Aim for the healthy choice
It’s never too late to make changes to look after your heart, improve your health, and get the most out of life.
The Heart Foundation recommends the following as a healthy eating guide to ensure what you eat helps you live life to the full.
1.Enjoy three meals a day, selecting from dishes that encourage you to eat plant foods and with little or no dairy fat, meat fat or deep fried foods
2.Choose fruits and/or vegetables at every meal and for most snacks
3.Select whole grains, wholegrain breads or high-fibre breakfast cereals, in place of white bread and low fibre varieties
4.Include fish or dried peas, beans and soy products, or a small serving of lean meat or skinned poultry, at one or more meals each day
5.Choose low-fat milk, low fat milk products, soy or legume products every day
6.Use small amounts of oil, margarine, nuts or seeds
7.Drink plenty of fluids each day, particulary water, and limit sugar-sweetened drinks and alcohol
8.Use only small amounts of total fats and oils, sugar and salt when cooking and preparing meals, snacks or drinks. Choose ready-prepared foods low in these ingredients
9.Mostly avoid or rarely include butter, deep-fried and fatty foods, and only occasionally choose sweet bakery products Get moving The simplest, positive change you can make to improve your heart health is to get moving.
The Heart Foundation recommends 30 minutes of moderate activity most days of the week for general health and to reduce your risk of heart disease.
It’s an easy goal to remember, but you will also experience benefits even if you divide your time into two or three segments of 10-15 minutes per day.
Any extra time you spend moving around and not sitting is better than nothing!
Everyone has to start somewhere.
Even if you’ve been physically inactive for years, today is the day you can begin to make healthy changes to your life. Next steps Sometimes it’s easier to make changes one at a time.
Try starting with something easy, and once you’ve achieved your goal, move onto the next.
Get family and friends on-board to help support you - you might even inspire them to give it a go too!
(Source: heartfoundation.org.nz) Winter can be a challenging time for people with asthma as cold air may exacerbate symtoms.
Don’t wait until asthma is out of control to do something about it.
How do I know if I’m having an attack?
You are having an asthma attack if your asthma symptoms get worse but do not go away when you use your reliever.
An asthma attack may develop very rapidly over a few minutes, or it may take a few hours or even days to happen. An asthma attack may be mild, moderate or severe.
Symptoms of a mild asthma attack: cough, wheeze some shortness of breath still able to speak in full sentences between breaths
Symptoms of a moderate asthma attack:
continual cough, moderate to loud wheeze obvious difficulty breathing only able to speak in short phrases between breaths
Symptoms of a severe asthma attack: severe difficulties breathing able to speak no more than a few words at a time wheeze is often quiet sucking in of the throat and rib muscles pale and sweaty may have blue lips very distressed and anxious If you or someone else is having a severe attack, you should call an ambulance (111) immediately.
As well as experiencing some of the above symptoms, young children may appear restless, unable to settle and may have problems eating or drinking.
They may also have severe coughing or vomiting.