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Episode 5 - Heart health
17 Plays18 days ago
In honour of Heart Month and the British Heart Foundation this episode is dedicated to looking after your heart health through lifestyle changes.
Heart disease is still the leading cause of death worldwide—but how much do you actually know about your own heart health? In this episode, LCW founder Russ Harris and LCW consultant nutritionist Dan Price break down the risks, prevalence, and outcomes of heart disease, along with the key lifestyle strategies that can help keep your heart in top shape.
We cover:
🫀 The impact of diet, exercise, and stress on heart health
📊 How to track and monitor your heart health effectively
🎯 What optimal heart health ranges should look like
If you’re looking for practical, no-nonsense advice on protecting your heart, this episode is for you. Listen now! 🎧
For more high quality wellness advice and coaching head over to the LCW wellness app
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Transcript
Introduction to National Heart Month
00:00:01
Russ Harris
Hello, and welcome back to episode five of the Straight Talking Wellness Podcast. In this episode, we're marking National Heart Month, supported of course by the British Heart Foundation. We're going to be focusing on some of the most vital aspects of wellbeing when it comes to your heart. Obviously our hearts work tirelessly to keep us going, but do we do enough really to look after them.
Guest Introduction: Dan Price on Heart Health
00:00:27
Russ Harris
ah To help me discuss this in more detail, I'm joined by LCW consultant nutritionist Dan Price.
00:00:33
Dan
Hello, Ross.
00:00:34
Russ Harris
um Together we're going to explore some of the key lifestyle changes that make the biggest impact on heart health, how to optimize your diet, perhaps to reduce the risk of heart related issues. um the powerful role that regular exercise ah plays in protecting your heart. And also have a look at ah perhaps how managing stress and fostering a positive mindset can make all the difference. So if you're looking to strengthen your heart and improve your health, stay tuned. Let's dive in.
00:01:05
Russ Harris
This is a topic that is particularly, onno oh no, oh no, I've wandered onto a massive pun. So I was going to say this is topic is particularly close to my heart. Damn, that's not a good start, is it? and But it is, I mean, my unfortunately, my grandfather suffered with it's cardiovascular issues.
00:01:22
Russ Harris
for many years, resulting in him you know needing to have heart surgery. So it's something that I've got sort of personal experience ah of, and I'm sure a lot of people listening also have got stories from various family members and people they know, or maybe themselves as well. so is something that affects lots and lots of people in different ways.
Understanding Heart Disease: The Silent Killer
00:01:40
Russ Harris
um It's probably why it's so important to really talk about it, raise awareness, and also give people some advice around how so how best to to look after their health. I mean, some of the interesting stuff in researching kind of more about this.
00:01:54
Russ Harris
The parts that I found, I suppose, more disturbing but illuminating at the same time, is simply how prevalent some of this stuff is. And probably the reason it can be so dangerous is is just that it can be silently sort of deteriorating. Your heart health can can silently be be deteriorating over time. Without any obvious signs, so then you're left in us in a situation where you sort of think maybe everything's okay and it can be a bit of a shock to the system to find out suddenly that something isn't. um ah Some of the stats published around heart health, at least in the UK, heart and circulatory disease, also known as cardiovascular disease, causes a quarter of all the deaths in the UK
00:02:36
Russ Harris
and the largest cause of premature mortality in deprived areas, which is quite shocking statistic, quite shocking amount of people influenced and affected are affected by it.
00:02:48
Russ Harris
um Obviously, for that reason, it's single because the NHS can save lives over 10 years. That's directly off the and NHS website. um But it's also largely preventable, which is which is sort of maddening and ah gives gives one sort of i guess cause for hope at the same time um through lifestyle changes and the sort of things that we're going to be discussing here, sort of preventative measures, really. um So I'm going to kind of come at this more from an exercise point of view, and obviously, Dan, yourself more from a from a nutrition standpoint. I mean, hearing those stats there, does it does that elicit an instant reaction from you? Is it is that something you're already aware of?
