Sport Diet (and exercise) to lower blood pressure

Sport Fitness
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KatCH

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Hi everyone,

My husband was just diagnosed with high blood pressure (he's going to be 28 in 2 weeks). I have been trying to do some research on nutrition to lower blood pressure, but most of what i read is kind of confusing to me. His doctor prescribed him a medication and I am so nervous that once he's on the meds he'll never be able to go off.

He is in the military and in Sept he is supposed to go to Ranger school. He can't be on the meds then so he wants to stop them just before going. That also scares me and I am afraid with the stress of the school he could suffer a stroke or heart attack.

I'd like to get him set up with a good healthy diet plan and exercise plan to lower his blood pressure naturally, but need help a) coming up with something he will go for and b) convincing him that it will work without the meds. He's got a major sweet tooth and an addiction to soda and fast food. I nag him all the time about it and he is "trying", but this weekend he went out and bought a 24 pack of Mountain Dew and a 12 pack of coke claiming it was for the kids that would be at our BBQ Sunday (there were a total of 3 kids coming).

Any suggestions or ideas on a) ways to break him of bad habits and b) what kind of diet/exercise plan he should be on?

Thanks in advance!!
 
A few questions; is he overweight? (use the BMI scale to get a rough guide). What exercise does he currently do? If he's in the Military is he on a physical training program, and if so is his instructor not able to help him? What medication is he on and are there things in the instructions he has to avoid?

High blood pressure can be caused by a single factor or most often a number of factors, and it never happens overnight, it's often built up over time (years). So reducing it will not happen over night either, but the good news is it can be lowered safely in less time than it took to get it!

Getting him to switch to a healthy eating style may be the hardest part of this plan, speaking from experience with my own father (who's been on medication for hbp for the last 5 years!, and he eats junk and drinks lots of soda too, and wont listen to anyone about the food he eats). Your other half really has to want to make these changes himself, otherwise it's just not going to happen.

Things you can do are switch his soda to zero calorie, and look at reducing his soft drink consumption down gradually, so you'll need to find healthier alternatives like natural/pure fruit juices (and water them down) and just plain water (I dare say).

Food wise, who cooks his meals? If it's him then he needs to start planning around a baseline healthy diet, one that includes vegetables and lean sources of protein for at least a third of his main diet. If you cook for him then you need to plan what he'll be eating, so it'll be down to you!

It's easy for me to say just switch his foods over to this style of eating, but like I said, he has to want to make this change otherwise you'll be swimming up-stream all the time! You should start by introducing a vegetable based meal (2/3 veg, 1/3 protein) at least once a week, and if he likes it the following week give it to him twice and aim to increase this frequency over time. One thing I do know is that the longer the transition the more someone tends to stick to it, and a person also becomes more aware of what they are eating... whereas if you instantly change lots of things, initially a person may adapt but they'll soon miss their 'old foods' and eventually they slip back and at worst relapse back in to their old eating habits. So adjust his food slowly... note down meals he enjoys (which IS THE most important thing when it comes to food, it has to taste good!). Over the period of a few months you should get enough meals to make a decent plan for him to stick to, which will help lower his blood pressure and maybe even slim him down a little!
 
Well, first off...I don't think he's "overweight" although the BMI calculator might say so. I just know that with the military he has to meet certain height/weight requirements and he always has to be "taped" since he's so tall. It's been that way for as long as I've known him. However, I do know he could stand to slim down a bit.

For PT, he's not as active. He's a drill sgt. and so instead of actually doing his own PT, he has to instruct and so he doesn't get as much of a work out in. He's trying to catch up since he's going to ranger school and their PT test is pretty tough (so I hear). He just doesn't have a lot of time. I am encouraging him to do the beachbody Insanity work out with me, but he'll be out of town visiting his family next week and therefore on his own for any kind of exercise.

Anyway, his blood pressure has been elevated for at least the last 5 years according to his military physical records, but he wasn't officially diagnosed until a week ago. I'm pretty sure it comes from years of living off of fast food and other junk food and a high stress job. Apparently it doesn't run in his family so it's gotta be external factors. I've tried my best to help understand that he need to fix his diet, but he never seems to get it and I try approaching from different angles too (like $230 on fast food in 2 weeks is unacceptable). I understand he has to want it himself to make the change and that is the biggest challenge. No matter if I refuse to buy soda at the grocery store, he still goes out and buys it on his own.

As far as at home meals, I do the cooking and try to keep it light and fresh. In that past I have been a bit heavy on carbs, but have been trying to fix that. I NEVER cook with butter, I hardly ever use canned ingredients and if I do, I look for low sodium options, I use whole wheat toast and brown rice as opposed to white, although it was a battle to get him to eat the wheat bread instead of white. I have found though that he really likes when I cook some sort of meat (chicken, beef, salmon) and toss it over a mixed green salad. So that's a good start I think. But when he tops it off with 2 cans of soda, it just negates the whole effort.

Do you know of a good resource for healthy recipes for a diet specifically geared towards reducing blood pressure? I guess it makes sense to try to taper off slowly, but he doesnt have the time if he wants to pass his physical for ranger school. Once he is there, hopefully 3 months without fast food and soda will break him of his habit and then the challenge will be sticking with it when he gets home. But you are saying that a diet with more veggies than protein is best? Or just to substitute some meals like that?


