So The Cardio Blog is going into retirement, and since is this is my last post I wanted to take the opportunity to thank you all for reading! It's been a blast writing and reading and learning about the importance of taking care of ourselves and our heart health specifically, and of course I encourage you all to continue doing so. There are countless great resources online (even though we were voted #1!) and I thought I'd share a few that I personally like and plan to stay in touch with:

There are some snippets in life that are absolutely paralyzing. One of those moments is watching a medical person's lips move up and down as he/she delivers the news that you or a loved one has been diagnosed with a heart defect or an illness. As your life turns upside down within a few seconds, you might wonder, "Why me? Why us?".

If this is the case for you or family, you are not alone. There are often support groups for many healthy issues. Or there are blogs that feature everything from eating tips to forums to share news and ideas with other people or families in your same position.

I wish I had known about these sorts of sites when my son was diagnosed with a congenital heart defect shortly after his birth. I still recall the awful feeling of being alone and scared and without the answers I needed. Blogs offer the sort of information that families seek in an easily understood manner.

I'm sure there's research to support what I'm about to say, but I think common sense is more than enough support. As for what I'm going to say: Fitness starts with education. A friend may suggest Pilates or Yoga, or a co-worker may say that doing lunges and stiff-legged deadlifts are great for your legs. Whatever the case, if you are not educated in fitness, these friendly suggestions will do you little good if you don't even understand what they mean.

You could find an entire library of books on fitness and nutrition -- which, of course, wouldn't be a bad way to begin your education. But, if you just don't have the time to read through a tome on physiology and kinesiology, then here are a few much quicker and to-the-point magazines and websites that can at least start you in the right direction.

MAGAZINES: Men's Health/Women's Health - both are great resources for easy-to-follow exercise plans and nutritional 411. A personal favorite of mine is the very quick sidebar "The Crime/The Punishment" -- where unhealthy food choices are truly put into perspective (ex. The Crime: Denny's Extreme Grand Slam and a Large Orange Juice (1,396 calories). The Punishment: 127 hours you would have to shovel snow for in order to burn 1,396 calories).

WEBSITES: MyFoodDiary.com -- provides you with a very detailed breakdown of how many calories, carbohydrates, protein, fat, cholesterol, etc. in many types of food and helps you keep an active log of your consumption.

BOOKS: "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Losing Weight." Don't be offended by the title. This book offers great advice on fitness and nutrition, geared especially to the beginner or relative beginner. And, it is completely free of any diet or exercise fad nonsense -- something that is almost unheard of these days.

There are a number of other valuable resources out there, but I feel these are a great place to start. If anyone would like to post suggestions of their own, please be my guest.

In the interest of full disclosure, the blog post I am going to site for this piece was written by my father, Thomas L. Creer, PhD. He runs the blog called Manage Your Illness, which is a resource for people with chronic illness of all kinds. My father has spent his entire career as a clinical psychologist working with patients to manage their health.

In his post Self-management and heart failure, he discusses the results of a study about self-management of heart disease and hospital admissions. Patients who take responsibility for their own health, who implement preventions, and who are compliant with their heart medications have fewer hospitalizations due to their heart problems, and health care costs in general are greatly reduced.

All too often, we tend to expect our health care to be provided by our physicians, with little or no participation on our part. However, there is a movement afoot in the States to make patients co-equal partners with their physicians in the management of their health, and disease. Something as simple as maintaining a medication regime can make a great amount of difference in improving overall health.