00:03:25
Dan
Yeah, I remember chatting to clients about it. It's kind of when you go through that, the kind of top three or five list of, you know, biggest killers, you know, one of the better term in the UK. Um, and then you compare it to something like cancer, which in, in some cases can be lifestyle related, but a lot of the time with something like cancer, the cause is not, is not obvious. Whereas with something like heart disease, while there is definitely a genetic element to it as well.
00:03:52
Dan
The everything we're going to talk about today in terms of lifestyle style is going to be important for everyone generally, but just even more so important if you're someone who does potentially have a genetic predisposition or there's some history in the family of that. So it's not okay. It's not just a case of this is something where you might feel like we don't know why it's something, you know, where you you could discover cancer, which is not something that youve you youve may in any way, felt able to have addressed within your life, no obvious reason in your life that would maybe lead to that. Whereas as you say, it's, it's both a positive and a negative in a sense, when you when you think about how preventable it can be, when it is a little maddening, um to think that actually, it's almost a shame if this information could be better but out there or some more strategies could be given that could actually really help actually save lives of people.
Importance of Exercise and Heart Health Monitoring
00:04:43
Dan
um So yeah, hopefully we can shed some light on that today.
00:04:48
Russ Harris
Yeah, so certainly from ah an activity point of view, you know, the question is, you you know, what should I what should I be doing? um and And I suppose also what should my heart health look like? what What you know, what am I aiming for here, when it comes to being quite and quite being healthy. um And I find that I've and You'll be able to read these normal ranges that get banded around anywhere on the internet, you know, you'll be able to find them. But I think one of the reasons why they're so important as as as a thing to aim for is just because some other aspects of our health is more visible or more noticeable.
00:05:30
Russ Harris
I think you can your heart rate can gradually creep up as you age depending on lifestyle factors you know amount of stress you experience at work these sorts of things can result in you having a higher heart rate and that can be sort of steadily undoing maybe some of the other attempts to improve your health that you might be making or or at least at least with other aspects of health, maybe weight gain, it's certainly more obvious to us um in terms of in terms of stress. you know We can feel when we're feeling under pressure, um energy levels, if we're not sleeping properly, you know we' it's very noticeable. um But with heart health, it's we're not really tracking it visually. So therefore, I think it can sometimes, unless we're sporadically measuring,
00:06:16
Russ Harris
a heart rate or going to the doctor or something, you're not really aware of actually how how well you are. And so you can you can tell yourself a story for many years and say, well, you know, I haven't been to doctor's rages or I haven't had an illness, were but but really, you know, all you're doing are you doing what you should be and how do you know? So I would encourage people to measure and to use normal heart rate ranges, you know, just to give people an indication. Somewhere between 60 and 100 is considered normal. um And when you're younger, it should be towards the lower end of that. And as you age, it it can increase. um But if you're exercising regularly, you know people should be expecting to see something between 40 and 80, really. so So there's a kind of normal range, which is considered healthy. But given that the advice is to exercise, to improve heart health, you'd like to think that people would be trying to aim for those optimal ranges rather than just kind of normal.
00:07:14
Russ Harris
um So that's your that's your kind of resting heart rate, I suppose. And then you've got heart rate variability, which has got, I think, quite a lot more press in recent years with ah certain companies coming through, such as WOOP, who really put major focus on heart rate variability as a sign of your body's ability to be able to handle stress, respond to stimulus and stuff in your environment, and really an indication of of heart health as much as as resting heart rate is. And um heart rate variability for people who are unsure is just your heart's ability to be able to change its regular heartbeat in response to a stress or a stimulus. um So it's how fast your heart rate will increase and then decrease. Again, differences between um between heart rates varying more greatly and more responsibly.
00:08:00
Russ Harris
um So somewhere between 55 to 110, if you're kind of in your 20s is roughly the range for good heart rate variability. And over over time that changes as with most things. So in your 50s, you're looking more at sort of 35 to 55. So it's quite a big swing in terms of what is considered a normal range for heart rate variability.