Oh and the medication they put him on is Micardis. Apparently the doctor said it would be ok to go off of it for ranger school, but I am still skeptical. I don't exactly trust the military doctors and am really scared that he could shock his system going into such a high stress environment.

Thanks again for the advice. It's really unsettling since he is so young to be diagnosed with hbp. Usually you see it more in people who are at least over 40.
 
I wonder if there might be a stress factor? Of course you should consider exercise, weightloss, less junk etc but don't forget the mental health!
 
Mickan said:
I wonder if there might be a stress factor? Of course you should consider exercise, weightloss, less junk etc but don't forget the mental health!
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Oh I am sure stress has something to do with it, but unless he chooses a different profession, I'm not sure there is anyway around it. I guess I'm trying to figure out what factors I can control to help lower the bp without medications.
 
Hi again,


For ideas of what to cook I would simply look for/through healthy lifestyle magazines and cook books and make a meal plan up with him. If you plan out meals in advance each week and start writing them down for him to see (maybe put a menu on the fridge, or somewhere where he's going to have to look at it each day more then once), he may become more interactive in deciding what to eat and start making suggestions?!

Can you persuade him to start reading up on healthy nurtrition and the effects of bad nutrition? If he's educating himself regularly about what foods are better he'll be more likley to want to adopt a healthier eating plan.

Other things to motivate him to make a change are, you could mention politely how much he spends a on food and remind him that if he ate at home more he'll have more money to spend on other things (like you). And what will the scenario/consequences be if he doesn't get entry into Ranger school?
 
Thanks! I have tried to get him to write down everything he eats daily just so he can get a picture of it, but he won't. I guess I'll try the menu idea.

Visual examples work well for him I think. Like for instance they featured a thing called Eat This Not That on the Today Show last week and their featured item was burgers (he loves burgers). And it showed how many calories and how much sodium was packed into those burgers at the restaurants (in one there were over 5000mg of sodium and over 1700 cals!) He just had no idea. I mean he knew it was bad, he just didn't realize HOW bad. So I think that was a good example for him. He has cut back on the fast food since I made such a big deal about how much he was spending on it and how bad it was for him, but I don't think he has really made a sustainable change. I just hope he will finally realize that it's more than just Burger King that is bad for him that he has to make better choices everywhere. It's a struggle.

The worst is by far the soda and the energy drinks. He loves the Monster coffee flavored drinks and when he is in cycle he sometimes has like 3 of those per day. He hates regular coffee and wont even touch it.

Is there maybe a book I can recommend for him to read? Or get and read excerpts to him?

As far as consequeces for not getting into ranger school....not really anything more than a huge blow to his ego. He doesn't actually want to become a ranger, but completing the school looks good for his military resume and for promotions and his career.

Thanks for the help!!
 
KatCH said:
Thanks! I have tried to get him to write down everything he eats daily just so he can get a picture of it, but he won't. I guess I'll try the menu idea.

Visual examples work well for him I think. Like for instance they featured a thing called Eat This Not That on the Today Show last week and their featured item was burgers (he loves burgers). And it showed how many calories and how much sodium was packed into those burgers at the restaurants (in one there were over 5000mg of sodium and over 1700 cals!) He just had no idea. I mean he knew it was bad, he just didn't realize HOW bad. So I think that was a good example for him. He has cut back on the fast food since I made such a big deal about how much he was spending on it and how bad it was for him, but I don't think he has really made a sustainable change. I just hope he will finally realize that it's more than just Burger King that is bad for him that he has to make better choices everywhere. It's a struggle.

The worst is by far the soda and the energy drinks. He loves the Monster coffee flavored drinks and when he is in cycle he sometimes has like 3 of those per day. He hates regular coffee and wont even touch it.

Is there maybe a book I can recommend for him to read? Or get and read excerpts to him?

As far as consequeces for not getting into ranger school....not really anything more than a huge blow to his ego. He doesn't actually want to become a ranger, but completing the school looks good for his military resume and for promotions and his career.

Thanks for the help!!
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A food diary IS a very good way to check ones diet, what's his reason to not want to do one? I would still stick with the menu idea, which will need some planning work on your behalf.

Restaurant food will always be slightly-to-a lot less healthy than home cooking. Burgers at home can have very little fat in them is you buy extra lean beef mince, and as long as you watch the serving sizes they can be eaten daily. It's good that he realised just how bad the fast food versions are!

Most of the books I have read are sports/bodybuilding nutrition related, but out of those the Okinawa program was quite informative, although it should be taken with a pinch of salt (hehe no pun intended). There is also a book called 'Plant based Nutrition and Health' by Stephen Walsh which you (and your other half) may want to read, there are several parts in it related to blood pressure and how to reduce it just by changing what you eat. And although both these books aimed at vegetarian/vegans I would still recommend them to anyone interested in making their diets better.

As for the dreaded monster drinks, oh dear! The lesser of two evils would be that he abstain from drinking them at least three hours before sleeping. Caffeine is okay daily but he should read up on the effects of too much and how it's processed by the body, he may decide to cut down when he learns more about them.
 
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