Your health: Think twice about that hotdog

Skip the deli counter

Something else to add to your list of New Year's resolution: take steps to lower your risk of heart disease.

Improving a diet, according to the Harvard Medical School newsletter, includes lowering high cholesterol, blood pressure, blood sugar and insulin levels. In making up a food plan and in trying to watch your heart health, limit how much processed meat you consume.

Processed meats are those preserved using salts, nitrites or other preservatives, which can harm the heart. Such meats include hot dogs, bacon, sausage, salami and other deli meats like deli ham, turkey, bologna and chicken. Long-term studies have found that the worst types of meats for the heart are those that are processed.

Avoiding hypertension

High blood pressure can be sneaky. While it usually does not have any outward signs or symptoms, it can effect arteries, the heart and kidneys.

Medication can often control high blood pressure, otherwise known as hypertension. However, prevention can keep it from becoming a future problem.

Here are a few recommendations from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute; the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American Heart Association:

• Control your weight.

• Exercise regularly.

• Follow a diet that is rich in fruits, vegetables and whole grains.

• Limit sodium intake to under 2,300 milligrams a day (1 teaspoon of salt), and get plenty of potassium (at least 4,700 mg per day).

• Drink alcohol in moderation.

• Reduce stress.

• Check your blood pressure.

Enter Fittest Loser

Are you looking for a health and fitness makeover? We'd like to give you a shot at making it happen. The Daily Herald and Niche Publications are offering the Fittest Loser Challenge along with sponsors including Push Fitness in Schaumburg.

We are seeking five motivated people to see who can lose the most weight in a 12-week period beginning Jan. 30. Each participant will receive free instruction from a personal trainer and nutritionist to train three to four days a week in Schaumburg.

Contestants will be featured in before and after photos and in stories highlighting their progress. Results will be measured each week. The Fittest Loser will be chosen based on percentage of weight lost.

To apply, go to pushfitnesstraining.com/signup.php. Applications will be accepted through Friday, Jan. 6.