In our Healthy
Heart guide, we discussed factors which you can
and cannot control that affects your heart's health
condition, and one of the more important controllable
factors is your diet. Following a Heart Healthy
Diet can reduce your risk of heart related problems
and diseases.
A heart healthy diet is about choosing
a varied combination of healthy foods from the many recommended food
groups. This is the first step in achieving a
heart healthy diet. Aside from knowing what food groups
to choose from, it's also important to understand
the types
of fats and how much fatty acid should be in your
diet.
The quickest way to find out how much
fat something has is to check its nutrition label.
I have many articles on low fat eating, and you can
find a quick
list of health, low fat foods here. In general,
for a heart healthy diet, if it's too much
headache to keep track of all the foods and types
of food you should eat, follow this simple guideline:
Eat a lot of veggies, fruits, grains, and less meat
products. Here's
an excellent place to start.
For a more detailed guideline on a healthy
heart diet, and fats and fatty acids, follow these
guidelines:
-
Daily fat intake shouldn't exceed
30% of calories
- Saturated fatty acid (the 'bad' type) should be
less than 10% of calories
- Polyunsaturated fats (the 'good' type) should be
less than 10% of calories
- Monounsaturated fats (the 'good' type) should be
less than 15% of calories
For the above fat intake percentages, each works out
to you consuming less than about 20 grams of each type
of fat and fatty acid for a heart healthy diet. Y'know, its such a hassle trying to keep track of this
type of stuff for a heart healthy diet, I get headaches
just thinking about it. So if you just follow that one
rule-of-thumb I said above: Eat a lot of veggies, fruits,
grains, and less meat products - you'll be on the right
track to building a healthy heart and diet.
>> Click here for the Fat Loss for Idiots diet and achieve permanent weight loss |
