1) Whole Wheat Breakfast - Starting the day with a whole wheat cereal will reduce the risk of heart failure. To qualify as "whole grain" a breakfast cereal must contain at least 25% oat or bran.
2) Excercise - Getting off your couch and taking a brisk 30 minute walk can reduce your risk of heart disease by up to 50%. I think that's well worth it.
3) Stop Smoking - It's obvious that smoking will cause you heart problems further down the road. If you really want to be healthy, kick the habit. Otherwise, enjoy your stinky breath, yellow teeth and black lungs.
4) Booze it up - Once a day, it's actually beneficial to have either a glass of red wine, a light beer or a shot of tequila. Each has its own clinically proven benefits. Including heart disease prevention and cancer prevention.5) Apples and Oranges - Having coffee every day can make you jittery and raise your stress levels. Stress can eventually lead to heart problems. An apple alone will do a better job of waking you up in the morning. When coupled with an orange, you ensure yourself a great boost for the morning.
6) Enter Sandman - Getting the right hours of sleep will reduce stress and help your body maintain itself more efficiently. Staying up late and sleeping in on weekends doesn't count as getting the right hours. Your body reserves 10 pm to 7 am for deep sleep. Those are the hours you want to target in order to get the full benefit of your slumber.
7) Pill Popping - Taking a baby aspirin daily, surprisingly enough, can lower you risk of heart failure. Aspirin thins out your blood and, in the process, will prevent the formation of clots. Be careful not to take an adult aspirin daily as it could lead to potentially serious bleeding.
There's no guarantee you'll be as healthy as me, even after all these steps. Still, it doesn't hurt to strive to be as much like me as you physically can. No matter what you do, heart failure is still a risk in your older years. Should the day come that you have a heart attack and you have to be defibrillated, you better cross your fingers that it's not part of a defibrillator recall too many people die from faulty defibrillators. On the bright side, if you live to tell the tail, you can make yourself a pretty little lawsuit. Keep healthy, you fat shlub.
