Most cardiac health improvement plans focus mainly on diet and exercise. This is largely because these lifestyle factors tend to affect blood pressure, blood cholesterol, weight and level of fitness, which all have a substantial impact on the health of your heart. These plans also may touch on other lifestyle choices, such as smoking or alcohol intake, since they, too, play a role in heart health.
The Simple 7 Action Plan
The Simple 7 Action Plain is a cardiac health improvement plan created by the American Heart Association. It focuses on seven factors that can affect your heart health, including level of activity, diet, weight, cholesterol, blood pressure, blood sugar and smoking. This plan encourages at least 150 minutes of moderate exercise or 75 minutes of vigorous exercise each week. Exercise is coupled with the weekly dietary recommendations of at least 6 cups of fruits and vegetables, 5 oz. of whole grains and two to three servings of fish. Intake of sodium is kept under 450 calories per week and sodium under 1,500 mg per day.
Within the plan, you also track your blood pressure, blood cholesterol and blood sugar. According to the American Heart Association, the ideal blood pressure is no more than 120 over 80 mm Hg, blood cholesterol is no more than 200 mg/dL and blood sugar is less than 100 mg/dL. With weight, your goal is a body mass index, or BMI, of 18.5 to 24.9.
DASH
DASH stands for Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension, according to the Mayo Clinic. It's an approach to eating habits that can reduce your chances of high blood pressure. It's predominantly made up of fruits, vegetables, whole grains and low-fat dairy as well as moderate amounts of fish, poultry, legumes and lean cuts of meat.
With fruits and vegetables, the goal is eight to 10 servings a day. Whole grains are anywhere between six to eight servings, low-fat dairy at two to three servings and lean meats, poultry or fish at roughly six or fewer servings.
It's also important to monitor your intake of nuts and legumes, fats and oils, sweet and sodium. Four to five servings of nuts or legumes each week is ideal. Fats and oils are kept around two to three servings a day. Sweets are limited to five or fewer a week. The Mayo Clinic recommends keeping your sodium intake 1,500 to 2,400 mg a day.
CHIP
Another cardiac health improvement plan is CHIP, which is short for Coronary Health Improvement Project. This plan is quite similar to both the Simple 7 Action Plan and DASH. It uses dietary changes coupled with exercise to improve blood pressure, blood cholesterol and blood sugar. However, the idea behind CHIP is that 75 percent of illness, which include heart disease, hypertension, diabetes, obesity, arthritis, cancer and other medical conditions, are linked to lifestyle choices. By changing these lifestyle choices, you should see an improvement not only in your heart, but also your whole body. This is accomplished through diet, exercise, smoking cessation, stress management, alcohol consumption and even caffeine consumption.
