Heart disease is a major killer of women within the United States of America. Changes in diet and lifestyle have left a large percentage of the population with heart health issues that can be potentially life threatening. 

Did you know that there are nearly one and a half million heart attacks alone in the USA each year? Of those there are nearly five hundred thousand deaths. A heart attack occurs about every twenty seconds and a death by heart attack nearly every minute! Sudden death is more common in women than in men.

The National Registry of Myocardial Infarctions (New England Journal Med., 22Jul99) reports that women have a worse outcome than men after having a heart attack. Data indicated women under the age of 50 have twice the mortality rate of men after having a heart attack. 

Approximately fourteen million Americans are known to suffer from the heart disease Angina. Approximately fifty percent of deaths from heart attack occur within an hour period. There is an early mortality rate between six and nine percent for those people who survive long enough to reach the hospital. For instance via ambulance or other transport.

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Heart disease is nothing new to the United States of America. The statistics from 1983 to 1993 saw the heart attack death rate fall by around thirty percent. These statistics do not show much of that decline relating to women.

For some reason, studies conducted into heart attack; show that the most common time for a heart attack is Monday morning, followed closely by Saturday morning. 

Statistics have shown that approximately thirty one percent of women know that cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in the USA.

Heart disease can affect any one at any time in life. It doesn’t matter what part of the USA or age you are, if there are any symptoms of chest pain, please see your medical practitioner immediately.

No one is immune to this silent and frequently deadly killer. People can be born with a heart defect or disease and have no idea until they have a heart attack, symptoms relating to a stroke or in the worst case scenario, sudden death.

Children are often victims as they may have a heart defect that happens as they are growing in the womb. Often this is well before the mother knows she is pregnant. These heart defects and diseases can be treated efficiently using a multitude of medical miracle breakthroughs involving surgery and other treatment.

Heart disease is a problem that affects any culture, any race at any age. Some people are more likely to develop heart disease; overall no one is totally safe from heart disease.

Lifestyle choices often play a huge part in the development of heart disease. Excess weight, lack of exercise, diets high in fat can make anyone a candidate for a heart problem. Smoking active or passive can cause the buildups inside the heart, causing it to not work as efficiently as it should.

The term Cardiovascular Disease covers a large number of diseases that directly affect the heart and the blood vessel system. It especially affects the veins and arteries that lead to and from the heart. Research has suggested that women who suffer with cardiovascular disease usually suffer from forms that affect the blood vessels. While men usually suffer from forms that affect the heart muscle itself.

There are things however that are being done to address the problem and get our children more involved, more active, and better educated about making the proper choices about diet, nutrition, fitness, and overall health. The problem for most teens is getting them off the computer, phone, or away from the television long enough to get active.

Even video games are getting in on the act of getting children up and active by creating games such as Play Station 2’s Dance Party Revolution and the new Nintendo Wii gaming system that seem to be taking the market by storm. These systems allow consumers, to actively participate in the game play adventure rather than sitting back and playing the game in a static environment. It is a great way to get teens off their seats and active. These games are also fun for adults and will have the same effects when it comes to activity. Whoever thought we’d be actually encouraging game play for exercise?

Get Outside and Get Active

Teens learn by example and whether they care to admit it or not, they typically enjoy doing things as part of the family. Go rock wall climbing or mountain climbing. Go bike riding as a family. Camp in the great out doors and go hiking, boating, or biking yet again. Learn a new sport together. It’s amazing how much fun you can have learning how scuba dive and while you are at it, neither of you will be consuming empty calories. Even if the sport you take up together doesn’t involve a lot of physical activity it is quite likely more active than sitting in front of the television.

Have your teen join a recreational sports team. We have all kinds of sports teams available in our community in which our teens can join. Even those with no skills at all can join and play in some of the leagues while other leagues are competitive. Getting out and about for a softball game, soccer game, and even volleyball can be a great way for the family to do something together and the games and practices are opportunities for your teen to be active.

Lawn work is another way to get out and get active with your teen. The key, as always, is in your teen burning more calories than he or she consumers. It is often easier said than done but it is quite possible if you work to get them out and about. Find things however that will be interesting to your teen and focus on those rather than torturing them with activities that hold no interest at all (well maybe not the yard work). At any rate, filling their time with activities is also allowing time that they aren’t consuming calories as well and that is something worth considering. 

