Heart Health

The quick answer:  Don’t die of a broken heart—live a muscular lifestyle and eat a whole foods diet.

________________________________________________________________________________________________

The subject this week is heart health.  Have you been with someone during a heart attack, or held a friend’s hand before they entered the hospital cath lab for an angiogram, or visited someone after coronary artery bypass surgery?  It’s pretty scary, isn’t it?  In that moment, we would give anything to have lived better.  Our lives depend on us caring for our hearts.  In the last post we discussed five steps for doing this.   They’re worth repeating:

Based on #1 above, the Healthy Change for the week says: Resist laborsaving devices—incorporate muscular activities into your life.

TV Watching

What’s the exact opposite of muscular activity?   Watching TV—being a couch potato.  There are some terrible TV statistics: By the time the average child turns 18, I’m told, they’ve seen 40,000 murders.  In four hours of Saturday morning TV a child will see 200 commercials glorifying junk food, according to one study.  (Yes, the food corporations slip around the parents and go straight for the kids; they’re the #1 advertiser to children.  There ought to be a law.)  How’s a mom going to compete with that?  No surprise that there’s a correlation between TV watching and obesity. 

We had a wary relationship with the TV when our kids were growing up.  If our TV broke, it might be years before it was replaced.  For a few years we had a Laundromat coin meter attached to the TV and the kids had to earn quarters to watch.  Another time we had a key-controlled switch.  The kids were bright and figured a way around it but they were careful to only do it when we were out.  After a Friday night out with the beautiful wife I’d come home and touch the TV to see if it was warm.  It’s OK, you know, to let the kids think they’re getting away with something now and then. 

I never found time to implement my best idea:  An exercise bicycle with a generator attached that the kids would pump to make electricity to power the TV.   The idea was they should be outside playing and only get enough TV to stay culturally connected, so they wouldn’t grow up weird.  It worked I think, they’re good citizens and all look pretty healthy.  The little girl who drew the hearts above doesn’t have TV service in her home.  Good parents place strict controls on TV watching.

Sodium and Potassium

You read a lot that we eat too much sodium, or, sometimes, that we get too little potassium.  Together they’re medically important so scientists look at our ratio of sodium to potassium.  A recent study looked at 12,267 adults, comparing their sodium-to-potassium dietary intake to the chance of dying.  Turns out that mortality is 46% higher for those with the highest vs. lowest ratio.  Worse, the risk of dying by heart attack is more than doubled.

So how can we eat less salt and more potassium?  Here’s where you mainly get sodium: eating food someone else cooks for you.  Table salt is 40% sodium but we get it from processed foods—fast foods, commercial snacks, and restaurant meals.  If you mainly cook at home using real food, you likely don’t have a sodium problem. 

Where do we get potassium?  From plants, especially nuts, seeds, and legumes, but potassium is found in all fruits and vegetables.  So if you eat a whole foods diet, you get plenty of potassium.  What we discover here is that the sodium to potassium ratio is a marker for processed food vs. plant foods in your diet.  Eat whole foods and you shouldn’t have a worry.

Single Adults

I spoke to some single adults the other night, about nutrition.  They have a tough problem, I think.  They mostly live alone, they work hard all day, and it’s hard to prepare a good meal when you’re the only one eating.  One explained how it’s a lot cheaper to pick something up than buy groceries for just one person.  I don’t think that’s true, but it’s been a long time since I lived alone.  You’d laugh if I told you what I ate during the college years.  Does any group eats worse than college kids?

Lots of kids today weren’t taught to cook when they were growing up.  The group I spoke to seemed like really good people, but they didn’t look healthy.  Driving home I wondered how this blog could be more helpful to single people.  Couldn’t we do something more—to inform, or inspire?

Please comment:  Please share your ideas.  How do you control the TV in your home?  Or, how can people living alone eat healthy?  Thank you for your comments—they make this blog work. 

Comments

[Nancy O]

My husband had 6 arterial bypasses. He did not have a heart attack. The blockage was discovered with a stress test, fortunately. We feel that some of it must be hereditary. He has always been a healthy eater and exercised regularly. His body had produced some extra veins to carry blood to his heart because he had exercised. After the Dr. looked at the angiogram, he said: "You should be dead!" Comforting! He walked to the hospital for his angiogram. He didn't know he wasn't supposed to. He still eats too much red meat - but he says he doesn't! He does eat lots of vegies and fruit and drinks lots of water and exercises. We also eat salmon and tuna every week.
Thanks for this great blog, Skip. We loved seeing your family in Martha Stewart besides. Cheers!

[Kate]

Thanks for another wonderful post!
I agree with the other comments about using your freezer. By cooking a large pot of stew, soup etc and freezing individual portions when you have time, you can still have a healthy home cooked meal when you don't have time. Thanks to Mims for suggesting
Although I have to say that the good cooking habit starts when you are young. You are right, too many people today don't know how to cook because their parents didn't cook and so couldn't teach them. I think it's important to get kids helping out in the kitchen as soon as possible. I remember feeling really proud when my mum told my dad that I'd helped cook dinner even if all I did was wash the veges!
By getting kids to help with both the shopping and the cooking you not only set them on the healthy lifestyle path, but it can also help with basic literacy and numeracy.
As for the TV, I agree with Kelsey - the DVR is a fantastic tool. I haven't watched live TV in years and can't remember the last time I had to sit through a commercial break!

[Kristen]

One more thought on single adults...There's a great cookbook called "The Pleasure of Cooking for One" by Judith Jones. Some of the recipes are "fancy" and others are a little more practical for me. In the first few pages, she reviews the essential kitchen tools, spices, knives and even food items that a single person should keep in their home. It's quite helpful, and a good place to start if you are interested in preparing healthy, delicious meals on a regular basis.

[Skip Hellewell]

Kristen, thank you for the reference to Judith Jones, and her book "The Pleasure of Cooking for One." After reading about Ms. Jones, I wanted to buy the book. I especially liked her suggestion: "When your husband is enjoying himself in the kitchen, keep your mouth shut even if you could do better." I know it's a good ideas because my beautiful wife has done it for years.

[Jamie]

In our family, we save screen time for weekends only. And even then, it's only DVDs that we can trust. I love that my 4 kids don't see commercials, don't hear bad language (only at school, I'm sure), and don't waste time.

We've been doing this close to a year now, and my kids entertain themselves so much better than they used to! This morning my boys told me they were bored, so I told them they could either find something fun to do, or do the dishes... They spent HOURS working together on a crazy project with an old cardboard box.

I used to wonder why my kids didn't use their imaginations more...it was because the TV eliminated the need! We're soooo glad we pulled the plug!

[SEO Service in Delhi]

Thank you so much dear for this amazing information. Everyone needs best for their business to compete in this fast-growing world. OGEN Infosystem provides best services for website designing in Delhi.