Resources

Support Groups

  • Women@Heart Community Support Program: A “peer support program led by women with heart disease, for women with heart disease” (of any kind). It consists of 12 structured two-hour sessions held bi-weekly online now, thanks to the pandemic. Based on Ottawa, but it now appears to be open to women everywhere.
  • HeartLife Foundation: A “patient-driven charity whose mission is to transform the quality of life for people living with heart failure by engaging, educating, and empowering a global community to create lasting solutions and build healthier lives.” They host a private Facebook group for patients and caregivers.
  • Canadian Women with Medical Heart Issues Facebook Group: A “casual, private Canadian women’s lifestyle group dedicated to the support & information sharing about living with heart health issues” and also “proudly affiliated with HeartLife Foundation of Canada.”
  • Community of Survivors Facebook Group: a “safe, inclusive and respectful community” established and moderated by the Heart & Stroke Foundation of Canada where people share “experiences, quality information and tips for life after a stroke or cardiac event.”

Webinars

Books

Meal Planning

The following tools and templates are available for download when you subscribe to my weekly newsletters.

Tools and templates:

  • Meal Planning Checklist
  • Pre-Printed Heart-Healthy Grocery List

Ideas for what to eat:

  • Breakfast for the Rushed
  • My Go-To Meal and Snack List
  • Heart-Healthy Snack Ideas

Cookbooks

  • The 30-Minute Heart Healthy Cookbook*: Delicious Recipes for Easy, Low-Sodium Meals – I’m biased I know (my book), but it’s honestly full of quick, easy, tasty recipes that will help you use more legumes and whole grains.
  • Spilling The Beans*: Cooking And Baking With Beans Everyday – delicious, accessible, crowd-pleasing recipes for using more dried beans, peas, and lentils.
  • Oh She Glows Cookbook*: Vegan Recipes to Glow from the Inside Out: Slightly more complex but mouth-watering recipes for expanding your plant-based repertoire.

Resources for Healthcare Professionals

The following resources are for clinicians or others looking to roll up their sleeves and really understand the science of nutrition for cardiovascular health.

If you’re looking for more practical, simpler guidance, browse through my blog, which is organized into popular categories for easy searching.

Clinical practice guidelines 

Where possible, these links take you to the nutrition-related guidance in these broader documents.

Relevant statements

Helpful review articles

Landmark Studies

Mediterranean diet
Blood pressure (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension or DASH)
Diabetes prevention (Diabetes Prevention Program – DPP study)
Weight loss (Look AHEAD study)


This is by no means a complete list of resources! I tried to keep it short and sweet for you. If you have suggested additions, send them my way!

* Note these are affiliate links, so if you buy after clicking that link Amazon shares a small portion of the purchase price with me, at no extra cost to you.