Optimize Your Heart: A practical guide to lowering your risk of a heart attack or stroke

by Andy Beal

The Simple Guide You Need to Improve Your Cardiovascular Health and Prevent a Heart Attack or Stroke

Andy Beal suffered a massive stroke and heart attack at the age of 44. The entire right side of his body was paralyzed. He had trouble thinking, talking, and answering the simplest of questions. Just two days later, Beal walked out of the hospital in what doctors call a "remarkable recovery."

That remarkable recovery was in part due to the heart health improvements Andy Beal made just eight months earlier. Beal improved his diet, exercised more, and reduced many of his risk factors for heart disease. If not for his decision to improve his heart health early in life, Beal may have died.

Since his recovery, Andy Beal has become a passionate advocate for heart attack and stroke awareness, an ambassador for the American Heart Association, a certified personal trainer, and a weight management specialist.

Whether you're 44, 54, or 64 years of age, Optimize Your Heart is a practical, simple guide to help you reduce your cardiovascular disease risks, eliminate unhealthy habits, improve your nutrition, become more physically active, and optimize your heart health before a stroke or heart attack can strike.

Andy Beal, CPT, is a certified personal trainer and weight management specialist with a passion for cardiac prehabilitation--helping clients improve their heart health and reduce their risks for cardiovascular disease. Optimize Your Heart is Beal's third book and combines his engaging writing style with his desire to help others, while adding a dash of his dry, witty humor.

Genres: Health, Nonfiction, Medical

155 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 29, 2020

About the author

Bestselling author Andy Beal's passion for helping others enables him to transform complex topics into practical, trusted, and concise books. With over 20 years of experience guiding businesses to build a better brand, Andy's expertise in online reputation management has earned him the title of The Original Online Reputation Expert™.

His miraculous recovery from a major stroke and heart attack at 44 years of age ignited a desire to help others improve their heart health. When not helping companies improve their brand, Andy spends his spare time as the Cardiac Prehab Personal Trainer™.

Reviews

[Bharath · Rating 3 out of 5]

Andy Beal recovered from a serious stroke and mild heart attack in his forties. Thankfully, he had started investing in health 9 months prior to this and contributed greatly to his speedy recovery. If you have not been paying close attention to your health, this is a good book to start with. It covers the basics on the lifestyle changes you need to make around diet & exercise. The recommendations for the most part address general health & fitness with emphasis on heart health. Some of the treatment (such as calorie in-out) is simplistic but adequate to start with. If you have been conscious of your health for some time, and follow a fitness regimen, this book will provide little or no new information.

Recommended if you want to make a start towards better health.

Thanks to the author, publisher and Netgalley for an electronic review copy.

[Sally Flint · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is nothing to not like in this book. It is clear and quite direct. If you are worried about keeping your heart in shape and want to learn some of the pitfalls to avoid and how heart issues occur then it is a useful read. It is quite detailed so easy to follow the plan it presents. It is also short which is good as there is no point dragging out the message. I guess, though, this does perhaps make it feel just a little bit expensive!!

[Slmarie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Encouraging and supportive <3

