By Diana Macian, M.D. – WellcomeMD – Naples
Heart disease remains the leading cause of death in the United States. The good news is we are able to significantly change our cardiometabolic risk by focusing on the following healthy lifestyle choices.
1. Nutrition. To reduce cardiometabolic risk you want a diet rich in antioxidants. This will help decrease inflammation, manage blood sugar levels, and decrease oxidation. Sounds like a tall order, but it’s not as difficult as it sounds. While eating, make sure half of your plate is fruit and vegetables and your daily diet includes plenty of nuts (unsalted), fiber (beans/peas), and omega-3s which are found in fish, edamame/soybeans, seaweed, or flax, and chia seeds. Work on decreasing your intake of red meat, refined carbohydrates (white flour, pasta, pastries), and simple sugars (soda, fruit juice).
2. Movement / Exercise. Exercise has great benefits outside of cardiometabolic improvements such as improving brain health, losing weight, decreasing cancer risk, and balancing your hormones. Daily exercise is more likely to occur if it is scheduled.
Since sedentary behavior puts you at higher risk, try to avoid sitting for prolonged periods. Set your Apple Watch or Fitbit to remind you to move hourly or consider a standing desk.
3. Stress management / Mindfulness. Stress will kill you, literally. It increases your blood pressure, can cause arrhythmias and heart attacks, increase fat deposition, and increase insulin resistance to name just a few of its effects. Mindfulness will help improve your heart rate variability, lower your cortisol levels, help your brain to focus, decrease anxiety and depression, and help you better deal with curveballs life throws at you. There are many ways to incorporate it in your life, like meditation, breathing techniques, yoga, tapping and walking in nature. Try them all and stick to what works best for you.
4. Losing weight. This takes work and is a lifelong journey to maintain the weight loss. If you need additional assistance, use an app that counts your calories such as Lose It! or My Fitness Pal. It takes 3,500 calories to burn off one pound, so either you must burn it off with exercise, eating less, or a combination of both. If you don’t need to count calories try using a smaller plate for meals to reduce portion size and clean out your pantry of junk foods or foods that are your downfall. Try to limit your favorite unhealthy snacks to individual portion sizes or only when you eat out.
5. Quitting smoking. Make an appointment with your doctor to discuss options for helping you quit.
6. Limiting your alcohol intake. Let’s face it, alcohol is a toxin, an enjoyable one at times, but still a toxin. It can impair the brain’s ability to function, raise your blood pressure, cause cardiomyopathy (heart enlargement) and arrhythmias, increase cancer risk, cause liver damage, ulcers, worsen depression and anxiety, and the list goes on. The potential benefits of alcohol are relatively small and may not apply to all individuals. Current recommendations are for moderate drinking, which is no more than two drinks for men, and one for women per day.
WELLCOMEMD Naples
The path to long-term well-being is deeply personal. For example, your genetics profile holds valuable information about your best approach to optimal diet, fitness, and disease prevention. We use the most advanced lab tests and focuses on lifestyle, stressors, and environmental exposures to avoid, treat or reverse health issues.
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