Adopting a healthy lifestyle is key to battling cardiovascular diseases. Before you begin, though, it’s important to know where you’re starting from. These three measuring tools can help.

1. Measure Your Body Mass Index

Being overweight or obese puts you at risk for developing many diseases, including heart disease. So how do you determine if you’re overweight or obese? By calculating your body mass index, which measures your body fat based on height and weight. (Note that this is not intended for anyone under age 18 or for pregnant or lactating women.) http://info.safetysmart.com/health/bmi.html

2. Measure Where Your Weight Is

Question: From a healthy heart perspective, which of these two is more important?

a. How much you weigh, or
b. Where you carry your weight?

Answer: b. Where you carry your weight.

According to the Heart and Stroke Foundation, if you carry most of your weight at your waist (as opposed to your hips and thighs), you may be at an increased risk for high cholesterol levels, high blood pressure and diabetes, any of which can increase your risk of heart disease and stroke.

Finding out how much you weigh is easy – you step on the scales. But do you know the correct way to measure your waist? If not, this two-minute video from the Heart and Stroke Foundation can help: http://www.heartandstroke.com/site/c.ikIQLcMWJtE/b.3876195/

3. Measure Your Food

If you’ve determined that it’s time to make healthier eating choices and want to analyze the nutritional value of your favorite recipes, the Dietitians of Canada's free Recipe Analyzer can help.

Enter your recipe’s list of ingredients and receive a full nutrient profile for a serving, as well as tips on how to adapt the recipe so that it’s more nutritious. The Analyzer will also let you know the number of Canada’s Food Guide servings your recipe provides. Registered users can also save their recipes in an online recipe binder.

Visit http://www.dietitians.ca/eatwell and click on Recipe Analyzer on the left side of the page.

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