Heart Healthy Diet–Could I Adhere to One?

Today, being a holiday, I started out my day with a late breakfast after sleeping in until 9:30am. I was in the mood for a pizza for my “brunch,” and had 4 slices of Trader Joe’s Four Cheese pizza at 380 mg of sodium and 1.5 grams of fat. I had water to drink with it.

I skipped lunch because this was quite filling and I was busy all day. For dinner I had a moderately-sized beef meatloaf from Trader Joes with  332mg of sodium and 4.6 grams of fat. I drank a Limonata San Pelligrino, which contained no fat and no sodium.

For dessert, I had 4 Milano Dark Chocolate cookies with 180 calories, 80 grams of those calories coming from fat, and sodium at 60 mg.

My total sodium consumption for the day: 772 mg

My total fat consumption for the day: 146 grams

 

I consulted WebMd, and If I were on a “heart healthy diet,” I would need to have less than 2,000 mg of sodium daily, ideally down to 1,500 mg if possible. I would also need to keep my fat consumption down to 78 grams of fat in a 2,000 calorie diet. Today was rather unusual in that I did not eat that much, and I have to admit, I do enjoy eating “junk food” from time to time. So it would be quite tough for me to keep my fat consumption down if put on a heart healthy diet if today was a “light” eating day for me, seeing as I am way over the recommend grams of fat. My sodium fortunately, was under control today but like I said, I know on other days of week, I would certainly be in violation of the 1,500-2,000mg restrictions if I were to have cardiac problems and need to go on a diet. I enjoy salty, fat-filled chips, cookies, and many nights, I look forward to an ice cream bar after dinner.

It is so easy to be judgmental of patients who are in violation of their diets and who do not adhere to exactly what you want them to do, but with tempting snacks galore, particularly in this society, it helps to take a step back and mentally walk a mile in the patient’s shoes.