SWFL doctor partners with the American Heart Association to promote a heart-healthy lifestyle – Fox 4

FORT MYERS, Fla. A Southwest Florida doctor is partnering with the American Heart Association to offer free virtual healthy lifestyle classes.

The program, Healthy for Good: A Lifestyle Change Challenge, reaches out to people in the community suffering from life-threatening diseases.

The American Heart Association, along with Dr. Brian Taschner, and the Lee County Support Network are all spearheading the initiative.

What weve decided to do is work with the AHA to do some of the nutritional counseling one-on-one online, we can do it all virtually they dont have to leave their homes, said Dr. Brian Taschner.

Courses range from cooking classes, health coaching, and virtual workouts.

Dr. Taschner has been a Fort Myers cardiologist for nearly 15 years.

He says every patient is different; strategies are tailored to fit each lifestyle.

They can get a little bit more individualized attention and we can find out what kind of plan works for them, said Dr. Brian Taschner.

The program encourages participants to be consistent. Most of these habits have been with people for a long time, and habits arent easy to change, said Dr. Brian Taschner.

Dr. Taschner says many diseases are preventable through healthy living.

Prevent things like diabetes, coronary disease, high blood pressure, and strokes, and to a degree also reverse these processes, said Dr. Brian Taschner.

While this program is targeted to those with heart problems it is open to anyone with serious diseases.

For those that dont have cardiovascular disease but maybe have a lot of the risk factors like diabetes, high blood pressure, obesity these are also patients that would stand to benefit, said Dr. Brian Taschner.

For information on how to register for the lifestyle change challenge contact Dyan Van Wagner with the SWFL American Heart Association at dyan.vanwagner@heart.org or (239)495-4913.

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SWFL doctor partners with the American Heart Association to promote a heart-healthy lifestyle - Fox 4