Encourage your teen to eat healthier foods. Eliminate calorie-loaded sods, fruit juices, and energy drinks from your pantry shelves, and encourage your teens to drink plenty of water each day. Introduce as many vegetables as possible to the diet of your teens and get rid of the prepackaged convenience goodies that teens are notorious for depleting in one sitting. Also having your teens actively participate in the preparation and clean up for meals will help them pay more attention to the things they put into their mouths as well as the messes they make in the process.

There is no greater reason to diet than for your personal health and well being. Those of us who are overweight know better than most the risks and possible consequences that may result because of our weight. Much like smokers however, the risks do not always seem quite so cut and dry until we reach our very own turning point. Whether your eating habits are born of an addiction to certain foods, an emotional need, or years of learned behavior and conditioning things will not change until you completely adjust your eating habits and your lifestyle choices.

Dieting for many has become a lifestyle in and of itself with people rapidly flip-flopping or yo-yoing from one diet to another with little success and growing despair over a sheer lack of results. The truth is that until you decide to forgive yourself for your failures and get right back on the wagon, so to speak, after falling off no diet is going to be successful. A simple diet isn’t going to magically make the pounds disappear and constantly depriving yourself of those things you enjoy most may have a more detrimental effect than a positive effect.

The number one thing most people need to learn is that dieting isn’t always a good thing. What most people who are overweight need more than anything else is to incorporate positive lifestyle changes into their daily routines. People scoff at the notion of taking the stairs or parking farther away and yet those are perfectly plausible methods of working a little more physical activity into your day. If those do not work for you how about learning to dance? Seriously, there are beginner dance classes in most communities that will welcome and invite dances of all ages, sizes, and fitness levels if you are willing to make the effort. What a great way to get fit, learn something new, and have fun without filling deprived. 

Another great thing about an activity such as a dance class (consider ballroom dancing with your significant other) is that you are not eating or tempted to eat during the time that you are dancing in most cases. Another great thing is that you are burning those calories you didn’t eat. If dancing isn’t you thing, try joining a walking club or finding another hobby. Anything that gets you on your feet and away from the temptation of your refrigerator is a good thing when it comes to dieting and weight loss. You cannot lose a significant amount of weight by dieting alone. You must incorporate physical fitness into your daily routine in order to achieve those immediate and visually stunning results that many dieters are hoping to achieve.

Another pitfall when it comes to dieting is that people give up far too quickly. Just as the results are beginning and progressing people get tired of the process or frustrated that they aren’t accomplishing enough dramatic weight loss as quickly as they had hoped and give up all together marking off yet another failure when they could have achieved greater success than ever before if they had stuck with their original diet plan a little longer.

One more thing you should remember when it comes to dieting is that the scale can be your best friend or your worst enemy when dieting. If you are weighing yourself every day in hopes of watching the scale tick off yet another pound you are dooming yourself to failure. You will never achieve the results you are hoping for you if you are going into depressive bouts of Rocky Road or Chunky Monkey every night because you didn’t lose 10 pounds overnight. 

When it comes to dieting there are very few diets that work. There are however, many lifestyle changes that when practiced consistently and aggressively will work. The thing to remember is that you are the one who must work because it is quite unlikely that any diet will.

There’s a clever little line in the Jimmy Buffet song “Fruitcakes” when his ‘lady’ is lamenting: 

“I treat my body like a temple 

 You treat yours like a tent”

I can’t help but think of this line whenever I think about all the people around the world who are going on these garbage in, garbage out diet plans hoping to achieve the weight loss success of those who are endorsing these products. 

To be completely honest, it is possible to shed pounds through diet alone. It is difficult but possible. It is also possible to be physically fit and have a few extra pounds hanging around. To a large degree we are what we eat. If we consume a high fat low substance diet our bodies are going to lack the fuel required to burn the fat. At the same time if we aren’t providing our bodies with the tools it needs to build muscle it doesn’t matter how many weights we lift. 

