5 Simple Rules to Cut Your Heart Attack Risk

If you view heart disease as a normal part of getting older and as something that’s to be expected, I’ve got great news for you. While it’s true that the aging process does change your heart, heart disease isn’t at all normal. It doesn’t have to be part of getting older. In fact, there are ways to cut your heart attack risk, get your heart healthy, and enjoy better health overall – and to keep on enjoying a good level of vitality into your 70s, 80s, and beyond. Here are five ways to get started today.

Tips for Cutting Your Heart Attack Risk Starting NOW

It’s impossible to take care of a problem until you know what’s causing it. While having a family history of early heart disease and being age 55 or older are two risk factors for heart disease that no one can control, it’s important to be aware of other risk factors that can be changed. Here is a list of risk factors that may be changed either with a physician’s help or on your own:

• High blood pressure
• High cholesterol
• Smoking
• Being Obese or Overweight
• Sedentary lifestyle
• Unhealthy Diet
• Having prediabetes or diabetes

None of these problems are small, yet none are truly insurmountable. It’s possible to turn your health around with the five steps that follow.

Lose the Excess Weight

If you’re carrying extra pounds, you’re not alone. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, most Americans are either overweight, obese, or extremely obese:

• More than 2 in 3 adults are overweight or obese
• Approximately 1 in 13 adults falls into the “extremely obese” category
• Approximately 1 in 6 children and adolescents between the ages of 2 and 19 are considered to have obesity

These figures include 73.7 percent of all men and 66.9 percent of all women.

With so many people suffering, it’s no wonder that being overweight is a cultural norm in America. The emerging body positivity movement (originally created to promote positivity in people with different abilities) has started a trend in which even wanting to lose weight might bring on accusations of “fat shaming.” I’m here to tell you that this is dangerous – and people who promote fat acceptance are only hurting themselves and others. Yes, it’s a hard line, but it’s the truth.

Besides elevating your heart attack risk, being overweight puts you at risk for high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and prediabetes or diabetes.

The good news is that it’s easy to lose weight when you know what to do. Here are a few changes you can make right now:

• Cut way back on sugar or avoid added sugar altogether
  • Soda
  • Juice
  • Candy
  • Sauces and salad dressings with added sugar
  • Processed convenience foods, i.e. frozen pizza, most pasta sauces, many canned soups
• Stop drinking alcohol or cut way back
• Choose low-sugar berries over higher sugar fruits like bananas
• Avoid carbohydrates that are high on the glycemic index
  • Baked goods
  • White rice
  • Potatoes and potato products
  • Most processed snack foods
  • Most pasta
• Try a clean ketogenic diet if you’re interested in dropping weight quickly

Get Moving

In the 18^th century, Scottish physician Dr. William Buchanan wrote: “Of all the causes which conspire to render the life of a man short and miserable, none have greater influence than the want of proper exercise.” Research has proven Buchanan right, time and again.

Exercise addresses several risk factors. It helps you reduce your blood pressure and it can help put an end to high cholesterol. It’s also an excellent part of any weight loss regimen.

If you aren’t active now, it’s important that you start simply, putting one foot in front of the other and working your way up to three or four exercise sessions per week, each lasting about 20 to 30 minutes. Be sure to let your doctor know about your plans to become more active.

Pick something easy, that you enjoy doing. You can walk, ride a bike, swim, or even play active games like golf or bowling. You can go window shopping at the mall. So long as you are moving and your heart rate increases slightly, you are working toward reducing your heart attack risk.

After you create an exercise habit, you might want to look into ways to intensify your activity. Moving into a faster walk, staying active for longer periods of time, and taking a few hills are some very easy ways to do it. You don’t have to become a marathon runner or even join a gym! Start where you are, and you’ll soon start seeing the benefits.

Add Antioxidants

The standard American diet (also known as the SAD diet) is sorely lacking in vitamins, minerals, and micronutrients. Even though we eat more calories than we need, our bodies crave nutrition.

Start adding healthy, colorful fruits and vegetables to your daily diet. Have something fun and colorful at every meal. The antioxidants found in these fruits and vegetables can help keep your blood vessels strong while reducing oxidative stress and damage to your heart.

Change Your Cholesterol Profile

Reducing LDL cholesterol and increasing HDL cholesterol are essential in cutting heart attack risk. LDL cholesterol creates sticky plaque that clings to your artery walls, narrowing them and increasing other risk factors like high blood pressure. HDL cholesterol acts like a vacuum cleaner, clearing up the “bad” LDL cholesterol and carrying it away.

Follow my cholesterol reducing protocol to change your outlook quickly.

Get Blood Pressure Under Control

High blood pressure is the most common factor in heart disease risk; it makes your heart work harder with every pump and is exacerbated by other factors we’ve addressed here. As blood pressure increases and arteries get narrower due to the presence of plaque, blood clot risk increases and so does heart attack risk.

It can take many years for high blood pressure to create enough damage to cause heart failure. Not surprisingly, tactics including cholesterol reduction, exercise, healthy eating, and weight loss have a positive impact on blood pressure. You can start reducing your risk today.

There are so many ways to cut your heart attack risk, and those risk factors play off one another, making matters worse. It might seem difficult to decide where and how to start. The easiest approach is to identify which factors are putting you at risk and to start making changes gradually. Consider these changes a gift to yourself and the people who love you. Starting gradually and making changes a little at a time will keep you from feeling overwhelmed. Once you realize that change is possible, you’re likely to pick up momentum and soon, you’ll find that you’ve come a long way from where you began.

Sources

https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/exercise-and-aging-can-you-walk-away-from-father-time

https://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/health-statistics/overweight-obesity

https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/educational/hearttruth/lower-risk/risk-factors.htm