Category: Heart-smart eating

– posts here focus on what we put into our mouths

Cholesterol and eggs: what’s a heart patient to believe? Registered Dietitian Cheryl Strachan tells all!

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 7 Comments

 Carolyn Thomas   ♥  @HeartSisters

.          .              .        Cheryl Strachan

Cheryl Strachan is a Registered Dietitian, nutritionist, cardiac specialist, and author of the 30-Minute Heart Healthy Cookbook (HINT: a terrific holiday gift idea for yourself or any heart patient!)  Cheryl says she loves “to banish food stress and help people with heart concerns get comfortable in the kitchen again.”  Much of Cheryl’s professional career was spent working with local cardiac support groups and rehabilitation programs in Calgary. I’ve been following her patient-friendly Sweet Spot Nutrition blog for several years, and when I read her recent article about eggs and cholesterol, I immediately asked her permission to share this controversial and often misunderstood topic here for my own readers living with heart disease. Keep on reading, below. . . Continue reading “Cholesterol and eggs: what’s a heart patient to believe? Registered Dietitian Cheryl Strachan tells all!” →

Behaviour change: if it’s so ‘easy’, why do so many studies show it won’t last?

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 8 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas    ♥   @HeartSisters

Many centuries ago, while I was a volunteer run leader at our local YM-YWCA annual Marathon Run Clinic, my assigned running group each January was the 10-minute milers, whom I affectionately dubbed The Turtles. Our motto: “No course too short, no pace too slow.”   My group members were typically either former runners slowly returning after an injury, or people who were brand new to running. The newbies were as enthusiastic as their freshly-made New Year’s resolutions:  one, for example, declared to me that this was the year that he was finally going to quit smoking, lose 30 pounds, and run a marathon.

To which I replied: “Honey, pick ONE. . .”     .           .  Continue reading “Behaviour change: if it’s so ‘easy’, why do so many studies show it won’t last?” →

Does COVID-19 cause carb cravings (or is it just me?)

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 30 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas   ♥   @HeartSisters

I’ve heard it said that some people lose their appetite during stressful times. These people are not my relatives. Indeed, in our Ukrainian family tradition, we love food, and we eat when we’re happy, we eat when we’re upset, and we eat during all possible emotions in between.

So amid the stressful reality of the COVID-19 virus pandemic, stress eating in our family can mean only one thing: carbohydrate cravings.            .

Continue reading “Does COVID-19 cause carb cravings (or is it just me?)” →

30-Minute Heart Healthy Cookbook: a review

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 35 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas   ♥   @HeartSisters

One of the first places that a cardiac diagnosis starts to change the lives of women who have it is in the kitchen. Suddenly, it can seem that everything you now choose to eat will either help your heart, or kill you dead. After my daughter Larissa flew home after my own heart attack, for example, she created a hand-written list (still up on my fridge door, by the way) sternly dictating, among many, many other food rules, things like: “From now on, only low-fat cheese, <20% fat!”

This was a problem for me at the time. Have you ever actually tasted low-fat cheese? It is a hideous food-like product. I pictured a dreary future learning to live on lentils and kale smoothies and other foods I do not want to eat. . .     . Continue reading “30-Minute Heart Healthy Cookbook: a review” →