It Worked! My Blood Pressure is Back to Normal!

Read this book and
become Heart Healthy,
naturally!!!

What else can I say but, "IT WORKED!" 

I reinvented my diet and my High Blood Pressure is GONE. No drugs, no doctors, no scare tactics from the pharmaceutical industry - just good old fashion "do what is good for your heart"

Remember this all started in May 2010 when I went to donate blood and learned my blood pressure was a shocking 145/95. I studied what causes high blood pressure, analyzed my lifestyle, reinvented my eating habits and began checking my blood pressure at home using a cheapo "home monitor." The home monitoring suggested things were working - well I proved it last week. I went to donate blood on Feb 1st and got the official reading - I lowered my blood pressure to 120/80. It Worked! from 145/95 to 120/80 by reinventing my diet and focusing on the potassium:sodium ratio of my food intake.

For those wanting to change your life and lower your blood pressure, here is my (now proven) recipe:

1. Exercise regularly: I do at least 1 hour/day of vigorous activity, with 2-3 hours/day at least twice a week.
2. Maintain a low fat diet: just remove foods high in fat - there is enough variety in foods that you do not need anything high in fat.
3. Maintain a potassium:sodium ratio in my diet of at least 3:1. 1:1 would probably be sufficient; 5:1 would be incredible; I targeted 3:1 as my goal and it has worked.

The first 2 items in this recipe for lowering your blood pressure were already a part of my lifestyle (regular exercise & low fat diet). So, it was the addition of a 3:1 potassium to sodium diet that revolutionized my heart and health. Note that most so-called experts state to "lower sodium" to lower your blood pressure - this is a half truth - you MUST increase your potassium and get your diet to a 1:1 potassium:sodium ratio, at least. Also note that if you focus on increasing your potassium:sodium ratio that you will magically lower your sodium as a by product. As you investigate ways to increase potassium and increase the potassium:sodium ratio, you will naturally lower the sodium count. The potassium to sodium ratio is the magic factor in becoming heart healthy.

I owe my diet transformation to the extremely useful and informative book: What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Hypertension. I strongly suggest anyone who has high blood pressure (or even a family history of high blood pressure) to read this book and discover how easy it is to take control of your heart health!

Identifying basic foods high in potassium, low in sodium and low fat

After my last post, you may be asking, "If a low fat/lean turkey sandwich has 1500 mg of sodium, how can it be possible to create a complete diet with 1000-1500 mg of sodium per day?????" It is actually not that hard: it takes a little planning and a little flexibility. The key is to identify the high potassium, low sodium and low fat basic ingredients that appeal to your tastes and build from these ingredients.

Searching google for "low sodium foods" (or anything similar) will make your head spin - everybody is trying to sell you something, nobody wants to make it easy. After much (painful) investigation, I discovered that all the websites and books giving you sodium and potassium counts are actually just reiterating data readily available from the USDA. So here you go, the 3 places to research your diet and identify the basic ingredients to put to work for you:

1. USDA Nutrition Data: The authority on nutrition counts - available in many different forms to suit your needs (PDF files for each nutrition type, database load files, etc). A great source of "raw data" if you want to build your own database or spreadsheet to analyze foods.
2. Nutrition Data from Self: A searchable interface to the USDA data - just type a food into the search box and get the USDA results. If you do not want to download all the raw data from the USDA, this is a good website to use for searching the USDA data. 
3. The World's Healthiest Foods: A list of the healthiest foods (i.e., base ingredients). Instead of searching the USDA data, this website has preselected some of the foods and enumerated them for you.

These are the starting points - identify high potassium/low sodium/low fat heart healthy ingredients that suit your tastes and start building recipes and meals from these.

I will highlight some of my favorite heart healthy ingredients in future posts...

Researching high blood pressure

I figured I had 2 options for dealing with my sudden & unexpected case of high blood pressure (HBP).

(1) I could go to a doctor, get prescribed some scary sounding drugs, not understand why I had HBP, discover the unfortunate side effects (every drug has some) and live a life addicted to a drug I feared for a disease I did not understand.

Sorry for the negative view of the healthcare industry; but this pattern is the only pattern I have ever experienced with the medical/pharmaceutical industry...

(2) I could learn about the disease myself and construct a profile of my body/life against the disease. From here I could build a lifestyle and natural plan to reduce my blood pressure.

Given my clear bias, I obviously chose approach #2 and started on a path to understand HBP, why I had it and how I get rid of it. Sounded simple, but... Do a google search for "lowering high blood pressure" and you get 24 million results! Do a google search for "lowering high blood pressure naturally" and you get 20 million results! I went to my local library and found row after row of books about HBP!

I visited the first 400 results from each google search and skimmed a dozen books in the library. Below are the two resources I found that best explained HBP to me and taught me how to adjust my lifestyle to lower blood pressure. Hopefully these vetted starting points can help others get to results instead of spending days/weeks looking for good, unbiased starting points...

Great online overview: Natural Remedies for High Blood Pressure
Great book with pointers/references to studies backing up all the findings: What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Hypertension: The Revolutionary Nutrition and Lifestyle Program to Help Fight High Blood Pressure