Would like to get thoughts on here to see if others have had similar experiences dealing with any of these. I am a little over 5’ 10” about 190-200lbs at any given time and have lifted weights for about 15 years (can usually rep 275# on the bench for example). I live a pretty healthy lifestyle, go to the gym 5-6 days a week both lifting and cardio and am an on again/off again serious cyclist.

About 2 years ago I was found to have high BP and am now on daily meds that have it in the perfect zone. Now it appears through the last blood test that I have pretty high cholesterol and blood sugar. Neither of my parents have any of this. The only things I can see to improve on is lose another 10lbs or so (going to be hard to not loose muscle) by controlling better on portion control and cut out the booze that I do admit to consume a little too much of.

I asked the doctor what I could do and he pretty much said “take medicine.” Thing is, I don’t want to be on any medicines at all!

Any ideas or thoughts are greatly welcomed.

Well, I suppose the solution will depend on what the underlying cause of your high blood sugar and cholesterol is. Did the doctor give you any information about that? Are you pre-diabetic?

What do you eat?

I have been on bp meds since I was 30 years old. I tried to control my bp with a low sodium diet, but it didn't make any difference. You might be in the same boat.

As far as the high cholesterol and blood sugar numbers - those can usually be brought down with some changes to your diet. I'd be interested to see what your diet looks like.

I have been on bp meds since I was 30 years old. I tried to control my bp with a low sodium diet, but it didn't make any difference. You might be in the same boat.

As far as the high cholesterol and blood sugar numbers - those can usually be brought down with some changes to your diet. I'd be interested to see what your diet looks like.

Turning 30 next month.......

A usual work day diet consist of:
5:30am - glass of fat free milk
7:00am - 2-3 egg whites & 2 coffee
9:30am - cottage chese or oatmeal with splenda
11-12:15 - Gym
12:15 - chicken caeser wrap
2pm - coffee
7pm - 1-2 breast of chicken w/ brown rice & some wine

Weekends usually consist of healthy breakfast and lunch but dinner meals such as burgers at a restuarant and a good amount of beer if with the right company. Open to any other comments to my diet as well.

Did the doctor give you any information about that? Are you pre-diabetic?

Nope. God, I hope not.

Are you intentionally trying to avoid fat and vegetables?

Are you intentionally trying to avoid fat and vegetables?

Nope. I do regularly eat salads and some fruit as well.

Thanks.

Turning 30 next month.......

A usual work day diet consist of:
5:30am - glass of fat free milk
7:00am - 2-3 egg whites & 2 coffee
9:30am - cottage chese or oatmeal with splenda
11-12:15 - Gym
12:15 - chicken caeser wrap
2pm - coffee
7pm - 1-2 breast of chicken w/ brown rice & some wine

Weekends usually consist of healthy breakfast and lunch but dinner meals such as burgers at a restuarant and a good amount of beer if with the right company. Open to any other comments to my diet as well.

Your diet doesn't look like it would throw your cholesterol and blood sugar numbers off by a lot. What did your healthy cholesterol numbers (HDL) look like?

I unfortunatly don't know, other than that everything was good.

I haven't had the cholesterol problem but in the past four years I've gone from chronically low blood pressure to borderline hypertension on several occasions.

Cutting out salt and limiting caffeine does wonders for me. I shop for foods that have low sodium content (reading the labels, not biting on things that have "LOW SODIUM!" plastered all over them, necessarily). There are low/no-sodium seasonings for just about everything I use in that department and the taste is still excellent (e.g. no sodium lemon-pepper seasoning for fish).

The sodium thing's been a really easy change to make. Very low lifestyle impact and big reward. The caffeine's been a little harder to let go of.

The oats and brown rice in your diet should help considerably with the cholesterol. While alcohol isn't going to affect that (moderate/2 12oz beers/day has actually been show to raise HDL ("good cholesterol") levels), it isn't going to help the high blood pressure. If you're getting plastered with your buddies on the weekend it's going to undo the week of not drinking and eating right as far as your blood pressure is concerned.

