Overview
A Lite-Hearted Tale Dealing With the Physical & Emotional Lifestyle Changes Needed To Avoid a Heart Attack or a Reoccurrence.
With Understanding Comes Life-saving Behavior
Inside anyone's arteries, a stealth drama could be unfolding. Undetectable tiny pimply globs of fatty plaque are attaching themselves to the lining of the artery walls. It is unstable, capable of "bursting" free of the lining, without warning, rupturing the artery wall in the process, and strewing fat debris into the artery. This galvanizes the immune system to form clots, large enough to seriously block blood flow through the artery. That causes the heart muscles into overdrive attempting to force the body's needed blood past the blockage. Overworked for too long, the heart muscles burn themselves out – dramatically affecting the person's lifestyle, possibly causing a stroke, and even ending life itself.
This is a drama played out in some 80% of all heart attacks. A sobering reality is that the triggers for these arterial explosions are unpredictable, and not well understood. Fortunately, preventative treatments exist to thwart and/or deal with plaque bursts. There are four parts to the treatments -- diet, exercise, stress management, and medication. All too often, the non-medication parts are simply viewed as lifestyle options from which the patient can pick and choose.
The author of the The Muscles of My Heart contends that until one understands the life threatening risk that unstable fat plaque represents, most persons are insufficiently motivated to adopt an attitude conducive to making the essential lifestyle changes. And therefore are at risk for the first, or additional, plaque bursts. Using the author's own experience, the book seeks to provide the understanding necessary to adopt the attitude shift, and then provides a path for easily making the changes. Not just relative to diet and exercise, but also relative to stress management, where the author brings innovative self-help, including dealing with the stress our Interactive Society has created.
Prologue Excerpt:
"Time is Muscle!" I was in no condition to comprehend what the man who said that was talking about. I was barely aware that I was in a hospital ER, that a young man with an engaging personality ministered to me in the ambulance that brought me to the hospital, that I had no recollection of how or why I was put in the ambulance, and that I had a frighteningly enormous desire to go to sleep.
I learned later that the man concerned about muscle was a cardiologist who, at the time when he made the declaration, had just reviewed the results of tests confirming that I had a blockage in a major artery that, until it was removed, would cause progressive destruction of heart muscle. Fortunately, at that point, the possibility of the heart attack being complicated by a stroke was ruled out.
Surprisingly, I didn't even know the difference between a heart attack and a stroke. I do now, and thank God I just had a heart attack. Yes, "just" is the operative word, for with the absence of incurring a stroke, the full functioning of my brain was never at risk. But the serious open question at that time was just how much damage my heart muscles would suffer before the blockage was removed. And that would translate into how greatly impaired would be my life – provided I survived the unblocking procedure. ...............
Table-of-Contents
Chapter
Prologue
1 A Clean, New Awakening
2 Heart Mechanics 101 & Cholesterol Arterial Warfare on the Heart
3 Lifestyle-setting Attitude Perspective: The Energy Utility for All Cells
4 Remainder of the Hospital Experience – Questioning Attack Causes
5 Hospital Orders on Medication, Diet, & Exercise
6 At Home with A MuscleCare Nursing Specialist
7 An Accidental Stress Test
8 First Follow-up Visit
9 Cardio Rehab
10 Devising A Stress Alleviation Program -- The Missing Third Prong of a Heart Healthy Lifestyle
11 Good News from Dr. Benjamin
12 Primary Care Wrap-up
13 The Scarred Muscles of Dick Cheney
14 On Mortality & God of The Universe
15 Ode to The Medics
16 A Stressful Interactive Society
17 Politics & Our Hearts
18 Optimum Age to Start a Calcified & Soft Plaque-free Lifestyle
19 Fini Remarks & Medication Troubles
20 Lifestyle Calendar Guide
21 Exercise Guideline Summary
22 Diet Guideline Summary
23 Stress Guideline Summary
Glossary -- Whimsical Definitions of Serious Terms
About Tom Polizzi
With Understanding Comes Life-saving Behavior
Inside anyone's arteries, a stealth drama could be unfolding. Undetectable tiny pimply globs of fatty plaque are attaching themselves to the lining of the artery walls. It is unstable, capable of "bursting" free of the lining, without warning, rupturing the artery wall in the process, and strewing fat debris into the artery. This galvanizes the immune system to form clots, large enough to seriously block blood flow through the artery. That causes the heart muscles into overdrive attempting to force the body's needed blood past the blockage. Overworked for too long, the heart muscles burn themselves out – dramatically affecting the person's lifestyle, possibly causing a stroke, and even ending life itself.
