Eat Your Heart Out for American Heart Month
- Colleen Woods, MS, RDN, CLC
- Jan 25
- 4 min read
Updated: Feb 8
Updated February 8, 2025
Love is in the air in February for Valentine’s Day, Wear Red Day on Feb. 7, and American Heart Month. We’ve got some realistic ways to beat heart disease. It’s also a great opportunity to use some cheesy puns.
About Heart Disease
A Cleveland Clinic survey of 1,000 adults in the U.S. showed 68% did not know heart disease is the top cause of death among women and 80% did not know they should start getting their cholesterol levels checked in their twenties.
Many people also lacked knowledge about the key symptoms of heart attack in women and 58% reported getting less than the recommended 150 minutes of exercise per week.
Heart disease is responsible for 25% of deaths in the US, according to the National Heart, Blood, and Lung Institute. Some of the contributing factors to the disease include inflammation, high cholesterol, and high blood pressure. However, lifestyle factors including diet, exercise, and quitting smoking all contribute towards prevention of heart disease.
Heart Month: Heaty-Healthy Meal Ideas
As a registered dietitian, I wanted to take a closer look at how we can eat our hearts out with some heart healthy foods. I’m dishing out what a heart-healthy diet looks like. Heart-healthy meals typically include:
fiber
potassium
antioxidants
low sodium
low saturated fat
low added sugar
We’ve heard the term “high-fiber diet,” but you may wonder how much fiber per day do I need?
The Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommend men get at least 30g of fiber per day and women need 25g per day. You can look at labels and add up the fiber you eat. Two other tricks to know if you’re getting enough fiber are:
Instead of counting fiber grams, count how many servings of fruit, vegetables and whole grains you eat in a day. Try to eat at least 5 servings of fruits and vegetables per day (10 is better) and 1 serving of whole grains to get your recommended fiber.
The other way to estimate if a meal is high in fiber- or any nutrient for that matter- is to use the 5/20 rule. When you look at a nutrition facts label, the nutrients you want more of like fiber, potassium, and antioxidants (vitamins C, E) should be 20% and up. The nutrients you want less of- sodium, saturated fat, and added sugar- should be 5% or less.
How to Get a Healthy Heart
Everybody- young and old- should make heart health a priority. Habits that start young usually carry through adulthood. Additionally, new research shows that the average age that heart health begins to decline is not 40 or 50, but 10 years old! This is due to sleep deprivation, minimal physical activity, and you guessed it- poor diet.
There are 7 actions you can take today to start building a healthy heart:
Quit Smoking. If you smoke, go to Quit.com now to learn how to reduce the number of cigarettes you smoke each day.
Move. Commit to 30 minutes of physical activity per day- no gym membership needed! Go for a walk, dance in your living room, play outside, or take the stairs.
Floss. Not flossing leads to a build-up of bacteria that enters the bloodstream through the gums. Floss daily to reduce the risk of heart attack and stroke.
Reduce sodium. Instead of salting your foods, expierment with herbs and spices. They can bring so much more flavor to your meals. If you're not sure what to use, you can start with Mrs. Dash, made for low-sodium diets. You can also reduce your frozen foods and take-out meals where sodium loves to hide. And finally, rinse your canned veggies to reduce the sodium by up to 40%.
Add potassium. By adding potassium to your diet, it counteracts sodium in your blood. Potatoes, tomatoes, and bananas are known for their high potassium, but potassium will come from any fruits and veggies.
Eat fish. Oily fish like salmon and tuna are rich in omega-3s, a healthy fat that can bring cholesterol levels back to normal. One to three servings of fish are recommended per week.
Enjoy heart-healthy foods. Here’s one of my favorite heart-healthy breakfast recipes:
This heart-healthy breakfast is high in fiber (20% Daily Value) and offers 5g of polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) to help lower cholesterol. The strawberries add potassium and antioxidants to keep blood pressure and inflammation down.
Get the recipe here.
For more unique recipes, visit www.ZESTNutritionService.com
We’re heart-ly out of puns, but we aorta get going. So this wasn’t all in vein, have a very healthy Heart Month!
Don't forget to get your diet check-up! Make an appointment with ZEST Nutrition to check in and see how your diet scores on the heart health scale.
February draws attention to heart health with American Heart Month, eating fiber, potassium and antioxidant-rich foods, exercising and reducing salt consumption can support heart health, adopting healthy habits at an early age will help prevent heart disease in the long run, of course, the most important thing to protect your heart is to always stay away from stress, it can be difficult to stay away from stress, but you can try playing games to get away from stress, playing games like basketball legends seems to be quite effective in reducing stress, you can try playing games to relieve the stress of the day and feel good.