Heart-healthy foods: Cook food in kacchi ghani oil for a healthy heart and cholesterol level
Highlights
- Exercise regularly for a healthy heart
- Do not forget to do strength training at the gym at least once a week
- Quit smoking and alcohol to control cholesterol and prevent heart disease
Heart-healthy foods: There are many steps that you can take for a healthy heart. A healthy lifestyle is all you need to keep heart diseases away. For starters, quitting smoking or not smoking at all is one very big step towards promoting heart health. Similar is the case with alcohol and consumption of junk and unhealthy processed food. Regular exercise, including both cardio and weight training can ensure efficient blood circulation. Exercise also keeps heart pumping at an optimal rate. Taking less stress and sleeping well is the key to a healthy heart with normal high blood pressure and cholesterol levels.
But above and beyond these basic steps, there are a few foods you should include in your daily diet for a healthy hearth. Talking about these foods is celebrity nutritionist Rujuta Diwekar on Facebook and Instagram.
Foods for a healthy heart
As you must be aware, that high cholesterol levels is one of the most common reasons for heart disease. Consuming too much of saturated fats and trans fat found in refined cooking oils or reheating cooking oils are major contributors to high cholesterol level.
Also read: Heart Diseases Risk: Preserve Your Heart Health With These Simple Do's And Don'ts
1. Rujuta Diwekar suggests that you should switch back to kacchi ghani oil. It can either be groundnut, mustard oil, til oil or coconut oil. Cooking food in the oil that is native to your region helps in retaining micronutrients and delicate carbon bonds in fatty acids. They can help in fighting damage caused by free radicals that can adversely affect heart health.
2. Make sure you include ghee in every meal. Ghee contains good fats that are heart-healthy. Rujuta says that ghee can regulate postprandial blood sugar response. Postprandial is referred to during or relating to the period after dinner or lunch.
Include ghee in every meal for a healthy heart
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3. Have homemade pickle or chutney or murabba. This is something which even lifestyle coach Luke Coutinho suggests. Homemade murabba or forgotten berries like amla, homemade pickle and chutney of peanut, flaxseeds, curry patta or til add value to the meal. Pickles and chutneys enable you to enjoy food with additional flavour and also reduces sugar cravings and bloating. What's more is that chutneys and pickels are fermented foods that contain probiotics that are beneficial for your gut health and overall digestion.
Also read: Follow These Diet And Lifestyle Tips To Reduce Risk Of Heart Attack
Lifestyle changes for a healthy heart
- Apart from these foods, Rujuta stresses on the importance of exercising for a healthy heart heart. She writes in her post that a minimum of 150 minutes of exercise in a week is important for everyone. This is including at least 1 day of strength training at the gym. Exercising not only lower heart rate, it also improves overall quality of life.
- As mentioned above, sleeping well and a good sleep cycle also plays an important role for a healthy heart. Try to sleep and wake up at the same time every day. "Make time for a 20 mins nap post lunch. Improves recovery and digestion. An undervalued aspect of heart health," recommends Rujuta.
Try to sleep and wake up at the same time every day for a healthy heart
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