Exercise

As the weather warms up and spring arrives, it’s the perfect time to take advantage of the outdoors and engage in activities that promote heart health. Remember, always consult with your healthcare provider before starting a new exercise routine, especially if you have a history of heart disease or other medical conditions. Here are a few outdoor activities that can help keep your heart healthy and strong.

• Walking or hiking: One of the simplest and most accessible outdoor activities is walking or hiking. It’s a low-impact exercise that can be adjusted to your fitness level and helps improve cardiovascular health. To make it more engaging, explore local trails or parks and enjoy the beauty of nature as you walk. Whether you enjoy walking, hiking, or cycling, our area has many great places to explore. Here are the 20 Best Trails in Baltimore from AllTrails!
• Cycling: Cycling is another great way to promote heart health while enjoying the outdoors. It’s an excellent low-impact exercise that strengthens your heart, lungs, and muscles. Whether you prefer road cycling or mountain biking, there’s an option for everyone.
• Gardening: Did you know that gardening can contribute to better heart health? It’s a therapeutic activity that helps reduce stress and provides a moderate workout, including bending, stretching, and lifting. Looking for inspiration? Here are the Best Baltimore Gardens from Trip Advisor.
• Swimming: If you have access to an outdoor pool, lake, or beach, swimming is an excellent low-impact activity that provides a full-body workout and improves cardiovascular health.
• Outdoor group sports: Joining a local sports team or participating in group sports like soccer, basketball, or tennis can be a fun way to socialize and improve heart health. These activities provide a good cardiovascular workout and help build endurance.
• Yoga or Pilates in the park: Taking your yoga or Pilates practice outdoors can be a refreshing change. Both activities promote flexibility, strength, and mindfulness, which can help reduce stress and contribute to heart health.
• Running or jogging: Running or jogging is a high-impact activity that can significantly improve cardiovascular health when done regularly. You can start with short distances and gradually increase your endurance over time.

Remember that any physical activity is better than none, so choose the ones you enjoy the most and make them a part of your daily routine. Always consult your healthcare provider before starting a new exercise program, especially if you have any pre-existing conditions or concerns. Happy spring, and here’s to a heart-healthy season!

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The content was a collaboratively written by a human author with the assistance of an AI language model, is provided for informational purposes only, and is not intended as a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your healthcare provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition or before starting any new exercise regimen.

Most people think of exercise as a way to keep cholesterol under check and to assist with weight loss. While exercise without weight loss has little influence on total or LDL cholesterol, research indicates that aerobic exercise does seem to change the type of LDL that the body produces. Small, dense LDL is very atherogenic. People who exercise regularly produce LDL that is larger and lighter and less likely to form plaque.

HDL or good cholesterol may have antioxidant properties. It protects people from heart disease because of its role in reverse cholesterol transport. Reverse cholesterol transport is the transfer of cholesterol in LDL and VLDL to HDL, which takes the cholesterol to the liver so that it is not deposited in artery walls. Exercise affects several enzymes involved in the process to facilitate reverse cholesterol transport.

Exercise, weight loss and smoking cessation are three commonly promoted methods of increasing HDL. The amount of exercise performed by the 20% of Americans who do engage in physical activity, however, is probably insufficient to cause a significant increase in HDL. Some studies suggest that it takes a caloric expenditure of approximately 2000 calories per week to raise HDL. This would be equivalent to walking 20 miles per week or biking 60 miles per week. The advice that exercise will increase HDL, especially in the short term, can be very misleading. Many people who take up exercise, go on a low-fat diet and lose weight will actually see a lowering of HDL. This can be very discouraging unless they realize that there are other cardiovascular benefits from exercise such as a decreased risk of diabetes, lower blood pressure and less chance of irregular heartbeats. In addition, if weight is lost with exercise, the lower HDL is not as much of a concern and will usually begin to come back up after several months.

Collateral vessels can develop in hearts where arteries are blocked with plaque, creating a “natural bypass” of the artery. This is beneficial for maintaining the oxygen supply to the heart muscle. Exercise improves the ability of the heart’s blood vessels to dilate and causes more blood vessels to develop. As blood vessels dilate easier, the oxygen supply to the heart is enhanced. This increases the angina threshold in people who get chest pain with exercise so that more work can be done before the pain occurs.

Although the direct effect of exercise on the lipid profile has been overstated, the bottom line is that exercise is one of the most important things one can do for the cardiovascular system. In fact, the American Heart Association lists lack of physical activity as a major risk factor for heart disease, with equal importance to high cholesterol, cigarette smoking and high blood pressure.

By Nancy Kennedy, MS, RD.

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Woodholme encourages a healthy diet and proper nutrition as one aspect of maintaining heart health. The nutrition information and recipes are presented for informational purposes only and are not intended to take the place of one-on-one advice from your doctor. Please follow your personal physician’s recommendations if any recipes, ingredients, or advice found here conflict with what your doctor

According to the Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, Body Mass Index, or BMI, is a useful measure of overweight and obesity. It is calculated from your height and weight. BMI is an estimate of body fat and a good gauge of your risk for diseases that can occur with more body fat. The higher your BMI, the higher your risk for certain diseases such as heart disease, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, gallstones, breathing problems, and certain cancers.

Although BMI can be used for most men and women, it does have some limits:

• It may overestimate body fat in athletes and others who have a muscular build.
• It may underestimate body fat in older persons and others who have lost muscle.