Role of Technology in Heart Health
00:08:20
Russ Harris
But taking those two scores together do give you a good indication of your overall heart health. um The other one of course to consider is blood pressure.
00:08:31
Russ Harris
So 90 over 60 or 120 over 80, that's your sort of, again, healthy ranges. So if you're taking your stats and you're finding that you are in between all of those ranges, you probably you're probably doing some of the stuff that you need to be doing already. Um, and you want to be aiming towards to getting, getting those things, uh, a lower, a lower heart rate, resting heart rate, higher heart rate variability. Um, so yeah, I think that puts some context maybe on, you know, like we might be keeping track on scale weight. We might be keeping track of, um, maybe how stressed we feel. Um,
00:09:11
Russ Harris
you know There is plenty of wearable technology out there at the moment to be able to measure um reasonably accurately and fairly affordably to be able to find out where your heart health is and to give you some indication of maybe what you want to be aiming at in terms of improving it, to give you a yardstick for where you are currently.
00:09:32
Dan
Yeah, I think it's great to have those kind of numbers and reference points because that point you're making at the beginning, what we were kind of discussing about the difference between something like cancer and something like heart disease is they can feel similar in that both are able to always sneak up on you out of nowhere. But actually the difference with this one is simply by looking at these measures over time, you would actually be able to get a little look behind the curtain as to what's happening, ah which could be really, really important. I mean, an anecdote from myself is um
00:10:03
Dan
my My mum did a blood pressure really one day, saw that it was much higher than it than it should have been, had some advice around that. She ended up reducing salt intake in a diet because she's actually a vegan, but sometimes in the kind of foods that you end up having are these substitutes and these kind of things, actually sodium content is quite high.
00:10:20
Dan
And so those kind of changes and then re-measuring it over time, just keeping on top of that and seeing it trending back down, that could easily have been something that she didn't decide to just look at. There wasn't particularly any major symptoms that were push that were pushing it that way. um So yeah, I think it's just that. And and you you're right to point out, you know, everyone's pretty familiar with maybe jumping on the scale to measure body weight, which while important is probably quite less important than many of these metrics.
00:10:49
Russ Harris
Yeah, ah definitely, definitely important to to measure these things for the exact reason that you sit there, Dan. I mean, if you're putting off measuring because you're a bit worried, perhaps, of what it might show you, now is the perfect time to measure because it will it will motivate you. you know it might it might You might be encouraged because it's better than you think it would be. ah You might be encouraged because it's where you think it should be, and it shows you some concrete evidence, but it also gives you something to aim for this concrete as well. And so you you know that if you go and put in some work with your diet, with your mindset, with your exercise routine, ah you'll be able to measure whether it's having a positive effect. And to that end as well, I'd say if you're you know if you're maybe at the moment not in a regular exercise routine, as little as 20 minutes of walking per day across the across the course of a week or 150 minutes across the whole week,
00:11:42
Russ Harris
um at an average pace is enough to begin to reduce blood pressure. So we're not talking about having to adopt some, ah you know, marathon training, or anything, you know, too, too scary to, to involved, it's actually just about leading a physically active lifestyle. And so that could take any form, your heart doesn't know the difference between tennis and and jogging, you know but it but what it does recognize is when it's elevated and when it's when it's relaxed. So just just doing activities that you find
00:12:17
Russ Harris
that fit in around your lifestyle and also doing activities that you might enjoy either now or in the future. Starting those things now doesn't have to be a particularly intense level for you to be reaping some of those benefits and and getting some of those those rewards.
00:12:33
Russ Harris
um So it's it's not, yeah, I suppose improvement is not far away.
00:12:39
Dan
Yeah.
00:12:39
Russ Harris
It's probably a message from an exercise point of view.
00:12:41
Dan
Absolutely. And I think as well, you know, we're getting more comfortable with tracking dates. You mentioned that about Woot and people are, people are pretty on top of, of, you know, whether it's calorie counting or weighing things or using these different Apple watch things, whether step counting or looking at all these other calendars.
