What to Eat for a Healthy Heart

The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute Health Information Center recognizes October as National Cholesterol Education Month, which means there’s no better time than now to learn more about heart-disease prevention. Heart disease is the leading cause of death in men and women in the United States — but steps can be taken to reverse this dangerous trend, starting with eating heart-healthy foods, exercising, and partnering with your doctor for early detection. The good news is that if you’re following the South Beach Diet, you’re already well on your way to lowering your risk of heart disease.

"The good news is that due to recent advances in understanding, detecting, and treating heart disease, I believe we have reached a point where the great majority of heart attacks and strokes can be prevented," explains Dr. Arthur Agatston, leading preventive cardiologist and author of The South Beach Heart Health Revolutionand The South Beach Diet Supercharged. "One of the most important things you can do to prevent heart disease is to practice heart-healthy eating," he says. "By enjoying the wide range of nutrient-dense, fiber-rich foods that we emphasize on the South Beach Diet, you take a big step toward reducing your risk of heart attack and stroke."

Here are Dr. Agatston’s basic guidelines for heart-healthy eating:

• Eat good carbohydrates. Good carbs include high-fiber, nutrient-dense fruits, vegetables, legumes, and whole grains.
• Eat good fats. Choose good fats from extra-virgin olive oil, canola oil, peanut oil, flaxseed oil, walnut oil, avocados, nuts, and fish. Omega-3 (fish oil) supplements are also fine.
• Eat lean protein. The best sources include skinless white-meat poultry, fish and shellfish, lean cuts of meat, and soy-based options such as tofu, as well as legumes, eggs, low-fat dairy foods, nuts, and seeds.

If you follow these guidelines, you can put together delicious, satisfying, and healthy meals and snacks — and take the first step toward a healthier life.

Farewell Aching Heart

              Written by Yolanda Pacheco Garcia

Long sleepless nights, this is my doom

tossing and turning, alone in my room.

I'm a prisoner of thoughts stirring around

flying like a dove, and then falling down.

Wishing and wondering, where art thou my love?

Burning up in passion, needing air from above

A new journey I must impart

for rest is what I need, for this lonely heart

The tempest of my solitude unsettles me now

deplenishing  emotions that must lie still somehow.  

Forever I will sleep, forever and a day

And once and for all this pain will go away.

From the book LOST AND FOUND: LOVE, a book of love poems

Get your copy at      www.victoryp.com   

Stress Free Life

The stress test was normal, It had shown excellent exercise capacity. The doctor felt very frustrated. We were working with the best technology available, yet it wasn't good enough to detect a heart attack that was only weeks away.

Today, we do have other noninvasive tests that are much better at predicting the likelihood of a future heart attack. A normal stress test does not mean there aren't any potentially lethal soft plaques growing inside the lining of your coronary arteries that could rupture and cause a heart attack at any time. All it means is that the blood flow to your heart was fine on the day you took the test. Unfortunately, that doesn't mean that the blood flow will still be fine tomorrow.

The problem is that many patients destined for heart problems don't get the benefit of our most accurate tests (including presidents of the United States). Many seemingly perfectly healthy people are "suddenly" getting heart attacks because their arteries are not perfectly healthy and they don't know it. With the proper noninvasive tests, these diseased arteries would have been identified, and the heart attacks wouldn't have happened.

It is of upmost importance to keep stress levels down, eat healthy, exercise, and laugh a lot.

God grant me the 

Serenity

to accept the things I cannot change

Courage

to change the things I can and

Wisdom

to know the difference.


www.victoryp.com