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This is an update of my progress on implementing the extensive health program outlined in detail in my article, Beating High Blood Pressure.

Here’s what’s happening, so far.

Writing the Article

My new program for Beating High Blood Pressure is a lifestyle change to five different aspects of my life, simultaneously. That makes it sound harder than it is. However, the article was difficult to write because it was the first medical article I’ve written. I needed it to be comprehensive and accurate to serve as a reference for anyone attempting to get their essential hypertension under permanent control.

I’m still adding finishing touches to the original article on Day 5. Its worth the extra effort to serve as an optimal reference for my fellow hypertension ’sufferers’ out there.

Day 1-5

Weight

I’m starting out at 194lbs and would like to lose about 25 of them. 170 is a good target weight for me, at this point. I may adjust downward to 165 upon reaching 170. However, losing fat without losing muscle requires a special approach to weightloss. More about that in the exercise paragraph, below.

Diet & Food Avoidance

I’m slowly eliminating all sugars from my diet. Having gone through the Atkins diet before I know that unlikely food items like bread, potatoes, carrots have a glycemic index almost as high as sugar, itself. Therfore, I’m starting to eliminate them, too.

Exercise

In order to lose fat only, and not muscle, I’m using a resistance training method called HIT or High Intensity Training. What it boils down to is that I perform one set only of at least 12 repetitions for each muscle group of the body every time I work out.

The amount of weight used is as much as I can lift, push or pull and still maintain good form. So, the full body is worked out in every session. That’s important because . . . . . .

HIT methods emphasize not working out again until the body is completely recovered. Unlike everything you’ve ever heard from all the ‘trainers’ out there the body is not fully recovered from an intense weight lifting session for at least 4 to 9 days. The recovery time varies with the intensity of the session, your activities between sessions and your personal ability to recover. The theory is to let the muscles fully recover and then allow time for growth before performing another training session. I’ve found that 7 days works perfectly for me and sets up a schedule that’s easy to keep.

Between resistance training sessions I do the most simple and effective exercise there is for the human body: Walk.

Walking helps me recover from intense training sessions and provides a perfect low-level aerobics session that does not breakdown muscle. If it gets too easy I just walk faster, walk more or walk uphill. Doesn’t matter. Just walk. My dog Ricky loves it, too.

Nutrients

I had many of the nutrients for the program in the cupboard, already. But, I still need to make a comprehensive list and get to a vitamin store.

I haven’t set it up, yet, but I use three of those vitamin boxes with separators to keep all the various nutrients ready to go in the morning and night. Otherwise, its a pain to open 15 different bottles, get one pill out and then screw the cap back on twice a day.

Iron and Hypertension Are Linked

As luck would have it my yearly checkup was scheduled on Day 3. I showed the doctor my article and we discussed the whole program. Because I have hemachromatosis it was also important to talk about how iron in the blood may affect hypertension. While writing the main article for this new blood pressure program I ran accross research that described the link between the two conditions. And the doctor confirmed it.

Excess iron in the blood causes free radicals which are one of the root causes of hypertension. Blaylock says that even an iron level on the high side of normal can significantly raise blood pressure.

Free Radicals – Caused by eating the wrong foods, not having the vitamins in your body to cleanse them and especially having too much iron in the blood. Free radicals damage the brain stem and the cells
lining the arteries (endothelial cells) through a process called Lipid peroxidation whereby the free radicals steal electrons from the lipids in cell membranes. Apparently, this damage itself produces more free radicals. The damage to the arteries decreases the control the elasticity of the
artery. The damage to the brain stem affects nuerons that may be responsible for some kind of primary BP control.

What this means for me is that I could make all the lifestyle changes for my new program and still have problems if my iron levels are not kept in check. Practically speaking I’m going to need a convenient way to measure them without having to get a blood test everytime.

BP Readings

Day 1

157 / 97, 81 Afternoon

LA 143/93, 62

RA 151/90, 64

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Tags: blood pressure, DIY, Health, hypertension, Medical, Personal

This entry was posted on Friday, November 14th, 2008 at 10:31 pm and is filed under DIY, Health, How-To, Medical, Personal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.