Welcome!

Helllooooooo!  I'm thrilled that you're here and reading HHH.  Perhaps you've followed my journey on reBIRTH or maybe you're stumbling upon my writing for the first time. Whatever the reason, I hope you'll continue to visit.

I decided to create Happy Healthy Heart after I noticed a trend during my speaking engagements as a Go Red for Women National Spokesperson. Women would say to me, "I know you say you're living a heart-healthy lifestyle, but what exactly are you eating? And how do you even have time to cook?" After my heart attack, embracing a heart healthy diet felt like a death sentence (ironic, right?) for me  as I'm an "emotional eater."  Please do not mistake that with overeating - really, I am a person who celebrates with, stresses out with, cries with, laughs with, overthinks with and falls in love with food. So the idea that my diet would be limited scared the hell out of me.  Over the last few years, I've figured out how to be my "old self" in my "new normal."

Let's be clear about a few things:

• I'm not a chef and have had no professional culinary training whatsoever.
• I'm not a nutritionist or a dietician and probably have no business deciding what "healthy" means as far as food goes.
• I am a married, full-time working mom and at the age of 28, I survived a post-partum heart attack.  I have a great prognosis and plan to take advantage of this second chance at life.  For me, that means sticking to a heart healthy lifestyle. 
• This blog will be about food - what I eat, how I cook at home, what I order on restaurant menus and how I create tasty meals that my house full of boys will eat. It will have recipes and pictures and thoughts about food. 

 I hope you take away some good ideas for the happy hearts in your life!

 (Cameron snuggling with Heart, our stuffed, anatomically correct little friend)

"One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well." -Virginia Woolf