00:13:00
Dan
And I think it might be that people may be in a better place now to actually, whether it is with a bit of wearable tech or by getting the the appropriate test done to just start looking at this as something that should be getting, well, at least equal attention, although in reality, as you said, probably slightly higher. And I think as as we say a lot with clients, these kind of things, even if you have a goal, which is lifting weights or running a certain distance, when you gamify that, as in then here's where I'm at, here's where I want to be.
00:13:27
Dan
There's no reason that it's useful, right? Because you can track the goal and you can work towards it. There's no reason we can't apply that similarly to this, which is my blood pressure is currently here or my heart rate is currently here. I want to move it closer towards this number over this period of time. This is what I'm doing. I'm going to keep monitoring it. So it's just, I think for all the reasons that works with kind of fitness goals or aesthetic goals, it can absolutely work for this goal too.
Heart-Healthy Diets Explained
00:13:52
Russ Harris
Yeah, and I think I mean, we can we can obviously move move to talk about diet as well, because that's hugely important. But I think before we before we do that, just two points. One is the the effect of inactivity. So really, a sedentary lifestyle um is hugely negative when it comes to increasing your likelihood of struggling with something to do with the art.
00:14:13
Russ Harris
later in life. um And the other is really moving yourself into more of those kind of optimal zones. So that that idea of going walking is is starts to have some positive impact is how to get things going in the right direction.
00:14:25
Russ Harris
um but But really the aim should be to try and improve, try and have as many ah healthy years in your life span as you possibly can. um Really putting in the work when you're when you're younger is um is the way forward and actually establishing a cardio a pattern of cardio exercise that you can do regularly is really the way to go. and We see that there is a drop off, just an age related decline in cardiovascular health and fitness, which is unavoidable even if you exercise. So therefore, the the more effort you can put in now,
00:15:00
Russ Harris
um the more you'll then reap the rewards later on. So actually practicing getting into different heart rate zones, you know, practicing some zone two cardio, maintaining a steady state, going and practicing some interval training, you know, just trying these things out, just try them out, you know, you don't have to be perfect at first, but just, you know, just kind of trying them out, I think is a place to start i would encourage everyone to everyone to do that. And and doing that,
00:15:27
Russ Harris
by virtue of doing that, you also then avoid having a sedentary lifestyle, which has factors that will um that will increase your chances of of suffering issues. so So it's twofold. And and and really, you know you you can you can choose, but you know but but there's an easy place to start. You don't have to you know you don't have to start with something that's overwhelmingly difficult. But the choice to not do anything about this at all will potentially come back and bite you.
00:15:55
Dan
Yeah. Yeah. All right. Um, yeah. So look if you're happy for me to dive into a little bit on the, on the nutrition side of things, um, I think often with heart health, particularly, you know, I've had clients in the past that will come, uh, after some kind of, whether it's through work or through cell, some kind of medical screening where something's been flagged as potential risk factor. And they might ask about right now, we need to switch to a, ah health a a sort of heart health related diet.
00:16:24
Dan
as though it's a very specific thing that's going to be, this is sort of one way traffic just on heart health and a kind of a magic bullet. Now, as is a theme when we discuss these kind of topics, it's rare that there's ever going to be a magic bullet for for for this it's for any kind of approach and any goal, particularly in terms of nutrition. But I think it's probably useful to start with three diet types that are seen as the the kind of most cardio protective kind ways of eating. But then from that, maybe draw what actually do these things have in common. So the three diets are the Mediterranean diet, which is fairly commonly known
00:17:03
Dan
and the DASH diet, which was actually formulated specifically for reducing hypertension. So basically in this exact, that exact remit, the main component that that differentiates it from other diet is it really does focus on decreasing salt intake. So that's quite a hallmark of that diet. And then the last one would be what we call a healthy plant based diet. So that the the healthy there is kind of just to distinguish that from say, there is such a thing as a vegan who lives on Pringles and diet. Whereas if it's kind of one that actually is more whole plant based diets on less processed foods. And as we know, the mid Mediterranean diet, lots of oily fish, lower saturated fat, more omega-3s, more vegetables, more foods, more whole foods generally and less processed food. So
00:17:48
Dan
While all three of those diets have been shown to be cardio protective, when we actually look at them, then the the similarities are more numerous than the differences in that all of those diets are going to involve eating more fruits and vegetables, and all of those diets are going to have far lower processed food content than even standard American diet or what we're eating over here in the UK if we're not being conscious about these these sorts of things.
