Good Nutrition Made Easy

February is the month for Valentine’s Day and “Go Red for Women” from the American Heart Association. Both are about doing the right things for your heart. As a Registered Dietitian, I can talk about diet, nutrition and lifestyle changes which will help you get there.

Did you know that heart disease is the leading cause of mortality in women? It claims 400,000 lives each year and even surpasses cancer! Although this is very heart breaking, we can all do simple things for prevention.

Here’s the check list:

 Get close to your ideal body weight for your height. This will help reduce your body mass index- a measure of obesity.

 Include whole grain products in your diet by replacing white bread, white rice or pasta. 

 Reduce your total fat consumption. No more than 30% of calories should come from fat. An easy way to calculate this is to follow the link: http://www.myfatstranslator.com/. This simple calculator on the American Heart Association’s website lets you individualize your fat content.

 “Fruits and veggies – more matters!” This is the recommendation from the Center for Disease Control (CDC).  Depending upon how many calories you consume, 4-13 servings per day of fruits and vegetables are recommended. An easy way to individualize your plan is to follow this link: http://www.fruitsandveggiesmatter.gov/index.html.

Easy additions can come from keeping handy snack packages of raisins or dry cranberries in your purse or office drawers. Keep a fruit bowl near the door as a grab-and-go snack for the whole family. Adding salads in your daily plans or simply keeping bags of baby carrots or celery hearts in your fridge can curb unhealthy snack attacks. During winter months you can even leave a fruit in your glove compartment in the car!

 Replace artery-clogging saturated fats like butter, lard, or Crisco by heart-healthy fats like canola oil, sunflower oil or olive oil as per your daily fat allowance.  

 Eat oily fish such as salmon, trout, and herring at least twice a week to get omega three fatty acids in your diet. Omega three fatty acids are part of good fats that help in the prevention of cardiovascular disease.

 Choose lean meats and poultry without skin in place of red meats, and use cooking methods like baking, roasting, boiling, grilling to avoid the use of additional fats.

Kanan Thakore, RD, CNSD

This entry was posted on April 15, 2008 at 6:05 pm and is filed under diet, health, healthy eating, nutrition. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.