Optimize Your Heart: A practical guide to lowering your risk of a heart attack or stroke is a pathway to improving and empowering one’s overall health, with a main focus on the body’s first developed organ, the heart. Author Andy Beal successfully offers readers this practical guidebook for taking better care of our heart health and is inspired to do so from his personal experience of making positive changes in his life after being confronted at age 44 with a massive stroke followed by a minor heart attack a few hours later. Beal began on the path to optimize his heart 8 months before any cardiovascular interference was physically made apparent to him, whereas he upgraded his diet and began exercising with a personal trainer. According to Beal, had he not started making such changes in his life prior to his stroke and heart attack, he may not have lived to tell this story. Beal has made this book his mission to share his wisdom and experience to help others improve their heart health to the fullest. One main message for readers is that we can all begin to optimize our hearts and care for our health now, regardless of age or preexisting conditions. Optimize Your Heart is a simple and easy-to-follow guidebook that is well organized into three parts: Cardiac Prehabilitation, Your Wellness Comes First, and Exercise Your Cardiac Muscle. While the beginning chapters introduces key concepts and information for conducting a self-health assessment, the middle chapters focus more on caring for the heart by ensuring proper nutrition and rest for the body as well as provides a focus on the mind with tips for changing addictive habits and learning how to reduce stress to feel more at peace in the body. The final chapters offer readers with a method for recognizing one’s ideal fitness plan that will help to encourage consistency. Beal even provides a website link to help readers set up an exercise schedule with a free training plan. One detail that appealed to me the most was finding the Application sections that are located at the end of each chapter. This allows reflection upon what was learned and allows readers to connect to the material in a more personal way, helping to tailor and customize their heart-healthy journey. Overall the book is written in a friendly tone along with some humorous bits, building rapport with readers whom are already willing or at the least are interested in making some significant lifestyle changes. Having experience with a once cardiac patient as a parent, I know from personal experience how making the choice to work on regulating one’s health condition is although commendable, not always an easy task. This is where Optimize Your Health melts the stress and provides readers a simple solution towards taking the necessary steps for living and thriving in a beneficial and healthy way. I would recommend this book to anyone who is ready to upgrade their health and, as perfectly stated in the book’s title, Optimize Your Heart!

[James W · Rating 5 out of 5]

Touted as “Amazon's hottest selling new release for improving your heart health and reducing your risk for a heart attack or stroke,” Andy Beal’s ‘Optimize Your Heart’ is a physician-approved, no-nonsense guide aimed at helping anyone, regardless of age, lower their risk of a heart attack or stroke.

Having suffered a massive heart attack at the age of 44, Beal knows all too well the challenges facing anyone in the aftermath of cardiac arrest. Amazingly, against incredible odds, the "Cardiac Prehab Personal Trainer" walked out of the hospital after just two days of care. While doctors considered his recovery ‘remarkable,’ Beal cites his recently-adopted heart-health focus as the true difference-maker.

Divided into three sections covering everything from identifying risk factors to exercise suggestions, ‘Optimize Your Heart’ not only helps readers understand how to measure their heart health, it also offers a series of easily-implemented lifestyle changes that can make a world of difference.

There’s a lot here, but the book's logical layout makes for easy future reference. Additionally, Beal leans heavily on his own journey, weaving poignant personal anecdotes throughout, a move that pays dividends in regards to readability. I particularly enjoyed the conversational tone of Beal’s writing—the author impressively manages to convey a massive amount of information in less than 200 pages, distilling a potentially overwhelming topic into a painless two-hour read.

Andy Beal’s ‘Optimize Your Heart: A practical guide to lowering your risk of a heart attack or stroke’ is highly recommended for anyone, regardless of age or gender, interested in learning more about maintaining a healthy heart.

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beal's very readable, short, concise guide to knowing your cardiovascular system and keeping it all ticking makes a handy gift to everyone you love.

As the authors mentions, no one is too young for a heart attack or stroke; and even if you're in decent physical shape, there are plenty of risk factors besides weight and family history that you can learn to pay attention to. Sleep? Who knew how important sleep was?

Shared in three parts, starting with Prehabilition (know your risk factors and find some friends!), to Wellness tips, to the third part of discovering and making a habit of doable exercise and eating well and lowering stress, Beal's book can be a life changer. I know I'm not alone in making every excuse to "not exercise" or take out a pizza out of laziness and worrying about all the stuff I can't control. But Beal doesn't slap your hand for every bad thought or act. He says right out that not everything he suggests will be right for everyone. But there are small things like walking ten minutes a day that make a big difference.

This personal story of recovery and discovery will benefit everyone.

