Valentine’s Day has always been the day to express a little extra love for those special people in our lives and ourselves. On Valentine’s Day we mostly tend to express our love by giving a heart shaped box filled with chocolates. The sweet stuff that comes wrapped in a beautiful heart shaped box is all sugar and high fructose corn syrup. Is this really the way you want to celebrate your love for your partner or yourself?

You deserve more than that and so does your heart.

Show your heart you love it by celebrating without all the sugar. While you may think eating a few heart shaped pieces of chocolates is okay, you should know this, sugar is very addictive. When you eat chocolate, which is filled with sugar it releases chemicals such as dopamine, serotonin and endorphins, which makes you want more. You get that just can’t eat one feeling and you crave more. Sugar suppresses the immune system and causes inflammation in the body and contributes to inflammation of the arterial walls. When sugar generates an insulin spike in the body and insulin spikes continuously, it starts to ravage the endothelial lining of blood vessels. Once the endothelial lining becomes damaged, we start to experience cardiovascular problems and create the inflammatory mayhem that eventually leads to heart attack and stroke. Sugar consumption can also cause weight gain. Sugar is one of the main reasons in the growing epidemic of obesity and adult diabetes in the U.S. Many adults are concerned about fat when they should be watching their sugar calorie intake.

A healthier way to celebrate V-day is by doing things that don’t involve eating sugar. You can have a lot of sweetness in your life without the extra sugar and calories. Here are a few healthy alternatives to the heart shape box of chocolates.

• Give each other a massage.
• Not in a relationship treat yourself to an aromatherapy massage.
• Write a poem for your special someone and place it in a frame you decorated yourself
• Play dress up for each other
• Take a tango dance class together
• Book a romantic weekend getaway at a bed and breakfast.
• Get tickets for the show he/she wants to see.
• Go on a romantic dinner cruise.
• Give a basket of heart healthy fruit and berries and feed it to one another while taking a bubble bath.

Valentine’s Day is the perfect time of the year to get creative and show your partner other fun ways to celebrate the day of amour without all the sugary chocolate that can cause havoc to your heart and body. Your heart will thank you!