We started out February by celebrating American Heart Month and the Go Red for Women campaign. The month has ended, but that doesn’t mean our focus on a healthy heart should end. As we move forward into the spring, let’s keep in mind the risks that obesity and physical inactivity have on our heart health. Today is a good day to start getting healthier by losing weight and building momentum with physical activity!

If you’re overweight or obese, your heart can be affected by the conditions below:

1. High blood pressure - a major risk factor for heart disease and stroke.  If you’re overweight, you’re twice as likely to be affected by high blood pressure than someone at a healthy weight.
2. High cholesterol - can lead to heart disease and is often linked to being overweight.
3. High triglyceride levels - linked to heart disease and often linked to being overweight.

The good news is that losing even 10 percent of your body weight can decrease your risk for heart disease and can put you on the path for lowering blood pressure, cholesterol and triglyceride levels. Regular exercise can also increase your “good” (HDL) cholesterol numbers and decrease your “bad” (LDL) cholesterol numbers.

3 things YOU can do for your heart health:

1. Use meal replacements for automatic portion control to help manage your weight.
   HMR meal replacements can give you a “fast food” option when you don’t have time to make home-cooked meals.
2. Take a “More Is Better™” approach to fruits & vegetables.
   Not only do fruits & vegetables help you manage your weight, they naturally contain vitamins and minerals that protect your health in a variety of ways. Start with your favorites, but also be willing to add some new fruits & veggies to your diet.
3. Be more active starting today!
   Simply commit to a minimum of 10 minutes of exercise every day. It’s easy to make excuses for not going to the gym for an hour, but it makes it more manageable to find time for small bouts of exercise throughout the day.

Have you already made the commitment to lose weight and exercise more? Which strategy above are you already incorporating into your life to protect your heart?

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010 at 11:16 am and is filed under Health Buzz. 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.