[Brit · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you, like me, pick up this book because heart attack and stroke run in your family, you will gain immense knowledge from Optimize Your Heart. Andy Beal speaks from first-hand experience. He lays out the best ways to increase your heart health and backs up each claim with facts and statistics. The information is clear, concise, actionable, and easy to understand. Beal is inspirational too. Anyone could find something of value in this book.

My only problem is that some of the advice is on the privileged side. Not everyone has health insurance or the option to regularly go to a doctor. Some people don't even have a primary care doctor. Many people also can't afford expensive exercise equipment, let alone a Garmin or Fitbit. While Beal encourages you to take only the advice that's right for you, I can't help but think many people would feel excluded from certain portions of the book.

Would I recommend Optimize Your Heart? Absolutely. Good heart health is an on-going battle, and this book is full of valuable steps to help you lead a healthier lifestyle. Just make sure to take what you can from it and trust in yourself to find what works best for you.

[Hannah Barry · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a wonderfully helpful read, especially for people who are looking for tangible, accessible steps to get healthier now. The author, Andy Beal, used his own medical experiences to help illustrate exactly why this book and the steps within its pages matter. And why everyone should take care of their bodies starting now.

Masterfully organized in a way that allows the reader to flit from place to place. It allows people to create their own heart health journey as they see fit (pun intended) and Beal gives endless tips and advice on how to do just that, get fit and stay in good (heart) health.

It's all in the title: an extremely practical guide. Anyone looking for a book that won't shame you into heart health, but instead helps you in really simple ways towards your goal will whole heartedly (pun!) enjoy this book.

[Cozy Reviews · Rating 5 out of 5]

In today's climate of numerous health information that preaches to the reader in scientific terms this is a refreshing book that is very helpful for anyone looking to improve heart health. The basic changes in health are included as well as personal experience of the author who has recovered from a massive heart attack. If you are concerned about your heart health and need to make changes this is the book to encourage your personal motivation. The author has sensible easy to follow advice . Very well done to the author. Thank you to the publisher and to Net Galley for the opportunity. My review opinion is my own.

[Kaitlyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you’ve had a heart attack or want to prevent one, this is the book for you. Andy Beal’s Optimize Your Heart proves to be a practical guide to making positive changes in your life to lower your risk of a heart attack or stroke.

The book is a well-organized and factual guide, citing multiple studies and medical tips. Beal draws on his own medical experiences without being overdramatic or condescending. I would recommend this practical ebook for anyone interested in improving their heart health.

[Ciarán Coleman · Rating 5 out of 5]

‘Optimize Your Heart’ is an excellent book full of valuable information.
This is a brilliant book that provides the reader with all the information they could ask for. The points and facts are clear and informative and the book is full of everyday methods that can improve your health.
The only problem might lie in some of the points and methods being a bit pricey and inaccessible for everyone. That being said there’s enough terrific information in the book that everyone can get something out of it and optimise their health.

[Mark Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Many health books focus too much on what you should do and not enough on how to do it. Not Andy Beal’s book, the author serves up the perfect balance. He helps readers understand how stress, food, lack of exercise, etc. hurts an individual and increases a person’s chance of having a heart attack or stroke. Beal then offers advice – read practical advice – that helps readers achieve a healthier stake of mind and body. Beal doesn’t offer advice that in not well researched or unattainable. Again, the author gives readers the right balance of what they can do and understand.

[Amanda Steel · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's refreshing to read a book by someone who is just a normal person who has experienced health issues and turned his life around. Although I knew a lot of the information in this book, it's finding the motivation I often struggle with. Andy Beal's acknowledgement that it’s not easy to get started helped, and I learned a few things I didn’t already know. I look forward to putting his advice into practice.

[Sandy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sensible guidance

This book is easy to read and motivational. Bottom line - we all need to take responsibility and ownership in our own health and preventative measures are much easier than trying to restore broken health. Well written by someone who's been there.

[Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interesting read

[Samantha · Rating 5 out of 5]

Author is helpful with a good sense of humor.