If you are prone to having any heart ailment due to genetic reasons or otherwise or have been detected with signs and symptoms of any heart disease, the first step you ought to take is to make some drastic changes in your diet. The doctor would undoubtedly tell you what to eat and what not to touch, but here are some ideas for living sensibly and healthily, whereby you can design your diet in such a way that your heart remains hale and of course, hearty!

Any dietician or heart specialist would advise you to go for a heart-friendly diet which should comprise of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, low fat dairy products, fish and lean meats. However, it is not as simple as that. You must know which types of foods or the fats and grains you ought to have in what type of proportions and only then you can derive the benefits of your heart-friendly diet.

As far as fruits and vegetables are concerned, doctors advise not to have more than 5 to 6 servings per day. Fresh fruits and vegetables are a thousand times better than the canned or preserved foods. In fact, the entire canning and preservation process makes the essential nutrients of foods to be lost. Also, canned fruits usually are preserved with additional sugar, which may not be friendly to the heart.

If you have no other choice other than having canned fruits, make sure that they are sweetened with fruit juices and not any other preservatives are used. This holds true for whole grains too, as more processing would drain the goodness out of the grains. Here you ought to adhere to foods, which are as natural as possible. Remember, when you have processed grains and flours, you are simply going on adding more glucose content to your blood stream. When the food is ‘enriched' with whole grains you are hardly having whole grains!

Foods, which are low in fat content and fat free dairy products, are good for the heart. While you avoid fats in foods, but when it concerns fish, go for the fatty fish, as these fats are good for heart and overall health. Try to have fatty fish at least for two dinners in a week. Poultry meat should be consumed without the skin and all the other meats, which you have, must be lean. Stop having red meat, as this is dangerous for the heart. Stopping red meat and other fat-rich foods like chips, deep fried foods would go a long ay in keeping your heart healthy.

Regarding consumption pattern of saturated or trans fats, limit your intake to fats, which have two grams, or less saturated fat per tablespoon. This could be your guide to restricting fat items in your diet.

To keep your heart healthy and ticking, back up your heart-friendly diet with some workouts everyday. Do this gently but regularly, and try to reach a point where you can do at least 30 minutes of some kind of physical exercise, all days of the week. With regulated diet and regular exercise, your heart would continue to work optimally, without giving rise to any cause for concern.