According to Heart Research Australia, 8 in 10 cases of premature heart disease & stroke are preventable through healthy lifestyle behaviours, such as making some simple tweaks to your eating patterns and incorporating regular movement in your day.
Plant Power. We’ve heard a lot about plant-based diets and people often think this means becoming a vegan or vegetarian. This is certainly not the case. Plant-based diet (aka plant forward eating) is simply basing most of your meals and snacks around plants. Here’s how.
Starting with fruits and vegetables. Aussies are doing ok in the fruit department – with more than 50 of Aussies meeting the recommended guidelines of 2 serves per day, however we most certainly can be doing better in the veggie department – surveys show that only 7.5% of adults met the guidelines for recommended daily serves of vegetables. That is 5 serves a day. Now this may seem like a lot of vegetable – but when you look at what is a serve – it’s really not that much – ½ cup.
Go the whole way – another nourishing plant-based source, however over the years, carbohydrates have received a negative wrap, but we really shouldn’t be demonising them. Instead, watch the types you consume, such as too many added sugars and refined starches. Switch to, or choose whole grain varieties wherever possible – generally less refined, leaving important dietary fibre intact, which not only helps to improve gut health, but also may reduce inflammation and lower ‘bad’ cholesterol – two major risk factors for heart disease.
Related: All you need to know about whole grains
Whole grain rolled oats contain beta glucan – a type of fibre to help naturally lower cholesterol reabsorption
Related: Recipe for whole grain porridge blood orange jam
with Add beans/legumes – just 1 cup can give 5g soluble fibre which is enough to lower “bad’ LDL cholesterol.
Include lots of healthy fats like avocado, olive oil and nuts – again these come from a plants. Countless of studies have shown the benefits of eating the Mediterranean way. In fact, one of the world’s largest and ongoing study on the Mediterranean diet (aka PREDIMED study), has been examining the effects of this eating style in nearly 7400 subjects, across seven communities in Spain, at high risk of heart disease over eight years. Participants in the study either followed a Med Diet plus a handful of nuts a day or a Med Diet plus an extra 50ml of olive oil a day. Both these diets were compared to a lower fat eating plan.
Move more – regular exercise helps us maintain good cardiovascular health and boost our energy levels. In the mitochondrial energy is very important. Mitochondria acts as a second digestive system, transforming the food we eat into energy that cells in our bodies utilise, known as ATP. Ubiquinol, the active form of CoQ10 is essential for maintaining the mitochondrial energy. getting in your daily exercise to boost the amount of good cholesterol in the blood. It also helps to lower blood pressure, better blood sugar regulation, manage weight and boost energy levels.
We can get ubiquinol from foods but in order to get the daily amount you would need to consume more than 14kg of sardines or 60 avocados, which is unrealistic. This food consumption is equivalent to 100mg of Ubiquinol, so instead of having to eat LOADS sardines in order to keep the necessary Ubiquinol levels, people can look at supplements that include Ubiquinol in its pure form to ensure maximum energy production. People may want to consult their Health Care Professional for supplementation.
