Heart Healthy..

Yesterday S had a health check up at his office. His company arranged for a free health risk assessment and they checked the height, weight, Body Mass Index (BMI) and a blood test to check the levels of cholesterol, triglycerides, LDL and HDL.

BMI is fine, he is not overweight but has above normal levels of cholesterol, triglycerides, and very low amounts of HDL – all of which are high risk factors for heart disease. Frankly, we were not that surprised by the results. We eat right but we lack exercise. If I had a blood test done for all the above factors, the numbers would definitely be high. Although we knew we needed to exercise, we always had excuses for it. But, now that we have seen actual numbers, we are more determined to get them to normal levels.

So, we have already started exercising. But, this time instead of hitting the treadmill or starting the 30 day shred again, we took it outside. This week the weather is perfect for outdoor activities and since it is going to get better as summer sets in, we decided to play tennis everyday. We have a tennis court within walking distance. So, yesterday we hit the tennis court and played for a half hour. That is the form of exercise we really love. The best part is it doesn’t feel like exercise. My son played with the extra tennis balls and he had fun running around the tennis court. We had lots of fun.

Now, food plays an equally important role in reducing those numbers. So, I did an analysis yesterday on our food patterns and the required amount of different food groups. We actually eat a lot of veggies. We rarely eat a meal without vegetables. Even my son is pretty good when it comes to eating veggies. We use olive oil for cooking and eat a lot of whole grains. Few things that we need to improve on are eating more fruits, using less oil for cooking, cutting out on junk food and eating some healthy snacks. So, now our focus is primarily getting exercise everyday and eating healthy food.

We are probably going to cut back on eating out of home and even when we eat, I am going to make sure that it is healthy food. So, now I am on a mission to make a variety of heart healthy, tasty, easy to prepare dishes. Hope we succeed in getting those numbers down and keeping them that way.