00:18:16
Dan
So that's the main takeaway with these is it may be easier for someone to go, I'm going to subscribe to the Mediterranean diet, really kind of get into that and really look at specifically what that entails. In my opinion, it largely is just healthy eating principles. So more fiber, more, you know, whole grains fiber, fruits, vegetables, lean proteins, oily fish, limited amounts of saturated fat versus unsaturated fats. Pretty straightforward. I'd call that healthy eating Mediterranean diet is not a dumb brick.
00:18:47
Dan
plant-based, I think I wouldn't necessarily suggest that someone would have to go that direction specifically for this goal. But I think even just that note there about the differentiation between a plant-based diet and a healthy plant-based diet is just that that sometimes we think, okay, well, it says that people who don't eat meat get these outcomes. We're generally talking about still those same factors on It's less processed food. So if a lot of what you're eating as a vegan is still heavily processed food, it's not going to really be the same as a diet which actually has higher vegetable content, higher fruits, more nuts, seeds, that kind of thing as well. um The DASH diet is actually very similar to the Mediterranean diet in a lot of ways.
00:19:29
Dan
Where it's a little different is it will have more inclusion of things like reduced fat dairy. um So it's a little bit more pragmatic and it's trying to specifically reduce saturated fat intake mainly from kind of electric dairy, but also from red meats and these kind of things. And it's keeping sodium intake or salt intake at 2,300 milligrams a day is the limit on that. But that is also a general recommended target anyway. There's the amount of salt we should be eating. So it's more just that it's underscoring that as a potential cause as well. um So while you've you've kind of got those three, some involve more meat, some have no meat at all.
00:20:11
Dan
It really is the fact that all three of those diets are going to increase the amount of vegetables and fruits that you're eating and minimize the amount of places that you have.
00:20:22
Russ Harris
And is there, I mean, is there a role also, or I suppose worth thinking about ah generally just eating in excess of calories over time? Is it, you know, is an interaction with weight gain and cardiovascular ill health and maybe also in terms of, I don't know, alcohol as well as one that often crops up.
00:20:42
Dan
Yeah. So definitely in in terms of weight, we were mentioning earlier about that kind of list of top five killers in the UK. All of those have a comorbidity of obesity as as well with that. So we know that being obese does have this comorbidity with many, including heart disease. So There is an aspect though with this, as always with this, is trying to untangle what the actual variables are that that are are causal and what are correlations. um Because on top of that, when you are having this excess calorie intake that's leading to obesity, it's actually very difficult to eat in a huge caloric surplus. If you're eating lots of whole grains of fiber, a few fruits and vegetables, it's much more likely that that diet is going to contain
00:21:35
Dan
more fast food, processed food, um the kind of foods that we're trying to avoid on those three diet types that I've mentioned, also higher, higher salt intake is is is a companion of of eating more processed food and takeaway food and all this kind of stuff. So it's kind of a it's like a double whammy in a sense is that excess calorie intake is going to cause you to gain weight which increases the likelihood of development of diseases but on top of that in the process of doing so you're exposing yourself more to the kind of foods that are causal and also in place of that you're displacing more nutrient dense foods because when you're eating processed foods if you have a
00:22:16
Dan
McDonald's for lunch, not only are you getting the impact of that, you're also not eating something healthier that you could be eating in place of
Impact of Stress on Heart Health
00:22:23
Dan
it. um So yes, there is definitely an impact of obesity but also the method by which someone becomes obese has its own set of variables as well.
00:22:32
Russ Harris
I was also, i'm I'm conscious as well that it's interesting the interaction between your heart health stats and kind of more mindset-based or mindfulness-based practices and then and specifically the amount of stress or chronic stress that that somebody is is under. And I think particularly working in and the city is something that will elevate stress levels just on ah on a chronic basis.
