Go Red! for Women Weekly Digest 0312

Last week, it was strongly advised that you visit www.goredforwomen.org/hearthealth and enter your numbers. Within approximately ten minutes, you will have your own personal set of numbers and risk factors for heart disease. With this information comes the power and responsibility needed for change.

In your hands, this checkup becomes a weapon against impairment or death. Contemplate the results. How do they make you feel? What can you learn from them? What questions do they provoke?Most importantly, what will you do with these pieces of information?

Here are some pieces of information to help you to decipher your pathway:

1. Total cholesterol levels should be lower than 200, better if below 150.

2. The LDL(lousycholesterol) ought to be below 100 and closer to 70.

3. The HDL(good cholesterol) ought to be above 45 for men, 55 for women.

4. Triglyceride levels ought to be below 150

5. Blood pressure should be around 120/80.

6. The four best health practices are: activity, diet, stressbusters, quitting smoking.

This is why the diet and exercise topic came up last week. Why? These are the two areas in which all of us have crucial input. We buy our own food and are responsible for our own locomotion. Therefore, the power is in our hands to fight off heart disease!

GO RED! FOR WOMEN HEART HEALTH CHECKLIST 0312:
1. Start taking a multivitamin.
2. Begin eating 3-5 vegetables and fruits daily.
3. Make an appointment with the doctor/followup appointment and get started with a PLAN to care for your heart!

With every heartfelt desire for your success, and
From my heart to yours,
Doula Angelita

Heart Health Ambassador

San Jose American Heart Association

One of the reasons that this small digest is continuing long after February is over is due to a recent study conducted by researchers for Circulation, a journal of the American Heart Association. Not only because of pride at being a Heart Health Ambassador, but because the Go Red! campaign is the American Heart Association's passionate and powerful campaign to address the heartfelt needs of the women of the United States.

Go Red! is a lifestyle, a way of thinking about daily, weekly, monthly, yearly improvements that will contribute to better health and better lives for women. Go RED! is a way to reward and to thank, all the women, of all colours, races and creeds, who have enriched my life, and enriched the lives of others. In so many cases, the women of the family are the real heartbeats, the vital organs that sustain and maintain strong and healthy families.

Therefore, in reviewing the following information, keep in mind that for every one woman who suffers from heart disease that is untreated, an entire family may suffer, a neighbourhood suffers, work suffers, and the graveyards fill too soon with women who should have been the artists, thinkers, mothers, aunts, writers, leaders of our generation:

*81.1 million people are living with heart disease*60 percent of Caucasian women knew that cardiovascular disease is the number one killer of women*Less than half of the minority respondents seemed aware of that fact.*Most women were unaware of strategies to prevent heart disease.*25-34 year old women were not aware of the prevalence of heart disease among women.*Only 56 percent of women could ID symptoms of heart disease.*Only 53 percent of women would call 911 if they thought they had a heart attack.*51 percent of women said that family/caregiving responsibilities prevented them from taking better care of themselves.*42 percent were confused as to what steps to take to better their cardiovascular health.

In silent anguish, women suffer. Because of their suffering in silence, they lose the opportunity to restore themselves to health..

For this reason, this digest as a blueprint for improving heart health weekly.Additionally, this digest will address the issues that prevent women from achieving optimal cardiovascular health.Finally, this digest will serve as both a goad and an encouraging source to continuously improve upon heart health.


GO RED! HEART HEALTH CHECKLIST 0305:


1.So, the major thing to do this week is to go to :
www.goredforwomen.org/heartcheckup
In ten minutes, you will have a concrete set of numbers and figures for you to ponder and to be your guideline for the weeks ahead.

2. The next thing to do this week is to put pen to paper and chart your schedule for the week, paying special attention to diet and exercise.

With all my heart, I am rooting for your good health,
From my heart to yours,

Doula Angelita

San Jose's Heart Health Ambassador

Follow me on Twitter: @sanjosedoula1

Go Red! Digest: This KISS won't miss!

The Bride is paralyzed. She has been injured, and can barely move. "Move," she mutters to her feet, willing them into action. She is in a bad situation; assasins are after her, and her time to escape them grows short. Finally, she hobbles just enough to make her getaway.

This was the situation facing the character in the Kill Bill movie, but looking at it, it occurred to me that many of us are in the same situation. Cholesterol, stress, lack of motivation and direction, bad eating habits, no exercise...all these assasins are hot on our trail, and we are immobilized by fear, laziness, indecision and inactivity.

