Prioritize Your Heart Health

By Khalid McLeod, MS, NASM, ACE

KAM Life.

. http://www.kamlife.com/

More Heart Disease, Stroke and Diabetes Articles

Prioritize Your Heart Health

With ongoing talks of resolutions and re-prioritizing our lives down to the very meticulous details, including:  re-organizing our priorities, becoming more time-efficient, and being a better manager of our own finances, it’s utterly important not to neglect our own health.

As we head into the second month of the year, and we continue to look at new and spirited ways to re-engineer our bodies, while taking our next “selfie”, it’s also very important not to get caught up in the hyperbole of advertisement within the health and fitness industry such as, acquiring: washboard abs, perfect glutes, or sculpted/sleek arms and legs.  Although quite attractive, those muscles are completely irrelevant without the most important muscle of the human body. Yes, I’m referring to the heart muscle.     

The heart, which is often neglected and sometimes ignored, if not cared for properly, can lead to serious repercussions and sometimes detrimental circumstances.  With February being American Heart Month, it is only fitting that Your Health Magazine announced Cardio Health and Diabetes as the topics of the month.

Why is cardio health important?  Let me start with the resonating fact that cardiovascular disease (CVD) is still the leading cause of death and disability in the world today.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), it causes over 17.5 million deaths per year worldwide, and over 600,000, annually in the U.S.  Cardio, meaning relating to the heart, and vascular, relating to the vessels that carry oxygenated and deoxygenated blood to and from your lungs and extremities via arteries and veins, is again significantly important because if you live to be at least 70, your heart will have beaten 2.5 billion times according to the American Heart Association.

Now for the good news; genetics always plays a major role in any condition, but most of the risks associated with the heart are habitual patterns brought on by our daily habits such as:  increased smoking, eating an unhealthy diet, consumption of alcohol, physical inactivity, or simply putting our bodies under great amounts of stress.

We simply cannot stress enough the importance of cardiovascular exercise.  It is ideal to perform cardio exercise 3–5 times a week for at least 30 minutes.  Regardless of what exercise you choose each week, it’s important to keep your heart in great condition – without it, life stops.