Heartfelt Wishes from Northern Hearts for 2022
Have you been keeping up with Northern Hearts programs this year? As you may or may not know, Northern Hearts is a local non-profit organization with a mission to provide the public with educational resources and heart-healthy programming. Let’s take a look:
Throughout 2022 Northern Hearts has put on three “Talk with Docs” on Zoom. The Talk with Docs are educational presentations on various health related topics for the public that offers an opportunity for community members to interact and ask questions to the presenting physician. We would like to thank Dr. Andrew Affleck (Aging and your Heart), Dr. Mario Nucci (Beating the Blues), and Dr. Christopher Lai (Covid-19 and your Heart) for their informative presentations.
To compliment the educational programming, Northern Hearts offered heart-healthy programming to promote healthy lifestyles and reduce heart disease in Northwestern Ontario with the popular “Walk with Doc”. The “Walk with Doc” program features local physicians and organizations offering short, social walks to help build and maintain healthy and active lifestyles. It was back in person and held at Marina Park during the month of June. This year, 179 individual walkers joined, and 11 physicians and 16 host organizations volunteered. Thank you to Dr. Andrew Affleck, Dr. Christopher Lai, Dr. Mark Henderson, Dr. Joseph Boyle, Dr. James DiGiuseppe, Dr. Dylan Morgan, Dr. Ayman Hassan, Dr. Kevin Miller, Dr. Moira Mangatal, Dr. David Savage, and Dr. Nicki Wilberforce. Thank you to our hosts, Chartwell, Age BIG, Curans Heart Centre, 55+, Fitness Firm, Superior Hearing, March of Dimes, Hospice Northwest, Teleco, Alzheimer’s Society, HealthTec Training, EcoSuperior, Lakehead Region Conservation Authority, and Motion.
Northern Hearts hopes to put on the popular “Dine with Doc” in March 2023 that showcases local doctors preparing and serving heart-healthy meals. Northern Hearts is also looking forward to running their Charity Golf Tournament at the beginning of June that allows for local physicians and community members to be outside and active together. Stay tuned for their upcoming programming starting in 2023 by following their Facebook and Instagram pages, subscribing to the email mailing list, and looking out for monthly HeartBeat articles in the Chronicle Journal.
Now let’s talk about having a heart-healthy holiday season. With a mission to provide heart-healthy resources, here are some tips on how to maintain your healthy lifestyle over the holidays without missing out on all of the fun festivities:
- Reach for frozen vegetables: Skip the washing and chopping and easily grab some frozen veggies
- Put fruit on your counter: Having fruit in your eyesight reminds you it is there for a healthy snack
- Make time for meals: When you don’t prepare ahead, that often means getting takeout
- Drink water but make it fun: Add some fruit slices to help with flavouring or buy some sparkling water to help you avoid those sugar drinks like pop and juice.
On behalf of Northern Hearts, we wanted to wish you a very happy holiday and safe heart-healthy new year.
For more tips on staying healthy this holiday season, visit: https://www.heartandstroke.ca/articles/10-food-hacks-for-a-healthier-holiday
For more information on all questions related to heart health, please visit https://northernhearts.org/ or follow Northern Hearts on Facebook and Instagram (@NorthernHeartsThunderBay), where a new posting occurs every Wednesday on all things heart health. Regular programming and updates will resume in 2023.
Submitted by: Kayla Waddington, Program Coordinator, Northern Hearts