Heart-health goals: Start small and keep progressing
Providence cardiologist advises working toward 30 minutes of exercise most days, along with a regular diet of lean protein and healthy fats.
When it comes to setting goals for your heart health, it’s best to start with a manageable goal and work forward from there, says Daniel Spoon, M.D., interventional cardiologist with Providence Montana.
“I recently spoke with a patient who has been inactive for the last few years, and this patient said it’s not worth exercising if he can’t exercise for two hours straight,” says Dr. Spoon, who also serves as chief medical officer for Providence Montana. “I told him to see if he can get to five minutes a day. And that five minutes can become 10 minutes a day. It’s incremental improvements that lead to a more sustainable, healthy life.”
Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the United States. Dr. Spoon says this trend can be reduced with awareness of your heart health and developing healthy, sustainable lifestyles.
Know your heart health
Dr. Spoon recommends two strategies to know your heart health: Schedule a yearly wellness visit with your primary care provider and see how much aerobic exercise you can do.
“Regular communication with your provider is one of the best ways for your provider to monitor and screen for conditions,” he says. “This visit is also a good opportunity to tell your provider if you’re having any kind of side effects from any medication you’re taking.
“It’s rare that we can’t find a medication that will work with a patient, but sometimes it takes some trial and error to get them in a place that works,” Dr. Spoon continues. “I encourage patients to constantly advocate for themselves. If a medication isn’t working, make sure you’re that squeaky wheel with your providers until we find the medication that works for you.”
Regarding exercise, Dr. Spoon likens it to a daily stress test. “When you do your regular activities, and you’re not noticing a change in your ability to exert yourself, that’s a good sign,” he explains.
Healthy habits
At the top of Dr. Spoon’s list is to stop any nicotine use, including cigarettes, chewing tobacco, vaping and other products.
Regarding nutrition, Dr. Spoon encourages his patients to avoid processed and high-fat foods. Instead, he recommends a focus on Mediterranean-style diets that focus on lean proteins, plant-based foods and healthy fats.
“The Mediterranean diet, with its focus on healthy fats and fruits and vegetables, has withstood the test of time and they’re a good basis for a heart-healthy diet,” he says.
Finally, he advises 30 minutes of activity most days each week.
“That doesn’t mean running marathons or other high-impact activity but trying to find daily activity that gets us up and moving,” Dr. Spoon says.
Given the prevalence of heart problems across the United States, Dr. Spoon emphasizes the need to develop healthy habits as early as possible.
“From a community perspective, we’ve got a large responsibility to instill these concepts in our kids,” he says. “If we don’t take this perspective early on, we’re going to have a hard time reversing our national heart-health trends at any point. And I know how hard it is — I have teenagers, so I know it’s hard to get them to care about things like this. But if we’re instilling the importance of this in them, we’re going to be ahead of the game.”
