How can I improve my heart health?

[Checkenberger]

I am early 40s, both parents have heart issues including major surgeries, valve replacement/ bypass. Both in their early 70s. They both smoke like chimneys, Dad drinks far too much but does walk into the village to the pub, does all the gardening and DIY etc so reasonably fit otherwise. Mum rarely leaves the house, or couch for that matter, but is stick thin despite this. Diets are atrocious for them both. Chips with everything, all processed meat, 2 sugars in tea very few vegetables etc. Nothing will change them at this point, I've tried it all.
We are an active family, love outdoors, eat very healthy, although I probably drink too much, never touched a cigarette. I am a bit overweight.
What can I do to negate the fairly inevitable heart issues? What do I need to change and prioritise and focus on? And good habits to pass onto my children?

Healthy diet, check mediterranean diet. no bacon.
Cardio (walking, running etc) and weightlifting.
No smoking, no stress.

Cut out animal products from your diet and avoid using your car.

Drinking plenty of water, low cholesterol healthy diet and keeping mobile, maintaining active lifestyle! Low alcohol and no smoking!

Good oral hygiene!
(No, really)

I reallly hear you. My dad died of a heart attack in his 40s and he wasn’t even that unhealthy.
You sound like you’re doing all the right things but I’d look at adding some other cardio in if you can face it. Ur might be psychological but I always feel better after a spin class for example.
Ask your doctor or practice nurse about your Q score. I’ve found that reassuring.

Sounds like their problems are lifestyle related not genetic, so a broadly healthy lifestyle should do the trick.

Thanks everyone these are the simple terms I need to hear. Googling is so overwhelming.
So a vegetarian diet could be beneficial? I cannot particularly afford to join a gym, they are very expensive around here and I have hypermobility so cannot run. I can walk the dog and maybe do yoga and pilates on YouTube? We don't have a swimming baths nearby but we are coastal, could do a.North Sea swim i suppose 🤣

Hi @Checkenberger

May I suggest you read Dr Esselstyn's Preventing and Reversing Heart Disease. If you Google him, you'll see lots of his interviews on YouTube

Bill Clinton followed his recommendations to avoid having further stents, and members of my family and a friend have had success in bringing down their cholesterol following his diet. They did really well and after the first month of adjusting found it easy to follow as you can eat plentiful food on there ...

From memory, basically, it's cutting out meat, fish, eggs, dairy and oil and following a low fat plant based diet, as well as eating a handful of leafy greens 6 times a day to keep arteries open with nitric oxide ...

Good luck! :)

Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease: The Revolutionary, Scientifically Proven, Nutrition-Based Cure : Caldwell B. Esselstyn: Amazon.co.uk: Books

Interesting actually, I have always assumed genetic but looking at it as I have tonight, lifestyle is almost certainly a big factor. Each of them have probably the most unhealthy lifestyle of all of their siblings and none of them to my knowledge have the same issues, mum and her sister have copd as did their mum but all smoked 20 a day so lifestyle again. I've been thinking I'm living a death sentence since my dad had news of his heart op.

Drink less is the main one.
Move more - exercise that gets your heart rate up.
Cut out simple carbs and added sugars for complex ones to manage blood sugars.
Reduce trans fats and red meat.
Get enough sleep.

I did a month of vegan diet once and while the weight dropped off, I have never been so tired in my life, I don't think I could do it with no end date. Maybe a conscious effort to cut out meat? I am allergic to dairy so already limited.

https://www.bhf.org.uk/informationsupport/heart-matters-magazine/nutrition/ask-the-expert/plant-based-diets

Walk everywhere. It costs nothing and keeps you fit.

So far, reduce/ cut out meat, not sure whether to keep fish or not, seems mixed views
Get more sleep - might set a bedtime of 10pm? Clearly not tonight hah
Stop drinking, i find abstinence easier than moderation so can go for that - i might set Christmas as a target
Exercise- get heart rate up, cardio? Ill get a plan into place

I live really rural, I work 15 miles away so can't walk there but I can take my trainers and walk on my lunch and maybe plan a hike for every other weekend.
Thanks 🙂

what's the Q score please? Thank you

blue fish is good for heart health, nuts too.

