Healthy heart, healthy challenge

If your New Year’s resolution to get active has fizzled out, February’s 28-day heart health challenge in support of Hearth Month might help get you back into the swing of things.

GoodLife Fitness has partnered with the Peter Munk Cardiac Centre in Toronto to boost heart health awareness and suggest healthy lifestyle habits as part of the social media campaign called the “28-day heart health challenge.”

Participants will have daily access to cardiac stats, fitness advice, nutrition tips and inspiring stories of how people changed their lives.

“The challenge is to take small steps towards a healthy heart,” says Anna Townsend, fitness instructor with GoodLife. “Whether it’s for getting better or for prevention, it’s different tips including exercise and nutrition.”

Throughout the month, GoodLife Fitness will be posting tips for exercise and diet related to increased heart health on Facebook and Twitter using the hashtag #iheartexercise.

Townsend recommends 30 minutes of cardio five times a week, but if you are recovering from some heart damage, you can break that up into three 10-minute sessions.

She suggests any activity where you can get your heart rate up counts, including a brisk walk, or a dance class, for example.

“The heart is a muscle,” she says. “Just like any muscle, you need to strengthen it and use it.”

Ryan Saranchuk, another fitness instructor with GoodLife, says one of the most important things for people includes understanding their numbers, meaning getting on a scale, calculating body fat percentage and blood pressure.

“Another thing we ask people to do is manage their stress levels,” he says.

He says taking a pause from your day, closing your eyes and taking five deep breaths can go a long way toward helping lower your stress and increasing your heart health.

According to the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada, heart disease and stroke is one of the leading causes of death and hospitalization in Canada, and remains the biggest driver of prescription drug use.

“A lot of times we don’t hear as much about [heart health], but it’s really important to manage your exercise and your nutrition.”

Many heart problems don’t arise until later in life, but for Saranchuk, adopting healthy behaviours at a young age makes all the difference when you get older.

“If you’re older and don’t already have some of those habits, it becomes a lot harder to make those changes.”

According to the Heart and Stroke Foundation, adopting healthy behaviours can help patients delay the onset of heart disease or stroke by as much as 14 years.

For more information, visit www.facebook.com/goodlifefitness.

Some keys to cardiac health include:

·A healthy diet — Eating your fruits and veggies, along with lean proteins like chicken and fish, can make a huge impact on heart health. It’s important to get help to plan your eating and ease into your new healthy diet gradually, to ensure you succeed.

-Regular physical activity — Canadian adults should aim to get 150 minutes of physical activity every week. Getting 150 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity per week reduces the risk of heart disease, stroke, high blood pressure and diabetes by 30 per cent. This doesn’t have to be concentrated time at the gym; it can include taking the stairs, walking home from work, playing with your kids, etc.

-Regular check ups — It’s important to work with your doctor to track your heart health, especially if you have high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes or other risk factors connected with cardiac health issues. Having regular sessions with a personal trainer are also a great way to stay accountable and on track with maintaining a healthy heart.