2.00 Introduction to Heart Healthy Eating
Here we are going to introduce to you how the HeartStrong.com Healthy Eating Plan works and how you should use this information as you progress through the program.
The HeartStrong.com program is completely evidence-based, meaning all the information you will learn and all the recommendations that you will be given are based on the good sound research.
The specific foods that you eat are extremely important in regards to your heart health. You are what you eat they say. The food you eat will either make you healthier preventing and even treating disease…or if you eat the wrong foods it will cause and/or worsen disease. If your diet is made up of mostly unhealthy foods, your risk of heart disease, cancer, many other serious medical conditions and simply your risk of death at a younger age will be significantly higher.
Hippocrates, the father of medicine once said over 2000 years ago “Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.”
Even if your weight is normal, you exercise every day and your calorie intake is reasonable, having the wrong content of nutrients in your diet can still increase your risk of heart disease significantly.
In order for your diet to be heart healthy, it must have these 4 key components:
- Low Fat/Cholesterol (including eliminating most saturated fats and processed oils)
- High in fruits, vegetables, beans/legumes, whole grains and nuts
- Avoid added sugar and processed/refined carbohydrates
- Low sodium
We are not going to discuss these 4 key components in detail in this video since you will see these concepts in separate videos soon.
There are 5 eating plans that are recommended as evidence based, heart healthy diets, but some are clearly better than others. These are:
- Whole food, plant based diet (ideal, HeartStrong.com recommended)
- USDA Food Plan
- AHA Diet Plan
- DASH Eating Plan
- Mediterranean Diet
Each of these diets will be discussed in upcoming videos.