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Wednesday, May 11th 2011

I have a lot of questions about blood pressure, and by now, i have helped at least 100 individuals get off blood pressure medication that they seemed to spend a lifetime on. I am not a magician, intead i apply tried and tested ways to change a situation for people that can sometimes seem desperate!

A lot of people ask too what does blood pressure mean? And what ranges should they be in to be considered healthy?

A brief description would be that when doctors take your blood pressure, they are checking how hard the blood pushed against the arteries and veins as it moves around your body.

It is measured in mm of mercury and is always written as two numbers.

The top number, the systolic reading, measures the pressure of the blood when your heart pumps it out and the bottom number, the diastolic number, measures the pressure when your heart relaxes and refills.

Accoring to a million medical journals and accepted to be fact by 100% of the medical community, high blood pressure is diagnosed when readings are persistently above 140/90.

This means you are significantly increasing the risk of having a stroke or heart attack, and can lead to kidney disease, so its always a great idea to have your blood pressure checked at least once a year. You can also buy home machines cheaply in supermarkets these days.

One of the key reasons your blood pressure will be over the top is salt, this is the single most destructive reason why people get high blood pressure and this is why diet is so important. Salt really is the hidden evil in foods. People always go on about fats and sugars, but salt is equally as bad if not more so, and is more or less in every food, especially pre packaged food such as ready meals and all processed food, this literally is a disaster waiting to happen so try and get it out out of your life as soon as possible, and im VERY SERIOUS!!!!!

Other contributory factors are alcohol and a lack of exercise but we will touch on these important points again!!

Diet is so important, fail to pay attention and you’re on a one way track to ill health, change it now if you want to be at your best health levels!!!

Twitt
Posted on

Wednesday 29th December

The great news should be that you are back into your workouts, a lot better food is going into your body and y0u’re not having a drink every day anymore. If you can say yes to all of this, then you should be feeling heck of a lot better than on the 25th and 26th of december. There is nothing worse than that feeling of overdoing it and having to lay down because you feel so full!

If we’re honest we have all had that feeling more than once and most of us don’t learn from year to year! What we can learn from though is the length of time we do it for, that is when we restrict the damge the rich living does to out liver, our heart and our general health and wellbeing.

It’s said by many people at this time of year that they don’t know how all these people who drink every day do it! It must be terrible to feel that bad every day of your life!! Unimaginable to some of us but people do live like this and all towns have a hardcore of drinkers who hit the pubs every day. That hardcore group is becoming less and less though due to the effects of the alcohol and lack of proper nutrition. Problems associated with drinking every day in excess include high blood pressure, weak heart functtion, diabetes, depression, sleeping problems, behavioural problems, extremely low energy levels, domestic violence to name just a few!!!

It makes perfect sense then to live your life as far away from that type of lifestyle as possible. Nothing wrong at all with drink in moderation, but when its something you have to do every day or most days, its time to recognise it as a problem that can destroy your life in all areas. You will always find someone to drink with in the pub and as the old saying goes, misery loves company!!!

The next couple of days is the perfect time to get out there in the fresh air and do something worthwhile again in training terms. The ice and snow has finally gone, and the temperatures are not so bad either allowing you a full range of options to get yourself back feeling your best again. How long that takes will depend on how far you’ve gone off the rails. Your body has to re-balance after all. The general rule is that for every week you have off, it takes 1-2 weeks to get back to normal so work it out like that. Two weeks off may mean up to four weeks to get back to your best.

However long it takes, its time to take the first steps now and make it happen again!!!

Twitt
Posted on

Day 3

So where are we today? All of you are positive on here, and the phone calls and texts i’ve had suggest the same too. There is a real sense that we can all do it this time, and some really positive habits are beginning to take shape. Most of you are changing your shopping lists, things like brown rice, wholewheat pasta, sweet potatoes, chicken, turkey, lean beef, porridge, vegetables of all kinds, fruit of all kinds, etc etc are becoming staples of your weekly shops.

If you work on the thinking that as long as you eat well 80%-85% of the time, you’re going to be treating your body well, giving it enough energy to perform, enough nutrients to boost your immune system, and enough good nutrients to drive your metabolism up to another level, burn more calories, burn more fat and shed the unwanted fat on your body. Try and get these nutrients in on a regular basis, and spread your meals and snacks throughout the day. Have a good breakfast, snack mid-morning, have a healthy but not huge lunch, have an energy filled snack mid-afternoon when your energy may well be flagging, and have a really good evening meal after a hard day and your activity, loaded with lots of veg and try to make your plate as colourful as possible, the more variety of vegetables you have in the week the better.

You should be eating fruit and vegetables for not only the reason you KNOW they are good for you, scientists are always telling us you should be eating them for what you DON”T know. They are finding out new things out all the time about fruit and vegetables and their healing properties, and their abilities to fight off various diseases.

When you are cooking all of this good food, i take it that most of you don’t add salt to your meal, that practice seems to have largely vanished and salt on foods has long been associated with rises in blood pressure of course. I would guess though that some of you still add salt to the cooking process, and do me a favour and get rid of that too? It really makes sense to get rid of all added salt in the cooking process and those of you suffering from blood pressure issues, definitely need to limit or get rid of the salt. It may take a bit of time to get used to, but you will be soon telling me about the benefits you have been getting since getting rid of salt. 

Also, salt is known to lead to water retention. Those of you who feel bloated will find that by drinking more water and getting rid of added salt, and avoiding salt-loaded products (ready meals are prime culprits), your bloated feelings will soon go.

How’s your workouts going today? If you did a resistance based workout monday, i would tend to do another one today such as my home based circuits as i have listed in previous posts. I would like you to keep your same numbers this week, and look to make improvements once a week if possible. We are looking for a steady rise in performance here and if you can make a good rise each week, then you will have accomplished 12 such rises in 12 weeks, and believe me, that will be highly impressive.

A quick note on alcohol, if you want to put on weight, and really hurt your health, carry on drinking every night, but if you don’t, and i know you really don’t, let’s cut out alcohol, particularly in the week and cut it down to once a week max, or if you are looking for amazing results, i would cut it out for a while. Your body is much less likely to burn fat if you drink on a regular basis. Just try it if you don’t believe me, giving up the booze for a while will help you sleep better, give you more energy and burn more fat and get into great shape.

Let me know how you get on!

Keri

Twitt