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February is American Heart Health Month
Though Valentine's Day is in February, it is also known as American Heart Health Month. Basically, it is to bring light in cardiovascular disease, like hypertension, heart disease, and strokes. AMH brings hope to people to get checked by your primary care physician. If all is well in the report, hopefully you will have a healthy everlasting life. I am going to share some tips that could benefit you and hope you will show some love to your health.
Go visit your primary care physician and get checked up on your cholesterol levels or other heart related issues. Never hurts to know your HDL (high density lipoprotein good cholesterol) and your LDL (low density lipoprotein bad cholesterol). Ask your doctor about the report but to give the break down from the good to the bad ratios. That way you have a better understanding of preventing some heart disease.
Monitor your blood pressure for a normal read out at or close to 120/80. You can purchase a blood pressure cuff at your local pharmacy and if your read out comes higher, for example, bp is 140/90, it would be best to visit your doctor and discuss what you can do to lower your blood pressure.
Another tip, try to maintain and eat healthy nutritional foods that are rich in fiber, vegetables, fruits, fish, drink water, and limit the intake of sugar and sodium. Eating healthier is definitely a game changer and ask your doctor for a referral to a nutritionist for help if needed.
Avoid smoking, vaping, and tobacco products, this will damper your lungs but cases have shown to shorten a person's life span. Be active with your lifestyle on a daily basis and this will tremendously aid to your heart.
Taking daily walks or just a simple stroll will greatly improve your overall endurance and strengthen your heart muscle. So please, just take time out to walk and enjoy the outdoors.
Remember, show some love to your heart, visit your doctor before starting an exercise program. By doing this, your heart will love you for it and you'll feel great.
New Year, New You!
For 2025, I do sincerely hope, that you will take your health as a priority, not only as a new years resolution but a concern for a healthier and happy lifestyle. Since the holidays are over and hope you did enjoy being with family, relatives, and friends and at the same token, you might have binged on some food, dessert, alcohol or some sugary drinks.
We come to the realization that we need to make some sort of health change to better ourselves for our own reasons. We might have gain some unwanted body weight or quietly we might be stressed and in doing something to endanger our own health.
Traditionally, January is the month where most reflect on the past year and we sometimes think to deeply and even fear the upcoming new year and make some sort of new year resolution. I can tell you don't need to make some resolution, have fear, worry, be stressed, or overly analyze things. We should embrace the new year with enthusiasm and yes lightly plan things of what we would like to accomplish. When it comes to changing a lifestyle for health and fitness, you are not alone in your journey and I am here to guide you and will give a few things to keep you motivated, consistent, and focused.
For starters, a key ingredient would be motivation. What to look for in motivation? You need to ask yourself, what are some health and fitness goals that you can relate to in the form of fun and what would you like to accomplish or even try? An example might be,
wanting to try to play pickleball, a group dance class, hiking, walking, bowling or play table tennis. Yes some of these examples might be cheesy but the overall thing is to move and have fun. If you choose something fun and can relate to, you will have a better chance of staying motivated and will lead to success for your health.
Being consistent on a daily basis, most people when starting a new year program attempt to much at once and fail after a day, a week, a few weeks, or even before the month ends. The idea of being consistent is to work at your fitness goal every day even if it means only doing 10-15 minutes of a workout. Doing the small challenges daily will keep you focused and in check. I can tell you from experience, I have felt at times not wanting to workout for being physically tired from work, stressed from daily pressures of life. After doing something, I feel happy when it is over for I know I did accomplish a task coming closer to my over goal.
Be enthusiastic, this will definitely aid with your overall journey. If you are enthusiastic from the start, you will certainly have fun and the goal you are trying to achieve will not feel like work. Your overall outlook will feel positive.
Keep things simple and try not to overload on your fitness goals. By keeping things simple, plan to have 3 things that are attainable and this will keep you focused and not feel overwhelmed. Many people fail from the start because they think on huge goals, to many ideas, and being unrealistic of their journey.
Inconclusion, start out simple, have fun to stay motivated, Be consistent and take each day one day at a time. Remember, life is a marathon and not a sprint. You can achieve your fitness goals by doing those things from above.
