Heart Strong
A book about taking care of your heart over the long run, written for people who want to understand their risk and do something practical about it.
Heart Strong is my book about heart health. The Your New Diagnosis guides each start from one specific condition. Heart Strong takes a wider view. It is written to help readers think about their heart as something they look after for decades, not just something that gets attention after a scare.
Who this book is for
I wrote Heart Strong with a few kinds of readers in mind:
- People who have been told they have one or more risk factors, such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, or excess weight, and want to understand how those pieces connect.
- People with a family history of heart disease who are wondering what that means for them.
- People who feel fine and want to keep it that way, but are not sure where to start.
- Family members and caregivers trying to support someone else's heart health.
The questions it is meant to help with
When I talk with patients about their hearts, the same questions come up again and again. How worried should I be? Which of my numbers matter most? What actually makes a difference: food, movement, sleep, medication, or all of them? How do I make changes that last longer than a few weeks?
Heart Strong is written to help readers work through questions like those in plain language. My aim was to stay close to mainstream, well-established heart health guidance, the same general territory covered by frameworks like the American Heart Association's Life's Essential 8, and to make it feel like something you can act on at home.
How it fits with the free articles
A lot of what is on this site connects to Heart Strong. If you have read about what a new cholesterol diagnosis means or living with high blood pressure, you have already seen pieces of the bigger picture. The beginner walking program is one practical place to start moving.
The free articles each focus on one topic. Heart Strong is meant to tie those topics together in one place, so you can see how they affect each other and build a plan that makes sense for your life.
A note on safety
This book is not a substitute for your own doctor, who knows your history, your test results, and your medications. Please talk with them before making major changes, especially to exercise or medicines. And if you ever have chest pain or pressure, shortness of breath, fainting, or sudden weakness or numbness, call 911. Do not wait to see if it passes.
Heart Strong is available on Kindle through Amazon, along with the rest of my books on the books page.
More books
Health / patient guide
Your New Diagnosis: CholesterolA short, plain-language guide for people who just got lipid results that worried their doctor.Health / patient guide
Your New Diagnosis: HypertensionA plain-language starting point for people who were just told their blood pressure is high.Health / patient guide
Your New Diagnosis: DiabetesA short, plain-language guide for the first weeks after a diabetes diagnosis, when everything feels new at once.Health / patient guide
Your New Diagnosis: Coronary Artery DiseaseA plain-language guide for people who just learned that the arteries feeding their heart are narrowed or diseased.Techno-thriller fiction
Swarm 700A techno-thriller, and a change of pace from my patient guides. Here is who I wrote it for.