Since Valentine’s Day is coming, we prepared eight easy tips for you to maintain a healthy and happy heart. We may have different ways of celebrating the love month but please be mindful of your heart and take good care of it as early as now. These shows that you can enjoy while giving your heart the right treatment. Following these tips may help you prevent cardiovascular diseases. Do not let anything break your heart!
Tip #1: Preparing meals at home is more practical than dining at a fancy, expensive restaurant. Valentine’s Day is not about where you ate or how much you spent in celebrating this day. When you prepare your meals at home, it is more cost-effective because you can budget your own money and choose your own ingredients, less time consuming, ensures that ingredients are healthier, fresh, in good quality and safer because you prepared your own food.
Tip #2: During Valentine’s Day, most people prefer watching movies because they just want to enjoy and spend their day calmly. However, this activity portrays a sedentary lifestyle. We suggest sweating out all the food you ate during your “cheat” days by going to the gym, joining zumba, having a quick run or simple workout at home. Exercising is not just an ordinary activity because it can be your bonding with your partner while controlling your weight and achieving your own body goals.
Tip #3: When we are celebrating, alcoholic beverages are always present in our grocery list. Apparently, people nowadays do not like drinking water or sometimes they forget to. Alcoholic beverages just add up too much calories in us. Water helps in chemical reactions of the body, regulation of body temperature, acts as a solvent for the products of digestion and helps in waste elimination.
Tip #4: To avoid increased level of cholesterol, risk of cardiovascular diseases and other complications, it is important to prefer lean meats over fatty meats. Lean meat has fewer calories than fatty meat and has less saturated fat which is not helpful for the body. Trim off the visible fat and skin because they contain high amount of calories. Also, there are fatty fishes such as salmon, tuna, herring and mackerel that are rich in omega-3 fatty acids. These omega-3 fatty acids may help in lowering the risk of developing cardiovascular diseases.
Tip #5: Always have a balanced meal by following the Pinggang Pinoy as your reference. The Pinggang Pinoy was established by Food and Nutrition Research Institute – Department of Science and Technology (FNRI – DOST) for healthy Filipinos as their guide for every meal. It explains the 33% of your plate should be allotted for Go Foods such as rice, pasta and bread, 17% for Grow Foods such as meat and poultry, milk, egg and nuts. The other 50% should be for the Glow Foods divided into two segments, 33% for the vegetables either leafy or fruit vegetables and 17% is for the fruits like apple, orange and banana. Water is a must and consumption of colored drinks like soft drinks and artificial fruit juices must be cut down.
Tip #6: Filipinos love sweet foods and we usually eat cakes, chocolates, candies and others as desserts. For a healthier way of enjoying our sweet tooth, you can substitute it to fresh fruits like mango, lanzones and banana. They are naturally sweet because of their fructose content. However, there are different serving sizes for each fruit. For example, one serving of ripe mango is one slice or one “pisngi”, a one serving of banana is one piece of medium-sized banana and a one serving of lanzones is seven pieces of medium-sized and all are equivalent to 40 kcal. (Food Exchange Lists for Meal Planning by FNRI – DOST) Excess consumption of sugar may lead to diabetes, tooth decay, overweight and obesity because excess sugar or glucose is converted to fat when stored.
Tip #7: For Filipinos, our staple food is rice. One serving of rice is equivalent to ½ cup with 100 kcal. Although white rice is more preferred because it is more palatable and cheaper, brown rice has higher content of fiber and B vitamins. Brown rice has more fiber which helps in absorbing water for stool formation, prevents the common constipation and promotes fullness causing delayed hunger. The eight B vitamins help in the immunity, metabolism and energy production needed for our daily activities.
Tip #8: Limit fried foods like fried chicken, lumpiang shanghai and french fries. There are healthy cooking methods that we can practice that require less use of oil. Example of these cooking methods are steaming, baking, grilling and blanching. In case there is a need of oil, try using plant – based oils like canola oil, olive oil, coconut oil and sesame oil than animal – based oils like butter and lard because they contain higher unhealthy saturated fat.
You can follow these tips we made for you so your heart will be vigorous and healthy. Enjoy the hearts day without any regrets. Always remember, a healthy HEART is a healthy YOU! - NKSLoyola
