3 Foods for a Healthy Heart

This week’s Fitness Post is brought to you by personal trainer Igor Klibanov from Fitness Solutions Plus.  

Do you want to protect your heart? Prevent any kinds of heart disease? Or if you already have some sort of heart disease (like a poor cholesterol profile, high blood pressure, stiff arterties, etc.), want to make it better?

Silly question. Of course, you do.

Because I’m participating in the Heart and Stroke Foundation’s Big Bike Ride, this article will contain 3 heart-healthy foods.

Garlic

Garlic comes out a winner no matter which way you measure it. Garlic is great for your heart for a number of different reasons. For one thing, it contains allicin, which is a natural chemical that gives it strong antimicrobial and anti-viral properties.

It also contains a lot of sulfur. There is some evidence out there linking sulfur deficiency with heart disease. I personally have my own theory on why garlic works to lower your risk of heart disease. Here it is: we know that stress can increase risk of heart disease. When you eat garlic, you smell so “good”, that people who stress you out don’t want to be around you, so it lowers stress levels. From here on out, this mechanism shall be called “Igor’s hypothesis for garlic-mediated cardiovascular risk attenuation.” You know, because we have to give it some sort of scientific-sounding name to make it sound real. What do you think?

Beans and Lentils

Beans and lentils are one of the richest sources of fibre. Yes, more than broccoli, spinach, etc. And fibre is great for so many different reasons. For one thing, it binds up excess sugar, which prevents your blood sugar from rising as high. When blood sugar rises, and attaches itself to arteries, it decreases the flexibility of the arteries. Fibre also binds toxins. These include things like foreign hormones, heavy metals, and more. All these things can definitely increase cardiovascular risk.

Fish

Especially salmon, sardines, and other small fish. Fish tend to be rich in omega 3. What is it? Omega 3 is an essential fat. What it does is it reduces inflammation in the body. Inflammation is frequently at the root of many chronic conditions, like arthritis, diabetes, and as it pertains to this article, heart disease. I think it might have been invented by terrorists as a method of biological warfare.