When it comes to diet and fitness, the best results are achieved when they work together rather than separately. Use your fitness routine to burn excess calories and use your diet in order to properly provide your body the nutrients and fuel it needs to build muscle. I’ve heard many times in my life that a pound of muscle weighs less than a pound of fat. While this is not true at all, a pound is a pound regardless; a pound of muscle occupies less space on the body than a pound of fat. Pound for pound, I would much rather mine be composed of muscle than fat. Dieting alone does not build muscle and that is something you will do well to remember in your efforts. 

You should also realize that as you are building muscle you may be shedding inches while not showing a great deal of progress on the scale. It is very important that you keep this in mind throughout the weight loss process. Do not measure your progress by the scales alone or you will achieve misleading results. The problem is that far too many people do just this and get frustrated and give up when they are actually making progress. Do not allow yourself to be a victim of the scales. Look in the mirror, try on your tight pants, and measure your waistline. Measure your success by how you feel after climbing a flight of stairs not by how many pounds fell of the scale this week. 

By incorporating fitness into your diet routine you are also enabling your body to burn off any extra calories you may have consumed during the day. This means that if you want to have a small ‘cheat’ during your day, you can make up for it by burning a few more calories than normal in the evening. This isn’t something that should happen often but an occasional occurrence isn’t going to make or break your diet. 

You should also look at dieting and fitness as a ball and glove type of relationship. While you can play ball without the glove, it seems to work so much better if you have both. Diet and fitness when combined can create fantastic weight loss results for those who take them both seriously. The thing to remember is that neither works as well alone and neither will work unless you are willing to do the work. You must make this a priority in your life in order to achieve the best possible results.

The heart pumps blood around the body through the blood vessels. Blood pressure is the amount of force exerted on the artery walls by the pumping blood. High blood pressure (hypertension) means the blood is pumping with more force than normal through arteries. This added stress upon the arteries could possibly accelerate the distribution of arteries with fatty plaques (atherosclerosis).

Other risk factors for atherosclerosis include cigarette smoking and high blood cholesterol. Atherosclerosis contributes too many heart illnesses, such as heart attack and stroke. Hypertension is a common disorder of the circulatory system, affecting around one in seven people. 

Hypertension usually produces no symptoms. This means most people don’t even realize they have it. Experts recommend that everyone should have their blood pressure checked regularly.

When the heart contracts the blood inside the left ventricle, is forced into the aorta and arteries. The blood then enters small vessels with muscular walls, called arterioles. The tone within the muscular walls of the arterioles determines how relaxed or constricted they are. If narrowed, they resist flow.

Reduced flow of blood is detected in the brain, the kidneys and elsewhere. Nerve reflexes are stimulated and hormones are then produced. The heart is induced to beat more forcefully so that the blood pressure is maintained at a higher level, to overcome the restricted flow through the arterioles. The achievement of good flow (now at high pressure) eases possible problems for function of the brain and kidneys. These adjustments happen normally. There are some people that the adjustments become fixed and high blood pressure persists. These people have developed hypertension.

By making some changes, it is possible to make a huge difference to the heart and general health. Start out with the changes one at a time, this way they are more likely to last. Start gradually, and see how many of these changes can be incorporated into your diet daily diet.

Discover the joy of cooking a simple nutritious meal! There are many wonderful recipes in books, online and even some family recipes wait to be discovered. 

Choose a selection of wholegrain breads instead of white for a change. Eat more cereals such as rice, pasta and other grains. Legumes such as dried peas and beans are excellent to have as a side dish or add to a hot casserole on a cold winter’s night.

Make lean meats a part of your diet as there are wonderful assortments of cuts to utilize in different dishes. Use only very small amounts of very lean meats, and eat poultry without skin.

Choose low-fat dairy products such as milk, yoghurt and cheese. Make high fat foods such as a chocolate bar or cake an occasional treat. Rather than have high fats every day, be imaginative and see what low fat recipes and alternatives are available.

Fish is another excellent option! Eat it fresh or canned twice a week,

Use monounsaturated or polyunsaturated oils such as olive oil, canola, sunflower and safflower for cooking.

Use small amounts of margarine spreads or olive oil instead of butter.

Grill, boil, steam, bake or microwave rather than fry.

Reduce your salt intake.

Drink plenty of water.

Discover the joy of cooking wholesome meals at home.