Hmm Interesting... It might be worth your while to start eating MORE leafy greens and other potassium, calcium and magnesium rich foods. I know you said that you do eat salads, but a salad with ice berg lettuce and cucumbers isnt the same thing as a salad with spinach, broccoli, bell peppers, avocados and other nutrient rich foods such as those. You might want to start including some healthy fats in your diet as well such as olive oil, almonds, omega 3 supps., peanuts etc. Check out http://whfoods.org/genpage.php?tname=disease&dbid=15#dietarycauses to see more indepth about the kind of diet you should adopt for Hypertension http://whfoods.org/genpage.php?tname=fightdz&dbid=2#discussion --> that's for high cholesterol...

Also, you seem to drink alot of coffee lol I'm pretty guilty of that too! However, with your condition you might want to try weeding yourself off the caffine... 3 cups of coffee especially drip brewed coffee could contain as much as 450 milligrams of caffine. Maybe switch one of those to decaf? And then next month switch two of those coffees out of three to decaf? OR you could start drinking espresso or americanos which have about half the caffine of drip brew, A 2 oz shot of espresso has anywhere between 50-75mg of caffine. Plus espresso really brings out the true essence of coffee!
Hope this helps!

Suggestions:
Make sure you are getting enough fiber in your diet. Most people don't, and your sample diet doesn't look like it's likely particularly high. High soluble fiber tends to lower LDL cholesterol.

It looks like you have virtually no healthy fats in your diet based on your sample menu -- look towards nuts (i personally really like peanut butter and almond butter, as well as macadamia nuts and walnuts, and just have a small amount now and then throughout the day), salmon (for omega 3) or fish oil, avocados, etc. The only source of fat I can guess from this sample menu is from the Cottage cheese, which is going to be largely saturated animal fat -- not a healthy source. I personally have cottage cheese frequently as well, but I make sure to get large amounts of vegetable based unsaturated fat to compensate, and always go for reduced fat cottage cheese.

High blood pressure can be caused by a lot of things, sodium in the diet, stress, genetic factors, smoking pot, etc.

Thanks for the feedback everyone!:)

Cutting out salt and limiting caffeine does wonders for me. I shop for foods that have low sodium content (reading the labels, not biting on things that have "LOW SODIUM!" plastered all over them, necessarily). There are low/no-sodium seasonings for just about everything I use in that department and the taste is still excellent (e.g. no sodium lemon-pepper seasoning for fish).


Is there any salt substitute that kinda tastes like salt? I tried one and it sucked. I want to cut back on sodium though, but for things like soup and veggies, I just can't eat them without salt. Well, I can, but it tastes alot worse.

I don't agree with everything this guy has to say but these articles (http://www.mercola.com/article/hypertension/index.htm) I have found useful :)

I'm not a doctor or any kind of medical professional and I encourage you to seek their advice because they would be able to help a lot more than random people on the internet. Having said that, I had a similar experience so maybe it can help.

I was able to drop my readings down to normal and the doctor told me that I really didn't need to be on any more medication--here's what I did.

1. I quit my high-stress job and got something I enjoyed more that wasn't too stressful.

2. Lost all the weight: I was in the obese category: 5'11"-6'0" at 210+lbs. I dropped down to 170 lbs.

3. I quit eating processed foods (high in sodium and sugar) and drinking processed drinks (high in sodium and sugar).

4. I quit drinking alcohol and caffeine.

5. No smoking.

6. I did real cardio for 30 minutes several times a week.

I had to take daily readings per the doctors instructions and here's what I found:

1. Smoking, drinking alcohol, and drinking caffeine raised my BP to high levels instantly. The biggest and quickest drop in readings was due to the elimination of smoking, caffeine, and alcohol.

2. The effect of stress on my BP was reduced proportionately to the amount of body fat I lost. Once I got to my target, perfect weight I could tolerate stressful situations longer and of more intensity without seeing a noticeable change in BP readings.

3. At my target, perfect weight I can eat high sodium foods without seeing a noticeable increase in blood pressure readings as long as they are eaten very infrequently.

While I was obese, and even when I was only 10 lbs overweight, I would get a huge spike in BP readings from consumption of high sodium foods. Something I think is probably true, but I don't know of any evidence for, is that being even a little overweight is just as bad as being obese when it comes to blood pressure. At least that's what I experienced from my readings.