I'm not an expert, but it may be that you weren't eating enough calories? It's quite common for people transitioning to under eat as you get so full on lots of veggies etc. You could try inputting what you are eating into Cronometer or similar to make sure you are eating enough. Sometimes, people also eat a lot of nuts and avocado etc and not enough carby food for energy ,,,

The people I've known who've done it have all been committed carnivores and/or cheese lovers who I never thought would do it in a million years.

My family members decided to go full on for a month and see, and my friend did it more gradually, cutting out red meat for a few weeks, then white meat, then fish, then dairy and so on every few weeks, and got the same results in the end, but obviously not as fast ...

I'd recommend a read of the book even if you don't want to follow it in full and just, as you say, give up meat. It my motivate you and educating yourself might help make better choices.

Just some thoughts, anyway :)

Maybe give it another go but focus on iron and protein.
Red lentils in everything!
Black beans
Dried apricots
Loads of dark green veg
Cutting out meat/eggs will massively reduce your saturated fat intake and cholesterol. You're half way there without the dairy.
Good luck with it.

Many of these suggestions are good but you need to identify risk factors that may affect your heart to really ‘help’ yourself. Do you have high cholesterol? If yes, you need to improve your diet and potentially take a statin. Do you have high blood pressure? You can lose weight and do cardio to help get it down. You already say you don’t smoke, which eliminates a huge risk factor. Being overweight isn’t great but it doesn’t necessarily mean your heart isn’t healthy. You can buy a relatively cheap fitbit to calculate your resting heart rate to see if that’s true. I’m overweight, but my resting heart rate is 67 and I have normal blood pressure. If you’re just ‘generally worried’ but don’t have any risk factors, cardio is the best way to keep your heart healthy. Walking is fine, just get hour heart rate up. A fitbit can really help track this. Btw, yoga and pilates are brilliant but won’t help your heart much unless you are very stressed.

You don’t need to cut meat, you need to
cut saturated fat IF you have high cholesterol. Do you? Get a blood test. This is also bad advice for a woman heading into perimenopause — you need
protein.

Forgot to say, Dr Esselstyn's daughter and wife have also written this for women. They are from a sporty family and their son, Rip, was a triathlete, who decided to follow his dad's diet to get himself an advantage.

If you watch Game Changers, it's about top professional athletes going plant based to give themselves a competitive edge, so I think a lot of it is how you do plant based and of course when you give things up, especially things that aren't so good for you, you can feel really awful for a little while too ...

Be A Plant-Based Woman Warrior: Live Fierce, Stay Bold, Eat Delicious : Jane Esselstyn, Ann Crile Esselstyn: Amazon.co.uk: Books

I'll butt out now, but whatever path you decide to follow, I wish you all the very best :)

Lots of good suggestions above.

I would also suggest getting a good sportwatch with health features (e.g. Garmin Venu 3S) to track steps, heart rate, heart rate variability, VO2 Max, sleep (very important).
Good plan to start this in your 40's, OP!

Hi OP, I'm hypermobile and ran for years. Why do you think you can't do it? As long as you pair it with some specific knee hip and ankle strengthening you'll be fine.

I also lift weights in my garage at home using YouTube workouts. I have a range of dumbells from 1kg up to 8kg and then some 6 and 10kg kettle bells.

Kassandra yoga is very good. You need to make any exercise a habit.

https://qrisk.org

fwiw my q risk is 80% of the norm for my age. I eat some red meat, drink very moderately, eat some cake and sweets and the odd maccy d and my cholesterol is a little above where the gp would like it. But my weight is healthy, I eat a lot of fresh veg, move a decent amount and I do some cardio exercise 2-3x a week.

What I’m saying is you don’t have to go to extremes to keep your heart healthy. Just basic sensible healthy living stuff. Don't smoke, eat a good varied diet with plenty of fruit and veg and not too much junk, get some exercise and keep the weight down. Watch your blood pressure and get your cholesterol tested.

Don't smoke.
Don't let your parents smoke around you.

If you feel like doing some more then get a cholesterol and blood pressure check and do some exercise. Doesn't matter what, just something you can manage.

You are already miles ahead of what your parents did.