Weight Loss and Blood Pressure Lowering Diet

Wow!  Did my blood pressure shoot up when we found the sunken galleon.

by Jim Meuninck

GOALS 

This past Thanksgiving I measured my blood pressure and it was precipitously high (156/94) so I decided to try dieting and exercise to lower it.  My goals were to lose six pounds in six days and lower my blood pressure by 20%.  What follows is my six-day diet diary.

BACKGROUND 

In the early hours of the AM (Sunday 11/26/06) while laying sleepless in my bed I vowed to try a six day diet intended to help me lose six pounds and lower my blood pressure by 20% or more.  By most standards I am not obese, perhaps not even over weight.  I am 5 feet seven and a half inches tall and I weight 156 lbs.  So I figure if I can lose a pound a day, then others who have more to lose may find this diet even most effective.

The foods I selected (celery, cucumber, onion, tomato, lettuce, broccoli, beans, mushrooms) are known for their blood pressure lowering, diuretic properties. What’s more I vowed not to eat meat, fat, and any form of refined sugar during the six days—no animal protein, animal fat, no margarine, no milk or milk products, no refined sugar in any form, no cheese, no pop, nothing but plant foods, fresh and alive (no factory foods).

DIET DIARY

SUNDAY: Weight: 156 lbs.  Not bad, you’d think.  But I grab my belly fat in two fists and cannot hoist my feet off the ground.  No lie!

BLOOD PRESSURE AM:  156/84 pulse 54. Weight: 156 lbs

Breakfast: Ten ounces of black coffee, no cream, no sugar, and a cup and a half of cut up and boiled (steamed) pieces of celery, onion, green pepper and broccoli, no dressing—plain (substitute oatmeal without milk and sugar, use low fat soy milk).

AM Snack: One half apple. Felt slightly light headed about eleven AM.  Saw left over turkey in frig; god help me it looked delicious, it could have been crawling with maggots and still looked good.  Am I weak?  Yes I am…And still five and 7/8ths days to go…I am pathetic.

Lunch:  Two carrots, one stick of celery, and lettuce salad, fresh limejuice dressing, 12 ounces water.  I buried turkey leftovers in freezer underneath the leftover Thanksgiving pumpkin pie.  There is temptation everywhere, and I am spineless.

BLOOD PRESSURE NOON: 159/82 pulse 53

PM Exercise:  Three to four mile walk in Lake Michigan dunes, got a bit dizzy and rested a couple times.

Dinner:  I wavered here slightly, as friends Mike and Brenda wanted to have a hamburger at Nelson’s Bar on the way home from the hike.  I had a dinner salad, no dressing, no limejuice, nothing and one Miller Light draft (10 ounces).  The salad  croutons and fresh sliced tomatoes were delicious (I almost cried).  I was so hungry that every morsel of my Monk’s meal was delicious.  I am gaining a new perspective on starving, more sensitive to those who are hungry…I am one with them. Here my battle cry:  HUNGER SUCKS!

BLOOD PRESSURE EVENING: 145/74 pulse 56

Snack:  This was no snack at all, but the biggest meal of the day.  I ate the second half of my morning apple, then separated two eggs, poached the whites in boiling water, steamed carrots, broccoli, celery, onions (about a cup each) mixed that with four tablespoons of mild tomato salsa, dropped the steamed egg whites over that, seasoned with salt and pepper and pretended it was a super Western Omelets with double cheese, ham, and sausage with a sizzling steak on top.  Delicious!  Took one 3mg Melatonin and slept like a hibernating bear.

MONDAY: Weight 154.5 lbs  (Lost 1.5 lbs. I’m ahead of schedule.)

Breakfast:  One cup of black coffee, and one cup of cooked oatmeal with 1 cup blueberries and four walnut halves, broken into small pieces, no milk, and, of course no sugar…BUT a half cup of soy milk and one sliced banana.

BLOOD PRESSURE READING AM: 145/72 Pulse 62.  Wow! Great! Ten percent decrease from yesterday morning.

Snack:  Felt a little woozy, light headed, kind of high, not bad, a little scary, but who cares, my weight’s down and so is my blood pressure.  So I feast on a diminutive half apple.

Lunch:  Two and a half cups lettuce mix (commercial crud with red cabbage, carrots and all those unknown pieces they throw in there) plus three olives, and one pickled Hungarian pepper.  I dressed all that with fresh lime juice, seasoned all with salt, pepper, oregano and basil. Finished it all off with two pieces of fresh pineapple, amd a half cup. Cup green tea.

