I have high blood pressure. This is not very cool. I'm only 31 and only a little overweight (6'4 and 230-ish pounds). I decided that since I don't want to die soon, I'll deal with this. I don't want to use medicine. If I can fix this through diet and exercise, I will. How high is my blood pressure? Take a look:
My Systolic blood pressure is always high. My diastolic is pretty close to normal. My heart rate isn't too bad. It's that top number that's not so good. Are things improving? Maybe...but I'll need to wait to see if these numbers stay lower.
Step one. Lose weight. I'm doing this by stepping up my exercise program and changing my diet. I'm not dieting. I'm changing what I eat. I'm creating a menu plan that I can live with long term. Right now I'm eating slightly less than I want to be, but the plan is to do that until I reach a lower body weight, and then raise the level of food to a comfortable plateau. But I'm not starving myself. I'm not totally avoiding fat, carbs, or protein. I'm trying for a healthy, balanced, diet. And I am, of course, not trying any of those stupid diet pills. How is it working? I started at 235, June 15. I'm now down to the 226/227 range.
My original goal was to lose one pound a week with a goal of reaching 210 in early December. After a few weeks I was beating that goal pretty badly, so I put in a two pound a week goal. Up until this week everything was going well. My eating has stayed the same except for one change; I'm drinking protein shake after every weight workout. Since I've started I have still lost weight...but it has been much slower. Is it muscle gain that has offset this? I bet that has something to do with it, but I doubt that's it. Of course, if it is muscle gain...I'm happy with that! The scale just doesn't tell me :)
So, a little more details. Here are my general rules for how my food intake has changed. First, eat more fish (there are some healthy fats there that I need). Second, drink almost no Dr Pepper and drink water instead. This has been hard up until recently, though I do partake occassionally. Third, eat less snacks, but when I do eat them, go for fruit. Actually, I'm eating a ton of fruit these days. Fourth, eat more veggies (I haven't ever eaten much until now, and I still probably don't eat enough). Fifth, drink at least one glass of wine a night. Sixth, drink at least one glass of milk a day. Seventh, eat smaller portions of meat (especially beef) and potatoes. Eighth, prefer fruit over fruit juice. However, drink some, because drinking water all the time is BORING. Ninth, more sleep. Tenth, eat less salt. All these things are designed to make me more healthy generally, and some are included specifically for blood pressure.
As for exercise, I've been averaging 6-7 days a week in the gym. 4-5 of those days are weight-lifting days, the rest are cardio days.
For the most part, I've created this plan through reading and listening to podcast material. I went to a Dr a couple weeks ago and got his advice. He basically said that I could eat just about whatever I wanted, but I just needed to work on portion control. Since virtually everything I am reading says otherwise (not to mention common sense), I have decided to completely ignore this man. I am watching my portions, but I'm not ignoring what's going on in my food selection.
This Dr visit really shouldn't have surprised me, though. As I read, I'm finding that there are a lot of very different, and completely conflicting, views on what is healthy and what is not. This is probably true about just about every discipline out there (it is true in every discipline I've spent time in, from biblical studies, to Greek syntax, to software engineering). So I've come to the point where I distrust everything I hear unless I can find real medical studies backing up what someone says. I'm not ignoring advice. I'm looking for it. But I'm looking for it as a guide so I can go do the research myself. I'm not afraid of a little research...I'm used to it :). And not all doctors, nutritionists, dieticians, and fitness dudes are quacks. But a lot of them are. So I have to be careful, and take the search for knowledge into my own hands. It's more work, but it is the only way I can be sure (or at least more sure) that what I'm hearing isn't musings of fools and supplement peddlers.
I'll share what I learn in this process, though I encourage you to be willing to fact check me as I fact check everyone else. Hopefully I'll lose the weight and the blood pressure will go down. If not, then I'll take more drastic measures than above.
BTW, this is all I have been doing for the last month. Exercising, eating heatlhy, resting from said exercise, or reading about exercise and food. No side coding and side work. No blogging (obviously). The search for knowledge in this area continues, but you should see at least a little more of me here.