Written By: Debjani Arora | Updated : October 25, 2017 6:41 PM IST
How often did you hear this saying that lifestyle changes are necessary to keep your heart healthy? How often did you try to follow a healthy lifestyle and fail to stick to it? How many times did you feel tempted and give up the salad for the souffl and the brown rice khichdi for the pizza that someone just ordered for dinner? We know one too many times and this will continue to happen unless you introduce the lifestyle changes. A lifestyle change means introducing the changes, (whether it is adopting diet changes or starting a physical exercise routine) to the entire family should be involved. A few days back when I met Dr Ravinder Singh Rao, Director, TAVI program EHCC Hospital, Jaipur, who was in town to discuss a unique valve-in-valve surgery in Mumbai, he disclosed the biggest flaw that stops people from adopting lifestyle changes. Did you know 50 percent of people don t reach hospital when they dace a heart attack?
Dr Rao believes that a lot of support from the family is needed for a heart patient to keep his heart healthy and stick to his diet changes. He believes that not just the patient but his entire family should adopt the healthy lifestyle changes and eat the same food as is cooked for him to help keep his heart healthy. A person fails to stick to his diet changes because when another family member is eating something unhealthy or fattening which has been a part of his diet too before, it is difficult to stay away from the temptation, says Dr Rao. He explains that the patient falls for the junk food and probably before he realises polishes of a whole plate of French fries or two big slices of pizza, which isn t healthy.
So if there is a heart patient in the family here are few things that the entire family needs to do:
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