Diet Recommendations

The American Heart Association diet recommendations

Healthy living, eating carefully and physical activity are the main things that the AHA dietary guidelines promote. The guidelines as given by AHA are briefly given below:

  • One should eat five servings of a variety of fruits and vegetables daily.
  • Six servings of various grains should be eaten every day.
  • Fatty fish such as tuna or salmon should be consumed at least two times a week.
  • One should opt for legumes, lean meats, skinless poultry products and less fat dairy products such as skimmed milk etc.
  • Utilize fats such as tub and liquid margarine, corn, canola, olive and safflower olive etc. which have not more than 2 gm of saturated fats per tablespoon.
  • The calories you consume and the calories you burn should be balanced. To calculate the number of calories used in a day, if you are inactive, multiply your current weight by 13. If you are quite active then multiply your weight by 15.
  • You should be physically active for at least half an hour every day.
  • High calories and low nutritious foods such as sweets, candies and soft drinks should be limited.
  • Foods rich in cholesterol, saturated fat and trans-fat should be limited.
  • Your sodium intake should be a maximum 1 teaspoon or 2,400 mg per day.
  • Alcohol intake should be limited to 2 drinks per day for men and 1 drink per day for women.

The benefits of these dietary guidelines are given below:

  1. The main motive of the AHA is to prevent strokes and heart attacks, so whether you are following the guidelines to lose weight or to maintain your current weight your cardiac health will surely improve.
  1. The dietary plans help a person to eat well and eat healthy. Not eating food or giving up favorite foods is not the solution to any problem. Eating moderate portions of everything and following the guidelines for a long period of time will be more beneficial.
  1. Apart from an improvement in cardiac health, the dietary plans also help in decreasing the risk of other ailments such as diabetes, osteoporosis, cancer etc. Many obesity related problems such as body ache etc. can also be reduced due to weight loss with the help of the following guidelines.
  1. Ever looked at the items on the supermarket shelf carefully? If you look carefully you may notice that some products have a red heart with a white tick mark on the packaging; these are the items to look for as they are food items that have low cholesterol and saturated fats and have been approved by the AHA. The dietary guidelines given by the AHA can also be followed to complete the nutritional requirements of the whole family. These plans can be followed by children over the age of 2 years. Children over 2 years old need more fat in their diet for developing the brain.

Implementation of the AHA dietary guidelines:

Implementing any plan requires proper planning, shopping and preparation of food. One needs to take the following steps to implement the plans and get positive results.

  1. Obtaining the AHA booklet from the website http://www.americanheart.org is the first and foremost step. You can get all the information required in the booklet such as the foods to eat and the foods to avoid from each group of foods, the size of servings for each group, and the ways to prepare and cook the food. The nutritional values such as vitamins, minerals etc are also mentioned for some specific foods.
  1. The American Heart Association has also come out with many cookbooks and helpful educational materials that one can use. You can purchase the following books:
  • American Heart Association Quick and Easy Cookbook: More than 200 Helpful Recipes You Can Make in Minutes.
  • The New American Heart Association Cookbook, 7th Edition.