Valentine’s, or “Sweetheart” Day, if you will, falls in the middle of the month, much like your own heart is in the middle of your chest. Your heart is the central point/control unit for the rest of its extensions (veins/arteries). At the start of a potential sweetheart relationship, your heart is healthy and alive and begins to nurture the relationship with extensions like flowers, gifts, and shows of affection. This is just like the blood in your cardiovascular system flowing freely through the extensions of your body, when you have a healthy, “sweet”, heart. Over time, if these types of nurturing things in your “sweetheart” relationship begin to slow down or become nonexistent, then there is going to be trouble. You have slowed down or stopped nurturing your sweetheart relationship.
Much like a blossoming, new, sweetheart relationship, you are born with a new, healthy, working heart. It starts out fully prepared to pump blood (the gift of life) throughout your cardiovascular system to all those extensions. Over time however, by eating a western diet full of fats, salts, and sugars, (the burgers, shakes, fries, gravies, sauces, etc.), your sweet heart becomes not-so-sweet. Then there is “going to be trouble”. Tired, bruised from years of not getting nourishing foods, your heart has pumped all those fats, salts, and junk throughout your body for years, or even DECADES!
Those fats, salts, and sugars have to go somewhere. The excessive salt hardens the veins, which then will raise blood pressure, because the veins are not flexible like they should be. The fats can now be deposited on the inside of your veins, around your heart, and other places in your body, slowing the flow of blood and nutrients These deposits are called plaques, which buildup or breakoff, and cause a blockage in a vein or artery. Too much of the sugar will start insulin resistance or Type 2 diabetes. NOW YOU GOT TROUBLES!
Relationships are complicated. Your body function is very precise in what it needs biologically and yet the answer to having and keeping a “sweetheart” or a “sweet heart” is really the same and can be answered in one word: Nurture! I cannot tell you the specifics of how you nurture your own sweetheart relationship, other than do positive loving things as you see fit.
As for having a sweet “heart”, I can recite chapter and verse what you should do to have and keep a sweet heart. Since my heart attack on January 27, 2016, I have educated myself fully on this subject. Eating more leafy greens is essential to a sweet heart, ESSENTIAL! These keep your veins flexible and provide lower blood pressure. Less meat and dairy, vastly less fast food, as well as more veggies, fruits, nuts, and legumes will definitely give you a sweet, healthy, heart. Thirty minutes a day of exercise, even just walking is like sweetener for your heart and body. This activity raises HDL, the good cholesterol, which helps to fight off the fats. It also improves muscle tone.
So, as you celebrate Sweetheart Day, remember this: As you nourish your sweetheart relationship this Valentine’s Day, it’s not a once a year thing. Nourishing your own sweet heart is also a daily undertaking. If you don’t have a sweet heart you most likely will not be with your sweetheart as long as you might think. Heart attacks and strokes account for nearly 700,000 not-so-sweet heart deaths every year.
Stop trouble before it starts. Nurture your heart. You only get one. Eating right is a heck of lot easier than heart surgery. Believe me, I’ve been there, done that. In the last four years I have nurtured my heart and have been handsomely rewarded! February is National Heart Month. Your heart beats 24/7 every month. C’mon man! Take care of it!
I will be holding short 2 and 4-hour seminars in the general Spokane area that cover nutrition as it relates to heart attack, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes and obesity during 2020. Some will be recipe-driven. If you would like more information please email me at [email protected]. You can find more on Facebook @what’s your shelf life.
