Happy Valentines-Heart Ache or Heart Disease

Which is better, enjoying your gourmet 10-course meal, which will make you gain a few pounds or getting dumped at the end of the meal. I guess that depends on which is more important to you, having a healthy heartbeat or a fluttering heartbeat, the kind that make you sing as you walk down the hall. Adding additional calories or the stress of being dumped are both unhealthy for the heart.

The bottom line is that without a healthy heart, none of the love that you want to experience would ever be possible. I think a real Valentine would want you to have a heart free of any aches or disease. Approximately every 34 seconds someone dies from heart disease and there are 6 million hospitalizations due to heart disease.

I am not an expert at playing the heartstrings for someone's affection. For me, it's hard work to be romantic and all, just ask my wife. So, I will stick to some simple things you can do to reduce your risk to Heart Disease.

• Review your medical records and history with your healthcare team, to recognize your risk for Heart Disease. This does not mean that if no one in your family has every had heart disease that all of the sudden, you can do out and eat a cheesburger, large fries, and a vanilla milk shake every day. During your consultation, you should review your blood pressure, your cholestorol levels and your risk for diabetes

• Avoid any kind of tobacco cigarette smoke, including low tar and low nicotine cigarettes, and secondhand smoke. Smokeless tobacco should also be avoided. The nicotine and chemicals found in tobacco narrows your blood vessels and increases the heart rate and blood pressure. The carbon monoxide from cigarette smoke replaces some of the oxygen in blood and forces your heart to work harder to supply enough oxygen for your body. Quiting smoking now, will reduce your risk of heart disease within one year, even if you'be been smoking for a long time.

• We live in a stressful world with limited amound of time, work and a family to take care of. Stress needs to be kept in check and reduced. Meditation, breathing exercises, and other stress management are essential for preventing heart disease. Also, doing good deeds and volunteering for a charity are activities that can reduce stress, and make the world a better place.

• Find an exercise program that will continue to do on a regular basis. Like most of people finding at least 30 to 60 minutes to workout on most of the days in the week can be hard to squeeze in. However, exercise helps maintain your healthy weight and can reduce your stress, blood pressure and cholesterol. Programs like Beachbody's P90X, Turbofire, Slim in 6, and Insanity are examples of exercise routines that can be done at home, which saves time to go to the gym or when you encounter inclement weather.

• Knowing what you are eating can help reduce your risk for heart disease as well as your waist line. Developing a diet that includes 5 to 10 servings of fruits and vegatables, whole grains, fish with limited consumption of saturated fats (dairy, red meat and coconut/palm oils), polyunsaturated fats, monounsaturated fats, and trans fats (deep fried foods, packaged snack foods and margerines. Some supplements such as Omega 3 Fatty Acids and CoQ10 (Coenzyme Q10 ) have been known to lower blood pressure. Shakeology has been known to lower cholesterol and weight.

Make every minute count and enjoy life!