00:23:01
Russ Harris
um type of job that somebody has may be particularly stressful. The way that we as individuals respond to certain triggers in our environment, if we perceive that the demands of our sort of day-to-day life are quite difficult to meet, whether that's you know cognitively or in terms of relationships or things to do with work, if we perceive that that's quite difficult then we're going to be experiencing elevated stress levels regularly, more regularly than somebody who's um you know not not got that perception, maybe doesn't live that kind of lifestyle, and maybe has things a little bit easier on a day-to-day basis. And the way that that sort of influences at your heart is is that that perception of stress will trigger, or that perception of of challenge, I suppose, will trigger the stress response, which then reduce releases adrenaline,
00:23:58
Russ Harris
and also cortisol as well and adrenaline gets gets released onto something called the AC node which just sits above the heart and that regulates our heartbeat and our heart rhythm and when you release adrenaline onto that it it quickens the heart heartbeat and that's just in preparation for what the stress response is designed for which is to then be ready to exercise either fight or flight your recognise those terms so so that's how that's the process by which a psychological stress becomes a physical stress is that those two systems are linked and when we're just under that pressure all day every day.
00:24:33
Russ Harris
um your heart rate beating that fast ah will have a number of different physical effects that worsen your heart health and you'll sit closer towards the top of those blood pressure charts and those normal heart rate numbers. ah That could be problematic through arterial stiffening and ah plaque buildup in arteries and blood vessels, um dysregulation of heart rate. you know There are a number of different avenues for that to create issues physically. um So being able to address our perception of stresses that we're under, you know, if we we perceive our ability to be able to cope with the challenges, then things don't have that that kind of impact on us. it might We might go to the same job, but we're more comfortable in that job now, so we don't get as stressed as we used to, you know.
00:25:23
Russ Harris
i when you go to a job interview with the people you're going to work with, you're much more stressed in the job interview, because there's more on the line, there's more at stake. You know, you might be working with them for a couple of years, and then you go out for drinks with them and socialising, and there's no stress left there at all. But those people, when you first arrived, same people, but different response from us, right? So it's partly to do with our perception of our ability to cope. But sometimes to do with triggers as well, I think if we reduce reduce the amount of stressful triggers in your environment, you um you know you will reduce the amount of, the amount you're having to cope with.
00:25:56
Russ Harris
which makes your life a bit easier as well. So ah we come into those kind of lifestyle factors. If you're going out, you know, drinking, socializing, having late nights, poor sleep, these kinds of things are all things that will reduce your body's ability to be able to handle that day-to-day stress and it will have a larger impact on on you and your your system and your physical health. So I guess we're coming at this from,
00:26:23
Russ Harris
a more holistic viewpoint where if you can make some small changes to what you're doing with your exercise routine and injecting some cardio into your routine regularly, um maybe doing some self-work around the mindset stuff and seeing what triggers you respond to and whether your responses to those things are proportional or whether they're constantly causing you stress or it's only occasional, you know having to think about those things, trying to reduce some of those triggers, and then obviously some of the diet things you talked about there.
00:26:53
Russ Harris
you're making small changes you know across a larger span of the the elements that will influence heart health. That's going to have a much more profound effect um on the numbers and on the outcomes than you know just just taking up running, but but not looking at any of the rest of it because you could be really undermining the the good stuff you're doing somewhere else but by by meant not addressing other areas that also affect the heart.
