Change of Heart Stories
Explore personal stories of people who made healthy life changes to protect their hearts — and find out what they gained by taking those heart healthy steps.
Stories from the Heart
Watch these videos of people talking about their heart health journeys.
Lyn’s Story:
By taking small steps, you can improve your heart health — just like Lyn did after she had heart surgery and a stroke.
Bernadette’s Story:
For Bernadette, work stress was impacting her heart. See what steps she took to lower stress and protect her health.
The Fortneys’ Story:
Matt and Chris made heart-healthy changes together — for themselves and their kids.
Quotes from the Heart
Read these quotes from real people about prioritizing heart health to enjoy life’s important moments.
The best way to prevent.. is to get the blood pressure under control. Okay. Do the exercise, do the self-care. Things that we don't do, because there's always dinner to make and laundry to do, and houses to clean and jobs to do, and all these things where we don't take time out to, you know, do the exercise that our bodies need. - Lyn Behnke
Heart disease runs in our family and I had gotten lazy with my eating habits...My doctor called me and said the results of my heart CT scan were 99%, which I initially thought was great, but then he told me it's the opposite of great. That was a wake up call for me. I immediately started tracking every single thing I ate and really cut out almost all processed, packaged and fast foods. I knew I needed more fruits, grains, vegetables. - Linda Brenner
I was motivated by the possibility of being more active and being able to do some of the trips we have planned in our future. And to be around for my kids and my future grandkids, to walk my daughter down the aisle or be there for my son when he has a child, or whatever life brings. Heart-healthy living is an investment that will give me a return of a longer, healthier life. - Chris Masciola
Making these changes was about really enjoying life more... really living, not working all the time... recognizing the things and the people who matter most. - Bernadette L. Harris
Sometimes I'm like, I'm going to focus on my eating, I'm going to start exercising, and I have a whole laundry list of things, but it's kind of unrealistic. You can't really do all of those changes at one time. So we said, we're just going to focus on our eating...and that's where we started. - Chris and Matt Fortney
When I had my heart attack, it took me by surprise. I was active and worked out regularly. I presumed a heart attack was more intense. Now, I am more conscious about what I eat, I pace myself, see the doctor twice a year and let him monitor my progress. - Kenneth Smith