BLOOD PRESSURE READING NOON:  182/91 pulse 56      YIKES! COULD IT BE THE SALTY OLIVES AND HOT PEPPERS, OR THE SALT ON MY SALAD…NO MORE SALT!

PM Exercise:  Mall shopping coupled with a five-mile bike ride.  Later…WHOOPS!  The plan was for a five-mile bike ride, but my shopping devoured all the daylight hours, so at dusk I entered my Kayak and paddled for about two miles, not much exercise today—a disappointment. 

TIP:  Former Secretary of Health Tommy Thompson suggests taking 10,000 step per day.  He wears a pedometer…A good idea!

Afternoon snack:  One cup of Ethiopian Sidamo coffee from Starbucks.  The first taste was explosive, six or eight nuances I had never tasted before.  Ten minutes later my gut hurt and I left half the “Tall” untouched.  I must admit, I am tasting and enjoying simple foods like never before.  My aged taste buds have new life.

Dinner:  I sautéed one five inch Portobello mushroom (no oil—just water) with black beans and Navy beans, seasoned with Lawry salt, oregano, rosemary, garlic and Masala powder. Garnished all that with salsa and top it off with a salad laced in lime dressing.

BLOOD PRESSURE READING: 131/76/56 Pulse 56   I getting healthy!

PM snack:  Two small pieces of pineapple (1/2 cup) and half apple laced with limejuice.  WOW!  Limejuice puts a big taste on the apple.  Try it!

TUESDAY: (WEIGHT 154  LOST ½ LB)

BLOOD PRESSURE AM: 125/72/Pulse 58  Fantastic!

Breakfast:  Not feeling hungry, stomach has shrunk (or my diet no longer turns me on).  I had a banana and pulled a cup of blueberries from freezer to thaw (my ten AM snack).  I washed the banana down with decaf black coffee (that was awful, coffee tasted real sour, couldn’t finish it).

AM Snack: Ate my half apple and blueberry cup, with apple splashed in lime—I love it.  Fruit, however, is not filling, so I will experiment: try to make a Lime/Bean shake, soon, but not desperate enough yet.

Lunch:  Cooked all my Portobello mushrooms, ate one like a steak (froze the others).  As a side, I made a soup of black beans, Navy beans, salsa, oregano, basil, onion powder (No salt, actually washed canned beans to rid as much salt as I could)—washed it all away with one big glass of water.

BLOOD PRESSURE NOON: 125/72/Pulse 63

PM Exercise:  Just finished a super exercise unit:  Filled Jill’s bike with new air pump, pushed off from my yard and rocketed through nine miles of back-roads.  Variable work rates on the pedals, but no loafing—came back soaking with sweat (28 November and I’m sweating outdoors).  I noticed a slight headache twenty minutes after the ride, that went to a near migraine when Jill walked in and complained, “Why isn’t the rabbit ready, and that’s no way to cook a rabbit anyway.”

Dinner:  The rabbit preparation was sheer genius:  I quartered the rodent into a twelve inch fry pan, sliced in carrots, potatoes, onion, celery—covered that with a cup of crushed cranberries—tossed in two and a half minced garlic cloves, then poured over a cup of “Three Buck Chuck” (Cabernet) added ½ cup water, covered and simmered atop the stove.  To hasten it along, starving Jill (wife and highschool teacher) transferred Brer’ Rabbit to the convection oven at 350 degrees.  After which, I turned “Bugs Bunny” once, basted him, and in forty minutes: perfection.  I was going to scrape away the vegetables, my Monk’s meal, while Jill feasted on rabbit.  Somehow a hindquarter of the rabbit jumped on my plate and in my innocence I ate everything except the big bones before I realized my mistake!  Not to worry.  I remember Bradford Angier in his book Outdoor Survival where he said you could, in time, starve to death from a prolonged rabbit diet.  Starve! Why?  Very little fat…Yaa, wohl! Very, very, very little fat.  Okay! Okay!  I diverged from my diet and ate meat.  So what!  I’m no saint, so get over it. My headache, my rabbit knowledge and my weak character caved in (Ooops! Did I mention I had one beer, Pilsner Urquell—very bitter and somewhat light).

Sidebar:  I purchased a package of cherry tomatoes, and what delicious music they make inside my craving mouth.  Each bite cleanses my palate and expands my mind.  A fresh tomato is a sweet, sweet diet food.