00:27:22
Dan
Absolutely. um You know, interesting to to hear some of that in terms of the stresses, sort of physiological of the body because we talk a lot about lifestyle illnesses or lifestyle conditions and often when you you kind of think okay lifestyle is in my nutrition choices or my exercise choices and stress plays a role in a lot of things whether it's weight gain or different things as well but probably no more so than this in terms of its the direct impact on the actual health outcomes and simply being stressed such a big one ah so when we sort of think of that oh yeah yeah but my job's my job
00:27:57
Dan
For a lot of people, that actually, especially when you say that some people might be saying, well, I eat quite healthy, I exercise. But you could be doing all of that in a heightened state of stress. You could be exercising if it's stress that you could be running to the office doing that. you know So I think that's a good point about monitoring the variables, because you might be addressing one that's already pretty good, and then you've got this elephant in the room of being carrying your hair out all day in meetings. I always like to sort of almost finish on something practical because I think sadly, as is the nature of nutrition, is often you end up just saying eat less processed food and eat more healthy foods, which I know is not something that feels that actionable. So kind of tacking onto what you were saying there about small changes.
Simple Lifestyle Changes for Heart Health
00:28:43
Dan
The first thing that's important with this stuff, the heart health is none of the changes that you would make to benefit your heart health nutritionally will not also have a great effect on your general health overall.
00:28:55
Dan
and also, ah you know, weight management, all of these things are going to be beneficial for both. Really, it's just the sodium intake thing, which is coming a little bit more specific, but for the heart stuff, but in terms of everything else we've discussed, that's going to have a lock on effect to everything. So the two practical things I would say is it's this, if you clamped two meals of the day and go, right I'm in control of these two breakfast and dinner, when I get home from work, that's not a luxury everyone has. But if that is the case, then I would say,
00:29:25
Dan
for breakfast. Low fat, high protein yogurt, one of the Greek 0% fat yogurts with some nuts or seeds and with that some berries or fruits. what you' And you have a little bit of honey on top, it's fine fine with me. What you've got there is a really high quality start to the day where you've got a good amount of protein you've got fruits in there, you've got nuts and seeds, and then you've got good fats in there, no saturated fat. That's a really good healthy breakfast to start the day. And then at the end of the day, it's just making a commitment that that dinner is not going to be a processed or ultra processed food dinner. It's going to be something you've made at home, whether that's chicken, whether it's salmon would be ideal. So some kind of meat with a whole grain carbs, this might be some whole grain rice or quinoa, something like that, and serving a serving of vegetables.
00:30:11
Dan
There's your two things. And again, we're talking about heart health right now, but this could be for weight loss. This could be for general wellness, energy levels, balance, energy level, any of that kind of stuff. Clamp those two meals. If when you're at work, you end up grabbing something that's not great at lunch and maybe some of the snacks aren't great, that's fine. They're little things that you can work on over time, maybe trying to swap those snacks up for something a little bit healthier, again, if it's fruit or whatever it is.
00:30:33
Dan
but I think just start with those two, particularly that breakfast could have set you up well for the day. I think I've already made one positive choice. Can I help help running along with that? So it really can be as simple as that. And I think if you pair that with your advice about the 20 minutes of walking a day, sounds small, but you're onto a big change quite quickly.
00:30:53
Russ Harris
Yeah, I totally agree. And I would i would i'll combine exercise and and mindset into one. Whereas I think, as you've already said there, the walking, being outside and being active hits two boats with one stone. um It's been shown that the more time we spend in nature, and that means not just outside in the concrete jungle, but outside actually in nature, um and being physically active.
00:31:17
Russ Harris
all the way through the year. I think um those those those things will both help with reducing the psychological stress which can affect your heart and also help keeping you moving, keep your heart rate elevated for the for the right reasons, you keep you physically active. So those those would be my two things and just to reiterate sort of 150 minutes across a week is three 50 minute walks, you know, or more regular walks for commutes, perhaps, you know, there are easy ways of being able to slot those things into a week. um And I would encourage people to measure, measure your heart rate, measure your blood pressure.
00:31:53
Russ Harris
It's very cheap to do so, very easy to get hold of those bits of tech now. ah Use them, they're there, and it will help to keep it, as you said at the beginning, down gamified and and help to keep you on track of it as well and give you some sense of of what what you're doing and and what kind of effect it's having and if it's things are improving.
00:32:11
Dan
Yep, small.
00:32:12
Russ Harris
All right, thank you guys. It's been no another good one. Until next time.
00:32:17
Dan
i
00:32:18
Russ Harris
See ya.