By Barbara Broggelwirth, MS RDN, CDN

 

February is American Heart Health Month.  Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the United States.  According to the New York State Department of Health about 605,000 people have a first heart attack each year, and 200,000 have a recurrent heart attack. This means that someone has a heart attack in the U.S. about every 40 seconds1.  That may sound ominous, but the good news is that we can prevent it by managing our risk factors.  In fact, research supports that ninety percent of heart disease cases are preventable by following a healthier diet (think plant based) and exercising on a regular basis2.

The recommendations by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the American Heart Association recommend getting 150 minutes (2.5 hours) of heart pumping physical activity per week.  Alas, only about 24% of us are meeting these goals.  So, that begs the question, if exercise is so important for our health, why aren’t we more motivated to do it? Harvard Professor Daniel Lieberman discusses in his book “Exercised: Why Something We Never Evolved To Do Is Healthy and Rewarding” how, from an evolutionary perspective, we never needed to motivate ourselves to move because it was inherently built into our daily lives.  It is estimated that hunter-gather populations would easily get over 20,000 steps per day without trying.  We didn’t evolve to live in such a sedentary environment, we evolved to conserve our energy because food was scarce and physical activity was plentiful4.

According to Behavior change experts William R. Miller and Stephen Rollnick, when we are contemplating making a behavioral change, like adding more exercise, it is helpful to understand the benefits of that behavior and the effects are cumulative; the more benefits you can come up with, the more likely you will be to follow through.  Given that cardiovascular health is so important for reducing risk factors of heart disease, I have included the benefits of cardiovascular training below.

  1. Exercise lowers blood pressure. Exercise works like beta-blocker medication to slow the heart rate and lower blood pressure (at rest and when exercising). High blood pressure is a major risk factor for heart disease.
  2. Any type of exercise that increases heart rate improves circulation. When the heart muscle contracts at a higher rate, the increased volume of blood moves more rapidly through the arteries and veins of the body, boosting circulation.
  3. Aerobic exercise trains the heart to become more efficient – it pushes more blood at a lower rate. Aerobic conditioning exercises, such as running and swimming, train the heart and lungs to pump blood more efficiently, allowing more oxygen to get to muscles and organs.
  4. Improves cholesterol. Exercise stimulates enzymes that help move LDL (the sticky kind that can lead to atherosclerosis) from the blood (and blood-vessel walls) to the liver. From there, the cholesterol is converted into bile (for digestion) or excreted. So, the more you exercise, the more LDL your body expels.
  5. Improves blood sugar response. When you do moderate exercise, like walking, that makes your heart beat a little faster and breathe a little harder. Your muscles use more glucose, the sugar in your blood stream. Over time, this can lower your blood sugar levels. It also makes the insulin in your body work better. Strength training also increases the insulin receptors on your cells.  This is important because people with uncontrolled diabetes have a higher risk of developing heart disease because high blood sugar levels can damage blood vessels and nerves of the heart.
  6. Weight Control. Strength training increases mitochondria in your cells which speeds up metabolism and helps you burn more calories at rest. Cardiovascular training helps by burning calories and fat.

Tips to add more activity into your life:

  1. Find something you like. No matter how good the benefits of an activity are, if you don’t like it you won’t be consistent.
  2. Start slowly to avoid injury and build endurance.
  3. Consider joining a walking / hiking group
  4. Walk your dog (or get a dog to walk)
  5. Take the stairs instead of the elevator or escalator.
  6. Replace the coffee break with a brisk 10-minute walk at work
  7. Use online videos to work out at home
  8. Join a softball or bowling team
  9. Swim at local gym or join water aerobics
  10. Do housework / yardwork on your own.

Any small change toward adding more physical activity to your life will improve your cardiovascular health.

 

Resources:

  1. Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention. (2024, March 1). New York State Department of Health . https://www.health.ny.gov/diseases/cardiovascular/heart_disease/
  2. 90 Percent of Heart Disease is Preventable through Healthier Diet, Regular Exercise, and Not Smoking. (2024, March 1). Cleveland Clinic. https://newsroom.clevelandclinic.org/2021/09/29/90-percent-of-heart-disease-is-preventable-through-healthier-diet-regular-exercise-and-not-smoking
  3. Physical Activity Among Adults Aged 18 and Over: United States, 2020. (2022, August 1). Centers for Disease Control
  4. EXERCISED: Why Something We Never Evolved to Do is Healthy and Rewarding By Daniel E. Lieberman. (2025, January 21). Harvard University . https://scholar.harvard.edu/exercised/about

 

Barbara Broggelwirth, MS RDN, CDN is a registered dietitian nutritionist who works with Bariatric and Medical Weight Management patients to help them achieve their health and weight loss goals.