Headache continued so I went to bed for thirty minutes and it was gone.  Rough day: computer broke down, got into big trouble at the library…Hogged the library computer while anxious, angry teenagers looked on,  Ahhh! who cares.

PM Snack:  Spend much time opening frig, looking in, fondling a chocolate bar, reading the nutrition label, glaring at it, there in my hand was 48% of my saturated fat for the day.  Shoot me, please!  Why can’t someone make a no fat/no sugar chocolate bar.  For cripes sake, we can bomb half the known world from twenty miles high, but we can’t make a good tasting no calorie candy bar.  I settled for a half apple laced with lime, a half banana, and half handful walnuts.

BLOOD PRESSURE NIGHT:  130/72/Pulse 63

WEDNESDAY  (WEIGHT 152.5 LBS. LOST 1.5 LB (GOOD. THE RABBIT IS STARVING ME!)

BLOOD PRESSURE AM: 148/78/Pulse 58

Breakfast: Just half a banana, not hungry at all.  Had a cup of coffee half caffeine, half decaf okay, with the smallest splash of one percent milk.  By the way, my bowels are sluggish, you’d think with all the fiber, bulk and beans things might be different.  Go figure.

AM Snack:  Lime Apple Delight (as I now call it).  I am amazed how easily I am satisfied, not particularly hungry, no major cravings, looking forward to a black bean and lime shake for afternoon snack.  Dizziness and headaches are gone, full speed ahead.

Lunch: Non eventful.  Healthy Choice Garden Vegetable soup laced with sour kraut. But first I had to plucked a half-cup of noodles from the can…Slimy,Yuck!  Carbs and fat are my enemies.  I washed the salt from the sour kraut with vengeance, stripping it away in a waterfall of fresh (Salt=Public Enemy number 1).  The sour kraut vegetable soup blend was just what I needed. 

TIP: When you combine unlikely flavors from unliked foods, you rarely clean your plate—you eat less.  Trust me. 

Healthy Choice Nutritional Facts One cup:  If you remove the noodles, zero fat; dietary fiber 20 grams; sugar 4 grams (drat!); protein 5 grams; salt 20% (durrrrat!)…Product made from vegetables and vegetable stock.  From now on I make my own vegetable stock without all the salt.  Sourkraut has no fat, no sugar and if you wash the hell out of it, very little sugar or salt, but lots of fiber.

BLOOD PRESSURE NOON: 141/77/Pulse 59  

PM Exercise:  Cork popping bike ride, seven miles at a good clip, sweating profusely (which for me, a non sweater, means my back was damp).

Dinner: Jill had spaghetti and mushrooms. I had half a boiled chicken breast (no skin). I know, I’m easing up, breaking rules, I said no meat and three days into the diet I am cheating.  Read my lips, I’m no saint. My will power flags at half-mast. During the last ten minutes while cooking the breast I removed it from the noodle water, cut it in half and soaked it in the simmering spaghetti sauce.  No spaghetti for me, but the tomato soaked chicken and Mesclun mix salad, supplemented with carrots, tomatoes, cucumber tasted great.  The other venial sin was Marukan dressing:  It has no oil, but is high in salt and sugar. The side vegetable was a huge half head of broccoli unseasoned and terrific.  I am discovering the true, clean tastes of fresh food, and they are distinctive.

BLOOD PRESSURE NIGHT: 132/73/Pulse 70 (after doing pull ups and push ups)

PM Snack: One half cup decaf coffee, nothing else on my diet appealed to me. Jill had a chocolate something, Yeah!  When I kissed her goodnight, I could smell it on her breath. How does that help me?  Yes, I know, I am pathetic, sounding off, biting the hand that feeds me, Jill must do what’s best for her.  I, on the other hand, must do what’s best for her too.

THURSDAY:  Weight 152 lbs.  Lost ½ pound after a day of breaking rules, and only moderate exercise. Let that feeble loss be a lesson to me.  Today I take the chain to my back, no cheating you whimp, and more work!  My goal is to jump down two pounds, be down to 150 pounds by Friday morning.

BLOOD PRESSURE AM:  132/75/Pulse 62…Blood pressure is good in the morning, pulse is typically highest then, like a squirrel coming out of hibernation, my heart cranks up, and blasts oxygen and nutrition to my sleeping cells, jump starting my day.

Breakfast: I drink one cup high-test coffee…I drink it like I’m sipping hundred dollar cognac—I relish every throat burning blast.  Why?   Because there will be no breakfast for the rule breaker—just punishment.  And how I love punishment.  I cozy up to the self inflicted pain, yes I do, and it can’t hurt me; It cannot break me down—I will win, I will destroy the evil cravings that speak to my witless mind.