This is why this week, the beginning of the Lenten calendar in the Christian world, I am challenging all of us to take five steps towards better heart health:

1. Drink 6 eight oz. glasses of water a day.

2. Take a ten minute walk after dinner.

3. Show love and affection to our loved ones.

4. Eat 2 vegetables a day.

5. Begin taking a fish oil supplement.

KISS: Keeping it short and sweet is the name of the game. The time invested is more precious than gold, since the rewards are the fruits of a healthier, easier life. Mind, body, and soul will benefit, and the changes will be just in time for the coming Spring!

From my heart to yours, and good luck!


Doula Angelita
Heart Ambassador
American Heart Association
San Jose, CA

One lady gave me some very kind feedback recently: "Like your digest. Same old stuff, though, but great enthusiasm." This is good criticism, and has truth: all the good advice and exhortations to being a better, healthier you is old hat, is redundant, is common sense.

The process of becoming healthier is really no secret, and anyone who grew up with wise grandparents or attentive parents can recite in their sleep how to get healthy and stay healthy: small portions, good foods, more fruits and vegetables, fewer sweets, get moving and exercising, go to the doctor at least once a year....

Yet, these are the very things which do save lives, and these are the very things which we find so extremely difficult to do. Inserting into the pass between good intentions and actually reaching health goals, is this modest digest. If there be some value in it, it will be that it gets your mind into the frame receptive to the ideas contained therein. If you are inclined to get up and move, or try a new recipe, or sign up for a walking club....then all to the better!

As a Heart Health Ambassador for the American Heart Association, as a wife, mother, sister, dancer, biker, woman, human, I take the Go Red! challenge seriously. I began this digest as a dialogue of sorts, a way to rally the flagging, to cheer up those in despair and to reach out a loving and helping hand to those who want to get started with a better life.

No one asked me to start this, this is my own "heart"reach to my fellow women.

Turning our attention to the world of celebrity, one item of interest attracted my attention: Heidi "The Body" Klum, the Diet Coke Heart Ambassador, matter-of-factly revealed that her committment to being healthy is not just skin deep. "I'm one of those people who go to every single doctor's appointment, including the gynecologist and the dentist, every six months!" Noting that this regimen also extends to her children, she responded to the interviewer's question about her children's diets thusly: "They love hamburgers! And fries! And chicken nuggets! And they like my sauerkraut soup, too!"

Now, before you roll your eyes and say, "Well, of course! She's a supermodel!"Well, President Clinton is an ambassador, I am an AHA Ambassador, and so on. The point of this is to say that models (and Bill Clinton and I) make time and is committed to a healthy lifestyle-because it is in our very best interests to do so! What about you? Wouldn't it be in your best interest to commit to a healthier lifestyle? To take some exercise? To check your cholesterol levels, blood pressure, blood sugars? Is it not your job to be the healthiest you ever?

Just food for thought, friends, just a morsel!

#Hearthealth is #besthealth. What will you do for your #heart today?

From my heart to yours,
Angelita

Today is the day to pull out your red clothing, red shoes, red wig,your garnet and ruby jewellry, red power suit...it is time to GO RED! for women and to help save lives-including your own. Here in San Jose, the American Heart Association and its heart ambassadors, including San Jose's Community Doula, Doula Angelita, will be going red to spread the word about heart health and how to keep your heart happy and working well.

Your heart pumps blood ceaselessy throughout the body. All organs are nourished as well as the happy fact that the blood carries oxygen so that your lungs can fill with air. The heart is hard-working and uncomplaining, pumping, adjusting, finding a way to keep the flow going even when it suffers damages. One of the most important facts about the heart is that it takes a licking and keeps on ticking long after parts of it have died due to disease.

With the Go Red! initiative, the American Heart Association has a whole series of videos, on-line tools and outreach opportunities to keep your heart alive and well. Most of the advice is well-known: healthy diet, daily exercise, positive outlook, and getting adequate rest are all important ways to keep your heart healthy and happy. Additionally, there are recipes, opportunities to connect with others looking to improve their heart health, and ways to spread the word on heart health throughout the community.

To keep your heart healthy, the simplest point of reference is the ABC of Heart Health. This involves avoiding tobacco, become more active, and choose good nutrition. This message is simple, portable and fits in perfectly with the GO RED! philosophy. GO RED! is the slogan to signal the wake-up call to action for each one of us. GO RED! is not for one day only, it is a life-long committment. GO RED! for women is a way to women to think about taking good care of ourselves so that we can continue to care for the others who enrich our lives.

Doula Angelita, as a proud heart ambassador, will sponsor a series of Go Red! forums online every Friday in February. This Friday's forum will talk about the GO RED! system for maintaining heart health. She will also take questions from the general San Jose community regarding heart health. To connect with her or with the San Jose Heart Association, send an email to: sanjosecommunitydoula@gmail.com.