Eating well
By making a few small changes to your diet, you can begin to make a difference to the health of your heart.
But where do you start? The main thing to remember is not to be too hard on yourself and ‘give up’ all your favourite foods. You’ll not only find it virtually impossible to stick to, you’ll also be missing out on a lot of the nutrients your body needs to function properly. So make sure you enjoy what you eat and eat a variety of foods to achieve overall health and vitality.
What is a healthy diet?
Canada’s Food Guide is a useful and important resource and describes what amount of food people need and what type of food is part of a healthy eating pattern.
For a healthy diet, aim to:
- Enjoy a variety of different foods from each of the four food groups, including at least 7 servings of fruit and vegetables every day
- Eat foods prepared with little or no added sugar, fat and salt. Cut down on saturated and trans fats and replace these with healthier monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats
- Try to eat two Food Guide Servings of fish a week. Choose fish such as char, herring, mackerel, salmon, sardines and trout.
- Switch high fat dairy foods such as milk and cheese to lower fat versions
- Eat a variety of whole grains such as barley, brown rice, oats, quinoa and wild rice. Enjoy whole grain breads, oatmeal or whole wheat pasta more often.
- Eat fewer foods that can be high in sodium including snack foods such as crackers, nachos, potato chips and pretzels, cheese, gravies and sauces, processed luncheon meats, canned or dried soups and frozen meals.
- Satisfy your thirst with water
- Drink alcohol in moderation
Canada’s Food Guide makes it really easy for you to create a healthy diet that's also tasty! This will keep you feeling great and can help keep your heart healthy and may: help to lower your bad cholesterol, help to manage your blood pressure and help you to achieve a healthy weight.
Did you know?
A pound of body fat contains 3,500 calories. So to lose a pound in a week you need to eat 500 calories less than your body needs each day (7 x 500 = 3,500) and vice versa for weight gain.