This is a drama played out in some 80% of all heart attacks. A sobering reality is that the triggers for these arterial explosions are unpredictable, and not well understood. Fortunately, preventative treatments exist to thwart and/or deal with plaque bursts. There are four parts to the treatments -- diet, exercise, stress management, and medication. All too often, the non-medication parts are simply viewed as lifestyle options from which the patient can pick and choose.
The author of the The Muscles of My Heart contends that until one understands the life threatening risk that unstable fat plaque represents, most persons are insufficiently motivated to adopt an attitude conducive to making the essential lifestyle changes. And therefore are at risk for the first, or additional, plaque bursts. Using the author's own experience, the book seeks to provide the understanding necessary to adopt the attitude shift, and then provides a path for easily making the changes. Not just relative to diet and exercise, but also relative to stress management, where the author brings innovative self-help, including dealing with the stress our Interactive Society has created.
Prologue Excerpt:
"Time is Muscle!" I was in no condition to comprehend what the man who said that was talking about. I was barely aware that I was in a hospital ER, that a young man with an engaging personality ministered to me in the ambulance that brought me to the hospital, that I had no recollection of how or why I was put in the ambulance, and that I had a frighteningly enormous desire to go to sleep.
I learned later that the man concerned about muscle was a cardiologist who, at the time when he made the declaration, had just reviewed the results of tests confirming that I had a blockage in a major artery that, until it was removed, would cause progressive destruction of heart muscle. Fortunately, at that point, the possibility of the heart attack being complicated by a stroke was ruled out.
Surprisingly, I didn't even know the difference between a heart attack and a stroke. I do now, and thank God I just had a heart attack. Yes, "just" is the operative word, for with the absence of incurring a stroke, the full functioning of my brain was never at risk. But the serious open question at that time was just how much damage my heart muscles would suffer before the blockage was removed. And that would translate into how greatly impaired would be my life – provided I survived the unblocking procedure. ...............
Table-of-Contents
Chapter
Prologue
1 A Clean, New Awakening
2 Heart Mechanics 101 & Cholesterol Arterial Warfare on the Heart
3 Lifestyle-setting Attitude Perspective: The Energy Utility for All Cells
4 Remainder of the Hospital Experience – Questioning Attack Causes
5 Hospital Orders on Medication, Diet, & Exercise
6 At Home with A MuscleCare Nursing Specialist
7 An Accidental Stress Test
8 First Follow-up Visit
9 Cardio Rehab
10 Devising A Stress Alleviation Program -- The Missing Third Prong of a Heart Healthy Lifestyle
11 Good News from Dr. Benjamin
12 Primary Care Wrap-up
13 The Scarred Muscles of Dick Cheney
14 On Mortality & God of The Universe
15 Ode to The Medics
16 A Stressful Interactive Society
17 Politics & Our Hearts
18 Optimum Age to Start a Calcified & Soft Plaque-free Lifestyle
19 Fini Remarks & Medication Troubles
20 Lifestyle Calendar Guide
21 Exercise Guideline Summary
22 Diet Guideline Summary
23 Stress Guideline Summary
Glossary -- Whimsical Definitions of Serious Terms
About Tom Polizzi
Product Details
| BN ID: | 2940013273214 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | WCCN Publishing |
| Publication date: | 10/11/2011 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| File size: | 289 KB |
About the Author
Tom Polizzi is co-founder of WCCN Publishing, a company that previously published books covering the use of wireless-based productivity technology in the enterprise. Currently, WCCN Publishing is focused on publishing Self-Help e-books.
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