By Taylor Sutton, MS, RD
United Supermarkets’ Lifestyle Desk
Putting your heart health at the forefront in your shopping cart brings long-lasting benefits beyond just a healthy heart. With that healthy heart you are able to focus on your lifestyle goals be it weight gain, weight loss, muscle mass gain, bettering your blood lab levels, and maintaining overall good health.
Outside of cardiovascular exercise and weight training, which is the number one way to better your heart, there are some great things to be putting in your shopping cart weekly as a close second. Much like there is no one-size-fits-all diet, there is not a one-size-fits-all way to create a lifestyle. We all lead unique lives that require a different subset of skills and traits. So in an effort to help you create a heart healthy lifestyle here are a few well-researched topics that we know can deliver the goods:
Nutrition: Flex your stomach muscles. The big takeaways are to enjoy all foods in moderation while increasing your consumption of produce. If you’re wanting to go a tad deeper, then things like, limiting saturated fat, sodium, and alcohol are other focus areas.
So what does this all look like in the diet you might be wondering? Here are some applicable ways of adding in more nutrition. Focus on including lots of plants into the diet like fruit and vegetables be it fresh, frozen, or canned all have some great benefits. Beans are filled with fiber and can easily be used in soups, salads or side dishes to increase nutrition content. Nuts are packed with omega 3s (our favorite right now is the walnut) ang great to throw in a desk-stable snack bag, on a salad, or as a topping to your breakfast.
If you’re making soups, and stews and need a stock option, O Organics Bone Broth is a wonderful option with 9 grams of protein and 90 milligrams of sodium per cup. As you may already know, omega-3s are a wonderful compound for the heart and can be found in fish. Be it fresh, frozen or canned the fish selection is endless. Make sure it is free of breadings and sauces or packed in water, respectively.
Exercise most days of the week. It’s no secret that this is the number one way to improve your numbers. Create a routine that works for your lifestyle be it weight training, swimming, cycling, dancing and so on. The goal to work towards is a minimum of 150 minutes of moderate to vigorous cardio per week. Don’t forget the stretching after!
Sleep is one of the most overlooked ways to better your heart. Probably because while there is a little bit of direct connection, there’s more indirect connection like less calories consumed late at night, more nutritious food choices, lower stress, and so on. Current research suggests 7-9 hours per night is the ideal goal. Getting the ideal amount of quality sleep per night could be enhanced by: turning off screens 1 hour prior to bed, having a satiating meal 2 hours prior to bed, and creating a nightly routine to start winding down.
Stress can wreak havoc on our mental health, gut, and mind. Ask yourself this question, how well do you handle your stress. One can handle stress in a number of ways and depending on what your stress is ask yourself these questions to help you identify how to better equip yourself to handle it: how do you step back from a stressful situation and deal with it; what outlets do you have to communicate stress in your life; how are you connecting with family, friends and the world?
This is by no means a full comprehensive list, but rather a starting point. When we examine the research for how to lead a heart healthy lifestyle these points come through time and time again. What is the one thing you want to step towards creating a more heart healthy lifestyle? We want to start with the food piece and this one is more on the hydration side in the colder months so grab the recipe below!
Citrus Kombucha Mocktail
INGREDIENTS
1, 16oz bottle Grapefruit kombucha
1, 16oz (or 2, 8oz) cans Orange Grapefruit Sparkling water
1 small Lemon
2 sprigs Rosemary
DIRECTIONS
1. Slice lemon in 1/4 inch slices
2. In a large cup add lemon slices in the bottom mix together the kombucha and la croix
3. Serve in 2 cups and garnish with a single rosemary sprig in each
