Managing Heart Health with Tallywell: Tips for a Healthy Heart

Do you or a loved one have a heart condition? Or, does heart disease run in your family, and you’re looking for an actionable tool to help prevent this disease?

In the United States, a person dies from heart disease every 33 seconds. In 2021, 1 in every five deaths was related to heart disease. Heart disease is preventable in many cases, and all it takes is a change in your current lifestyle choices.

In this article, you’ll learn how heart disease can be prevented and managed and how health score apps, like tallywell, can be a helpful tool to achieve this.

What is Heart Disease?

Heart disease is a blanket term used to describe medical conditions that affect the cardiovascular system. There are many types of heart disease, such as coronary heart disease, stroke, peripheral arterial disease, and aortic disease.

Why are there so many heart conditions that continue to rise, especially in the United States? Well, it comes down to two factors: lifestyle and genetics.

Your genetics are passed down from your parents, which may or may not mean you have a predisposition to heart disease later in life. Lifestyle choices are also an important factor to consider when assessing how to prevent or manage these diseases.

How to Prevent Heart Disease

Did you know that the choices you make in your daily life can sometimes have a great effect on what you are genetically predisposed to? This logic applies to health, especially when it comes to heart disease.

High blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, smoking and smoke exposure, poor diet, and low physical activity are the main causes of cardiovascular issues. The key to prevention means getting to the root cause of these issues and finding ways to overcome them in your daily lifestyle choices.

Let’s look at high blood pressure, cholesterol, and diabetes; what do these all have in common? Well, aside from type one diabetes, which is unpreventable, all of the conditions can be caused by poor diet. The standard American diet is full of poor food choices that negatively impact the body, especially in regard to heart health.

Processed foods, refined carbohydrates, added sugars, refined fats, and excessive dairy and red meats don’t support health, and when they make up the majority of one’s diet, their cardiovascular system takes a blow.

Physical activity also plays an essential role in managing your heart health. Exercise lowers your blood pressure and cholesterol, helps manage your weight, improves blood circulation, and lowers your risk of diabetes.

As you can see, exercise is just as essential in regard to the foods you eat. If you live a sedentary lifestyle and are concerned about your heart health, there’s no better way to turn things around than by actively participating in daily physical activities.

Keep Your Physical Activity On Track

If you come from a sedentary lifestyle, you may struggle initially to keep your physical activity levels on track and consistent. Luckily, there are devices such as the Apple Watch that track your health metrics throughout the day, allowing you to review them and see how well you’ve performed.

To go a step beyond that, the tallywell app connects directly to your Apple Watch and uses your health data to create a health score. Your score is based on your heart rate, calories burned, and steps taken.

Walking, running, and cycling are great ways to raise your physical activity levels. Wearing your watch as you exercise allows you to track your workouts without having to manually keep track of numbers.

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When it comes to physical activity, consistency is key, and when aimed toward heart health, your heart rate is also an important factor that should be considered. The tallywell app uses your health data to predict a score that shows you where you’re at physically.

Having this feature gives you a visual idea of how well you’ve performed in one week, and you can compare these scores as needed to make improvements. Tallywell keeps you accountable by providing you with a health score regularly, and if this score is too low or too high, it will provide you with actionable steps that you can take to find your equilibrium once again.

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Heart disease can only be prevented through a comprehensive plan, including making better food choices and living an active lifestyle. By using the tallywell app, the only work you have to do is at the gym or on an evening stroll; they’ve got the rest covered.

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