This article appears in my own book: LADY IN THE RED DRESS: a personal story of a woman with heart disease. However anyone who would like to improve their health can try these simple dietary steps. The guidelines are avaialbe for free on the NIH website.

FOLLOW THESE GUIDELINES FOR A MORE HEALTHFUL DIET

Meats, Poultry, and Fish

Instead of:

Try:

High-fat meats

Lean meats, poultry without skin, fish

Bean and grain dishes

Fatback and bacon

Skinless chicken or turkey thighs

Cured Meats

Instead of:

Try:

Pork bacon

Turkey bacon, lean ham, Canadian bacon

Pork sausage, ground beef, and pork

Ground skinless turkey breast

Dairy Products

Instead of:

Try:

Whole milk

Skim (nonfat) or 1 % milk

Whole milk cheeses

Low fat or part skim milk cheeses

Cream, evaporated milk

Evaporated skim milk

Sour cream

Low fat yogurt

Fats, Spreads, and Dressings

Instead of:

Try:

Lard, butter, shortening

Small amounts of vegetable oil

Regular mayonnaise, regular salad dressing

Mustard and nonfat or low fat types of salad dressing, yogurt, or mayonnaise

Here is a quick “sizing-up” of a serving:

One serving Visual

½ cup dry cereal Billiard ball

2 cups raw, leafy vegetables 2 baseballs

8 ounces yogurt Tea cup

1 small apple or 1 medium orange Tennis ball

½ baked potato Computer mouse

½ bagel Hockey puck

½ cup cooked pasta or rice Ice cream scoop

½ cup sliced fruit Light bulb

3 ounces chicken Deck of cards

3 ounces fish Checkbook

2 tablespoons raisins Small egg

2 ounces hard cheese Size C Battery

1½ teaspoons peanut butter Two dice

1 teaspoon butter or margarine Tip of your thumb

For lunch I’m having a hockey puck with two dice, a side of teacup, and a tennis ball for dessert.

Seriously, after every seminar I’m asked what I eat, how I eat, and how my eating habits have changed since being diagnosed with heart disease. The DASH (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) eating plan, from which I borrowed the guidelines above, was the diet explained to all of us who were part of the 3:30 Monday-Friday Cardio Rehabilitation Group. If you want to learn more about the DASH eating plan, type DASH Diet into any search engine, or use this handy link: www.health.gov/dietaryguidelines/dga2005/document/html/appendixA.htm

I learned a lot about portion size, for example, by studying the DASH diet. Here’s a sample of what I eat on a daily basis:

Breakfast: Yogurt with flaxseed, and whole wheat English muffin or seven-grain wheat bread with light heart healthy margarine, coffee.

Lunch: I like sandwiches, and I use whole wheat pita bread, with fat-free lunch meat, tomatoes, lettuce, and cucumbers.

Dinner: Vegetables, fish, chicken, brown rice, and cut-up fruit.

The new food chart is available from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. (See www.mypyramid.gov/index.html) Enter your age, sex, and level of physical activity. Based on that information, the site provides a nutrition plan, based on 12 different amounts of total daily calories. The calorie amounts range from 1,000 to 3,200.

I’ll confess that sticking to a proper diet has been a huge challenge for me, and has caused me much confusion and depression. However, having passed the third anniversary of the discovery of abundant plaque in my arteries, I’m getting the hang of it. When you think about it (and I do), all of us really do have enough information thrown at us to truly understand what we should and should not eat. Although, if that’s truly the case, then why does the food court at the mall have absolutely nothing on anyone’s recommended list?

Here’s an important note: Let’s not forget about the interaction (maybe especially for women) between food and stress. Confession time: On a good day (okay, most days now), my daily eating habits are aligned perfectly with what I described to you above. Turn those recommendations upside down, however, and you have Lois under stress. I refer to it as “power eating”—eating as quickly and as much as possible. The longer I hang over the sink with that brownie in my mouth, the longer it will be before I have to deal with whatever is stressing me out. Tell me you haven’t felt just that way sometimes. Be honest! But I am not advocating power eating. I’m simply reminding you that the connection between stress and eating is yet another manifestation of the powerful connections between mind and body.

And since we’re improving our eating habits, here’s something else you can do. After the age of 2, our children need to be taught about eating heart-healthy foods. Why? Because studies suggest more than one in three kids could have abnormal blood fats that begin damaging their little arteries early in life. Many pediatricians now recommend that children age 2 and older who are overweight and have a family history of high cholesterol, high blood pressure, diabetes, early heart attack, or stroke should be tested for these risk factors.