Free American Heart Association Diet

The free American Heart Association diet is a wonderful way to eat a healthy diet while protecting your heart from cardiovascular disease.

Basics of the Free American Heart Association Diet

The free American Heart Association diet is not truly a diet in the traditional sense of the word. It does not tell you exactly which foods to eat in which portions at which time of day.

Instead, it is more a collection of guidelines and eating tips that will help you protect your heart and improve your quality of life. You can certainly lose weight following this diet if you watch your calorie intake and also add some exercise, but the main point is to make your body healthier and hopefully prevent you from having a heart attack or stroke in the future.

Know Your Numbers

The first key to the free American Heart Association diet is knowing how many calories you should be consuming each day. The number of calories a person needs varies based on gender, age and amount of physical activity.

Once you know how many calories you need to maintain healthy bodily functions, you need to figure out how many calories you are currently eating. A good way to determine this is to use a food diary and then consult an online calorie counter to determine how much you are eating during an average day.

If you are eating far more calories than your body needs, you'll need to cut back on food and also try to ramp up your exercise program. It's a great idea to both cut calories and exercise more to make up for the excess in calories you are now eating, which should also help you lose weight.

Go for Variety

The free American Heart Association diet recommends that people eat a wide variety of fruits, vegetables and grains, as well as low-fat or fat-free dairy products. These foods are considered nutrient dense, meaning they give your body vitamins and minerals it needs without delivering a lot of calories or fat.

This is the kind of food you want to eat on a balanced diet because nutrient-rich fruits, vegetables and grains also tend to be high in fiber, which makes you feel full longer and is great for your body.

The diet also suggests that people should eat fish at least twice a week for the omega-3 fatty acids, which are thought to be protective for the heart.

Cut the Fat

Another major component of the free American Heart Association diet is cutting out excess fat and nutrient-poor foods. You should limit the amount of trans fat, saturated fat, cholesterol and sodium you consume each day, as well as limiting junk food that doesn't provide nutrients but is high in calories.

It is extremely important to read the labels on prepared foods to make sure you are not getting too much fat or too many calories without any nutrients in the food you eat. Remember, food is fuel, and if you want to keep your body and your heart running its best, you need to feed it good quality foods.

More Recommendations

There are some other, more specific, guidelines laid out in the free American Heart Association diet, such as:

• Choose lean meats and poultry without skin and prepare them without added saturated or trans fats.
• Use fat free, one-percent fat or low-fat dairy products.
• Cut back or eliminate trans fat (partially hydrogenated oils) from your diet.
• Aim for 300 milligrams or less of cholesterol daily.
• Cut back on foods and drinks with added sugar.
• Aim for fewer than 2,300 milligrams of sodium a day.
• Keep an eye on portion sizes.
• Drink alcohol only in moderation if you drink.
• Don't smoke.

The American Heart Association website has tons of tips and articles having to do with living a healthy lifestyle and preventing heart disease. Taken together, this website provides a wise diet and exercise plan that can protect you from the number one killer of Americans and help you live a healthier life.