Heart Center offers free heart-healthy courses throughout September

INDIANAPOLIS – Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in the United States, according to the American Heart Association.

Prevention is the key to lowering your chances of developing a cardiovascular disease, such as heart disease, stroke or high blood pressure. St. Francis Heart Center is offering free classes throughout the month of September in an effort to improve the community’s health through education and prevention.

Starting Sept. 2, nine free “Change of Heart” classes will be offered in the Indianapolis and Mooresville areas. Several of the classes will be held at the St. Francis Heart Center’s Community Center, located on the southeast corner of St. Francis Hospital – Indianapolis, 8111 S. Emerson Ave. Attendees will learn from St. Francis health experts about navigating the grocery store for healthy foods, choosing healthy entrées when dining out and many more heart-healthy habits. Each Change of Heart class is 1 to 1 ½ hours long.

Registration is required. Call 317-782-4422 or register online at StFrancisHospitals.org/heart to start living a heart-healthy life today.

The St. Francis Heart Center offers nationally recognized cardiac care close to where you need it – on Indianapolis’ south side. Built on a 30-year history of cardiac and vascular care, St. Francis Heart Center is south central Indiana’s only full-service cardiovascular center.

Change of Heart Class Schedule
See below for a detailed description of each course
Healthy Eating
Tuesday, September 2, at 6:30 p.m.
St. Francis Heart Center – Community Center, 8111 S. Emerson Ave,

Thursday, September 18, at 6:30 p.m.
St. Francis Hospital – Mooresville, 1201 Hadley Rd.

Reduce Stress
Wednesday, September 3, at 6:30 p.m.
St. Francis Heart Center – Community Center, 8111 S. Emerson Ave.

Healthy Cooking Tips
Tuesday, September 9, at 6:30 p.m.
St. Francis Heart Center – Community Center, 8111 S. Emerson Ave.

Dining Out
Thursday, September 11, at 6:30 p.m.
St. Francis Heart Center – Community Center, 8111 S. Emerson Ave.

Healthy Shopping Tour
Tuesday, September 16, at 6:30 p.m.
Kroger – Madison, 5911 Madison & Edgewood avenues

Meatless Cooking
Wednesday, September 24, at 6:30 p.m.
St. Francis Heart Center – Community Center, 8111 S. Emerson Ave.

Exercise Tips
Thursday, September 25, at 6:30 p.m.
St. Francis Heart Center – Community Center, 8111 S. Emerson Avenue

Detailed Descriptions for Change of Heart Classes offered by the St. Francis Heart Center

Healthy Eating
For some, diets don’t work! Learn about healthy lifestyles in this class. Find out how much a “serving” is and how to manage a healthy weight. Discover how fats, carbohydrates and protein affect your body. Do you know how much salt, fiber and sugar are in the foods you buy? This class offers the foundation for the remaining classes in the series.
Reduce Stress
Discover just how big an impact stress has on your heart health. Negative stress causes changes in lifestyle and behavior, which may lead to unhealthy behaviors. Managing stress is important to heart health because untreated stress increases other risk factors for heart disease, such as obesity, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, insomnia, depression, smoking and lack of exercise. Learn to identify the causes of stress in your life and how to improve your health! “Reduce Stress 102” is the second class in this series. Both classes are taught by James Nicolai, M.D., medical director of the Franciscan Center for Integrative Health.

Healthy Cooking Tips
A heart-healthy lifestyle means more than choosing the right foods to eat. It is one of the most important steps for a person with heart disease. It's also important to prepare foods in a healthy way. Proper nutrition is essential to managing symptoms of heart disease and preventing further complications. Not only can a proper diet help slow the artery-clogging process, but when combined with careful lifestyle modification, it may even stop or reverse the narrowing of arteries.

Dining Out
Restaurant dining has become a way of life for most Americans. It's easy, fun, and a great way to socialize with family and friends. Just because you're following a structured eating plan doesn't mean you can't enjoy a nice meal out once in a while. Controlling calories when dining out is certainly challenging. You just need a little advance planning and some savvy ordering skills to stay on track when you're dining away from home. Learn how to make wise menu selections for a change of heart.

Healthy Shopping Tour
Shop for the health of it, but don't let the grocery aisles rile you. Does your head spin trying to figure out food labels like no carb, low carb and net carb? Are you confused by claims like no sugar added, light, low and fewer? Does your tongue get twisted trying to pronounce food label ingredients? Deciphering what's good for you doesn't have to raise your blood pressure. The St. Francis Heart Center and Kroger want to help simplify and de-stress the healthy food-buying experience.

Healthy Shopping Tours, led by a registered dietitian and/or certified health educator, help lessen the confusion and frustration experienced by many people who are trying to make healthy choices at the grocery store. Our dietitians and health educators understand how vital it is for you to learn how to choose correctly. Exercise is critical, but your diet determines your ability to lose weight, get fit and be healthy.

Meatless Cooking
Reverse heart disease by eating more! Going meatless just one day a week can lower your risk of heart disease, diabetes, stroke and cancer. Adding more fiber is easy with new products on the market. This class will help you with menu planning and recipes, and you’ll have the chance to sample food prepared during the session.

Exercise Tips
Keep Your Ticker in Tip Top Shape! The human heart is a remarkable machine. And like all machines, the more care and maintenance it receives, the longer and better it will function. Incorporating regular exercise and proper diet into your lifestyle and avoiding unnecessary stress will not only keep healthy hearts in fine working order, but can even reverse heart disease. There are lots of little things that you can do every day that your heart will love you for. Learn how to setup a schedule for yourself!