeting the goals to prevent and treat disease, including the risk of heart disease and diabetes. In addition to eating a wide variety of foods, your risk is lower if you do the following:

• Don’t smoke
• Get regular exercise (at least 30 minutes a day, five times a week)
• Avoid obesity

If you have these healthy habits, you’re much less likely to be at risk for heart disease.

How to eat a heart-healthy diet

If you’re having trouble meeting the goals of a heart-healthy diet, you’re not alone. American culture makes it too easy to fall into bad habits, such as stopping through a fast food drive-thru on a busy evening. Here are some tips to make it easier to maintain a healthy diet.

Avoid temptation

It’s easy to give in to the temptation to eat unhealthy foods, especially when you consider the fact that the unhealthy choices are heavily marketed and advertised. You don’t have to avoid everything you love as long as most of your diet is good.  

Prepare in advance

Doing advanced work to prepare foods you can quickly reheat or grab and go helps you stick to your diet. We know that most of us lead busy lives, and that can lead to making less-than-optimal choices. Preparing in advance can help keep your diet healthy.

Sticking to healthier dietary habits takes a little work, but the results are well worth it. Contact Dr. Daniel Rieders at Peninsula Integrative Cardiology today if you need assistance with a healthier diet or request an appointment online.