How Did I Do on my Lifestyle Change

A few posts ago I explained that my doctor did not like my blood pressure numbers and wanted to put me on medication.  While I am sure medication would be the easier option, I did not want to start my second half-century of life on the “better living through chemistry” plan.  I elected to make some more tweaks to my lifestyle.

Going plant-based was a good start, and this blog is great for accountability, but I obviously needed more.   Some of the things I did were:

1.       I started meditating every day, sometimes twice a day, for at least 10 minutes.  I downloaded the Calm app on my phone and started using several of the options – daily calm, daily movement, different meditation tracks, and mindfulness lessons.

2.       I really cut back on my caffeine.  I love my cold brew with oat milk.  But it, apparently, did not love me.  So, I cut back to only 2 cups of that twice a week and went to chai tea with oat milk for the remaining days of the week.

3.       I checked my blood pressure twice a day, at about the same time.  Once before my meditation and once after.

4.       I increased my movement.  If I just could not get a workout in, I at least got my 8k steps in.  And, on the days I could get a workout in, I made it at least an hour if not more.

5.       I stopped doing everything on my own and started asking for help.  I started saying “no” once in a while to requests to take on additional duties, whether it was at work or my volunteer assignments.

6.       I tweaked my diet just a little bit.  I rarely ate breakfast or more than a couple of meals a day.  And certainly no snacks, but I changed that.  I bought a couple of those bento boxes and filled up the little squares with dried fruits, nuts, maybe some cut veggies, and hummus, and I would snack a few times a day with one or two main meals.

7.       I have always been a water drinker, but I started adding calming teas and kombucha to get even more healthy liquids in.

8.       I kept a lifestyle journal where I logged what time I woke up, how I felt, my movement, my food, my activities (housecleaning, working on my hobbies or languages, any errands that I ran, and volunteering shifts), whether I worked remotely, or in the office, or it was a vacation day, and any irritations that occurred.

I started seeing an improvement within a few weeks of making those changes.  I wasn’t getting as irritated and when I did get irritated (for instance, when my podiatrist's office completely messed up on the insurance submittals and I had to straighten that out), I was able to calm down much faster.  I seemed more calm and, if not happy, content.  I had some more energy, and I was able to get more things done during the day.  And my blood pressure numbers started staying more steady in the “good” range.

I guess the lesson learned is that it is important to make sure my own cup is full before I try to fill someone else’s cup (or, I put on my oxygen mask before I put on someone else's).  And there are always much better options to try than medication. 

Unfortunately, my doctor was not as happy. My BP was still a little high, and I had not lost the amount of weight that she wanted me to lose. So, I did end up going on a version of the DASH diet. Hopefully my next appointment will show enough of an improvement that we can stop discussing medication. I'll keep you posted.