A Cardiac Tune-Up Learn how to keep your body’s engine running in top condition.
Your heart is the engine driving your body, making sure it has enough oxygen and nutrients to keep going. Much like the engine in your car, your heart requires regular preventative maintenance. Without it, we can run our hearts to the breaking point. To maintain a healthy heart, we must keep the pump strong, keep the blood thin, and cut unnecessary stressors. Your body’s engine needs healthy fuel, clean lines, and all cylinders firing. By actively managing your risk factors and making small changes towards a healthier lifestyle, you can keep your heart in good working order.
Exercise. Physical inactivity is the most common risk factor for heart disease. People who get less than 150 minutes a week of moderate physical activity are at a much higher risk than more active people. Regular exercise can help you manage your weight, blood pressure, and cholesterol and glucose levels. Just 30 minutes a day of lower intensity exercises, such
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Fall 2020
as walking or bicycling, for five days a week can strengthen your muscles and heart. Building muscle increases your caloric expenditure, metabolic function, and ejection fraction, which is a percentage of how much blood the left ventricle of your heart pumps out with each contraction. And a stronger heart can pump more blood with less effort and pressure. Exercise can also reduce stress that contributes to high blood pressure.
Eat a balanced diet. You can also manage your weight, cholesterol, glucose and blood pressure by limiting your portion sizes, eating fewer saturated and trans fats (often found in hydrogenated oils and fatty meats), eating five to nine servings of vegetables and fruit a day, and adding more foods with omega-3s like nuts, seeds and fish.
Watch your cholesterol. Your blood lipids include total cholesterol, LDL cholesterol, and HDL cholesterol. Cholesterol is a waxy substance that
