I want you to keep something in mind as you read this article. Foods bad for the heart, regardless of what’s going on in the world, heart disease is still the #1 killer in the world today. It kills more people than cancer and often goes undetected for years.
When it comes to your health, most people don’t think too much of anything they can’t see or feel…for example you can’t see a buildup of plaque in your arteries everyday like you can that extra weight piling up on your hips and thighs.
Which is why so many people ignore their heart health until they’re either warned by their doctor or they unfortunately suffer from a heart attack or stroke. Some unfortunate souls aren’t lucky enough to get a second chance.
What’s really sad about all this is that these same people often joke about their heart health, or the clogging of their arteries as they consume junk food. And most of the time in between bites they mutter something along the lines of “I want to enjoy my life!”. If that sounds like you or someone you know, I have news for you…
Heart Health
You can’t “enjoy” life when you’re no longer alive. And while I do understand where they’re coming from, that way of thinking is dangerous…not to mention completely inaccurate.
Sure, eating fried foods and scarfing down donuts can be fun, but is it really worth your life? Not to me! In fact, I can think of hundreds of things MORE enjoyable that actually improve your life and promote the living of a happy, healthy, active life. Not only that, but they make you feel better too. I don’t know about you, but anytime I’ve overdone it on sweets or something really unhealthy, I don’t feel so well afterwards. And then there’s the long term ramifications. Wouldn’t you rather feel good in the future and stay healthy as you get older? I know I would.
One thing that often does get people to finally take their heart healthy seriously is when they get a stern warning from their doctor, usually after some sort of diagnostic test or blood work.
Now, I mentioned fried foods and donuts as examples of artery clogging foods due to their trans fats and the inflammation causing vegetable oils often used to make them, but these aren’t the only ones…
…just a few of the most obvious. What about the foods we think are healthy? Things like whole grains?
Well, according to Dr. Stephen Sinatra and Dr. Jonny Bowden in their book “The Great Cholesterol Myth”…they cite a study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine that showed that women who ate the highest amount of carbohydrates had the greatest of heart disease.
Cholesterol
See, we’ve had it all wrong for some time now. New studies are actually showing a direct relationship between high carbohydrate consumption and heart disease. Especially carbs known as high glycemic carbs. These are carbs that are broken down quickly and hit your bloodstream faster. And if you’ve read some of our other articles on healthy fats including healthy saturated fats you’d know that recent research has already disproved the link between natural saturated fat and dietary cholesterol and heart disease.
It's the sugar, high glycemic carbs, trans fats and lifestyle factors such as stress that appear to be the biggest drivers of heart disease.
And high carbohydrate consumption even from one meal can have an immediate and dramatic effect on your heart health.
In the same book I just mentioned, Dr. Sinatra discusses a study which looked at the function of the cells of the arterial walls before and after eating a meal consisting of high glycemic carbs…
Using a specialized test that measures arterial function, researchers gave groups of test subjects high glycemic carbs including corn flakes and sugar. What they found were indications of arterial stress in those given the corn flakes and sugar.
Interesting right? I mean this study showed that it’s not the saturated fat and cholesterol we’ve been told to avoid that causes the damage to our arteries but the grains and sugar we’ve been told are part of a “complete breakfast” …
Dr. Sinatra goes on to say that researchers from Harvard were quick to note that quickly digested carbs or in other words high glycemic carbs are associated with an increased risk of heart disease.
Now just so you know, one of the worst carbs you can eat in terms of blood sugar and glycemic load is anything made from wheat. That goes for the healthy “whole wheat” too. In fact, studies show that whole wheat has a higher impact on blood sugar than even pure table sugar due to something called Amylopectin-A in wheat foods.
Not only that but eating whole grains can also elevate inflammation in the body and spike something known as CRP or C-reactive protein, an indicator of overall inflammation in your body. And the higher your CRP the greater your risk for developing heart disease.
FEMALE FACTOR
Eating a diet filled with healthy protein, clean veggies and spices, teas, red wine and other antioxidant rich foods while keeping your high glycemic carbohydrate levels low will result in a rather low CRP.
And when it comes to dangerous meat consumption…it’s not so dangerous after all. Unfortunately, meat gets a bad rap in the media, even by some of the so called “health experts” who should know better. They’ve been trying to place the blame on red meat for decades and it’s just not true.
And just to be clear, I am NOT talking about processed meats here. Those are terrible for you and are loaded with tons of chemicals and additives.
There’s a big difference between processed meats like bologna and hot dogs and unprocessed meats like grass fed beef.
For example, one Harvard study of more than 1.2 million people showed that each 1.8 oz daily serving of processed meat was associated with a 42% higher risk of developing heart disease. But when it came to unprocessed red meat, there was no increase in risk at all.
One of the reasons why healthy grass-fed meat is so healthy is due to its higher content of CLA. A special type of fat that has been shown to help people lose weight.
The bottom line is that even the so-called “healthy whole grains” we’ve been told are so good for us, have actually been shown to increase our risk of heart disease.
They clog up and harden our arteries and trigger body wide inflammation.
But it’s not all bad news.
See, there are still plenty of healthy and delicious foods you can eat that help reverse the damaging effects of high glycemic carbs. Flush out your arteries, lower your blood pressure, balance your blood sugar, improve your brain health, regulate your digestion and help you lose weight.
And as part of our online fitness community FITSQUAD ELITE…
We share a wide variety of meal plans and recipes to help you look younger, lose weight and feel better…click the button below to go to the next page to discover how FITSQUAD ELITE can help you reach all of your fitness goals too.
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