How to Have a Heart Healthy Holiday Season

Podcast Transcript

Announcer:

Welcome to Love Your Heart, brought to you by Cleveland Clinic's Sydell and Arnold Miller Family Heart, Vascular and Thoracic Institute. These podcasts will help you learn more about your heart, thoracic and vascular systems, ways to stay healthy and information about diseases and treatment options. Enjoy!

Vikas Sunder, MD:

Thank you for joining us. I'm Vikas Sunder, a cardiologist at Cleveland Clinic in the section of Preventive Cardiology. And I'm joined by two of my colleagues today in Preventive Cardiology, Nurse Practitioner Jenna DiBernardo and Dietician Michelle Dodd.

So, it's November now, and for us in Cleveland, Ohio, that means it's cold. That's why I have my sweater on. And that also means the holiday season is right around the corner. A time that we can reconnect with friends and loved ones, though also a time that can be stressful, and during which we may deviate from our heart healthy habits. So, Jenna, we've talked about this before. What are some activities that we can participate in to stay heart healthy during the holiday season?

Jenna DiBernardo, APRN:

So, a couple of good activities to partake in are, when you do holiday shopping, finding a parking spot that's farthest away from the entrance so you can get some extra steps in, or using the stairs instead of the escalator or the elevator. Another good thing too is when you're doing activities like festive activities, maybe looking at lights, try to walk the event versus riding in your car.

A couple other fun things that I like to do with my family. I come from a big Italian family, so we eat a lot of pasta, and we are carb overloaded pretty often. So, we try to find a bunch of activities to do after a big meal, whether that's doing group walks together. We tend to do the dishes and all the chores before sitting on the couch. Or we like to play a lot of fun games. One of my favorite games is building a snowman. I'm from California though, so we did not have real snow. So, we would get partners and we had two minutes to run back and forth and wrap our partner in toilet paper like a snowman and find props to build a snowman. So, that was a lot of fun to do with aunts, uncles, grandparents, even the kids. And it became a big competition.

And a couple other fun activities are partaking in sporting events. So, whether that's doing a turkey bowl, like flag football turkey bowl, or a lot of places have races and runs, so like the Santa Run or the Turkey Trot. And getting a bunch of friends to do it with you is a great easy way to stay active. We all know pickleball is really big nowadays, so if you could play a game of pickleball with some friends and family. Or if you're lucky enough to live in the snow like we are, you could build a snowman and do a snowman competition.

And then lastly, I think my husband is a very avid sports fan, so instead of sitting the whole game and watching football on the couch, you can find fun activities to do, whether that is walking during commercial breaks, or you could do sit-ups or pushups every time your team scores. So, you might have to modify your activity a little bit, but I think it's just super important to stay active during the holidays and find fun creative ways to do that with a bunch of family and friends.

Vikas Sunder, MD:

All right, Jenna, thank you for providing us with that variety of specific examples. So, it wouldn't be the holiday season without food and drink, so I'm going to pass it over now to Dietician Michelle. What should we be doing from a nutrition standpoint this holiday season?

Michelle Dodd, RD, LD:

I think it's important to just remember why we're going to these gatherings in the first place. Are we going to visit family and friends or are we going to visit the buffet table? And I think that a big thing is being prepared when you go to your holiday events. So don't go on an empty stomach, kind of like going to the grocery store. When you go on an empty stomach, you end up loading up your cart with way too many things. The same thing happens when you go to a buffet or a holiday gathering on an empty stomach. You're going to load up your plates with all kinds of things. So, make sure you eat breakfast that day, eat lunch. Do not go on an empty stomach.

And go prepared with your own appetizer. Bring something healthy with you there so you've got something to eat. I always like to go with Caprese skewers. It's just tomatoes, basil, and mozzarella cheese, a little sprinkle of balsamic vinegar on there. It's pre-portioned for you, it's healthy. That is something that you can do.

And practice moderation. Use smaller plates, portion control, fill up your plate at that buffet with more fruits and vegetables so you have less room for everything else. And scan the buffet table and choose the foods that you don't get to eat on a regular basis. I have an Aunt Barb and she makes great meatballs, so that's something that I'm going to splurge on because I can't get that all year long. And I'll maybe pass on chips and dip. And say no to the food pushers, right? I'm going to say no, I'm just taking a few and then walking away.

We need to make good choices when it comes to alcohol. Alcohol is empty calories. So, limiting what you're going to be drinking to just one cocktail, doing little tricks like having water in between your drinks can cut down on those empty calories. Having a mocktail actually is becoming more popular now. So, seltzer water mixed with some juices and add in some fruit.

Another thing too is just moving everything away from the table. I mean, we don't need to sit around the food and talk, right? We can go to the couch and talk, just because sometimes when we're around all that food, we tend to just sort of mindless eat. And we want to be careful.

Vikas Sunder, MD:

So, Michelle, that's a great point about alcohol. There's this entity that was originally described in the 1970s called Holiday Heart Syndrome, this association of alcohol, acute alcohol ingestion, with cardiac arrhythmias or abnormal heart rhythms, notably atrial fibrillation. So, the American Heart Association recommends for women, one drink or less per day, or for adult men, one to two drinks or less per day. And you may need to be even more careful if you have an existing heart condition such as atrial fibrillation or heart failure.

So, I know what I'm doing now, thanks to Jenna during my holiday season, and I know what to eat and drink, thanks to Jenna. But Jenna, I still have a lot on my mind during the holidays. What are some techniques that I can employ to promote mindfulness during this holiday season?

Jenna DiBernardo, APRN:

The holidays are supposed to be this joyous and fun time, but I find that a lot of times, we're more stressed or emotionally run down. A lot of it comes from traveling, waking up early, getting ready for gathering. So, it's really important to do something for yourself each day, whether that's a mindfulness activity, going to the gym, maybe just reading your favorite book for a couple of minutes a day. Prioritizing sleep and having a good sleep schedule still is going to make managing the busyness of the holidays so much easier when you're well rested.

And like you mentioned at the beginning of the podcast, it's a time to reconnect with family, friends, engage in positive relationships. So, take the time to relax and enjoy that. It doesn't have too always be stressful. And then one of my favorite things that my family always does is, we sit at the table, and we always talk about what we're grateful for this holiday season. And I think that's a great way to connect and just provide an opportunity for wellness.

Vikas Sunder, MD:

Great. Thank you, Michelle. Thank you, Jenna. Thank you for joining us today and we wish everyone a safe, heart healthy holiday season.

Announcer:

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