LEST I FORGET, MY ENEMIES ARE: fat, sugar, salt, and my craving brain. Point of interest:  My cravings build during the day and are most intense in the evening—watching food advertisements on television.  That gull-durn Superman pizza ad, that particular one fills my mouth with saliva; and that extreme close up of “Whopper”, dripping with oil, cheese all aglow, thick, fatty, oozing from the bun, that’s sets off a five-alarm crave.  But you know what, my cravings seem less intense.  Before the diet I was eating everything in sight, every time, all the time.  I have discovered (late in life) discipline. Discipline me lad, discipline, it makes a man out of a boy. Slap the chain, feel the pain—experience the gain. Discipline me wee laddies and lassies, aye and yee be a better person for it. (Yes.  I’m getting a little crazy, and that helps too).

AM Snack:  Nibbled at dough and berries as I made a field berry pie.  Piecrust contained no fat, not oil, just four egg whites, water, no salt, no refined sugar.  Berries were raspberries, blueberries, strawberries and blackberries, sweetened with Stevia (plant based non caloric sweetener).  I made just a bottom crust with whole wheat flour, shoved it in the oven for twenty minutes at 350 degrees, pulled it to cool, added the berries, and ¼ cup walnuts, baked it all again 25 minutes at 325 degrees, until crust golden.  Piecrust was tough, a bit leathery and in some places hard a tortoise carapace, inedible for certain. That’s okay!  I can’t eat too much…And I didn’t.

Lunch: Left over minestrone, sauerkraut soup.  Satisfying enough, enough said. Drank one cup, high-test coffee.

BLOOD PRESSURE:  146/79/Pulse 63  3PM

PM Exercise: Killer hike, four plus miles through the marsh, down Turpin road, with all the big trees and deep shadows—very cold and dark, and kind of scary. Walked mostly, but ran some too…Nah, I didn’t think anyone was chasing me—maybe, maybe not.

Dinner: Ubiquitous salad laced with some damn no calorie dressing, tasted like toad urine. No beer, just water and a huge head of broccoli, every morsel of which was scrumptious—just steamed, no seasoning. The true taste of Mother Nature’s great gift was satisfying enough. Also, I found a cup of some left over salsa bean thing, added a bit of Jill’s spaghetti sauce, and the flavor improved a bunch.  Jill turned up the television news, seeking tomorrow’s weather—big storm on the way. Then she packed out of the living room and joined me at the dinner table.  We chatted, small talk mostly, until I mentioned some strange nuances about my diet that killed what could have been a very cordial supper dialogue.

PM Snack: Ate some berries from the mostly leftover pie, crust was dry and as brittle as desert dead wood.  I may use the crust to fill muskrat holes in my seawall.

BLOOD PRESSURE: 137/78/pulse 63.  Better, high end still too high.

FRIDAY:   (151 lbs, 15.5 ounces) I lost one ounce, or at least I think so. If I had had a bowel movement…then perhaps the results would have been more impressive. But that’s nobody’s fault but my own.  Today I need to dig deep and push on.  Come rain or shine, a four-mile hike mind you, this is my reward.

Breakfast:  My breakfast was unique.  It remembered years ago, some such experiment where I discovered eating breakfast first then measuring blood pressure after gave more optimistic results.  So I try it—after the poor weight loss reading, I am scratching for a positive moment.

BLOOD PRESSURE:  132/72/Pulse 54   Yes! Third lowest pressure reading since beginning diet, and I had a cup of ‘half and half’, coffee that is, half decaf, half caffeine, with a pinch of soy milk.

Lunch:  Skipped it, too busy.

Snack:  Whole apple, showered in lime.

Dinner: Before I blaspheme packaged factory foods, let me tell you about supper: My lovely wife delivered me a blueberry shake made with skim milk and Nature’s Plus Spirutein High Protein Energy Meal sweetened with Stevia.  The soy product contains soy protein and Spirulina, no fat, no refined sugar, and only 6% of my daily sodium allotment, plus 7 grams of protein (in 10 ounces).  It was delicious.

Saturday Morning:  Diet over!  Blood Pressure goals reached:  139/79/pulse 58.  Weight:  151 lbs.

DIET RESULTS

I lowered my Systolic blood pressure by 16% and my Diastolic blood pressure by 11%.  I fell short of my goal to lower both by 20%.  There is more to this blood pressure thing than weight loss.  I lost 5 pounds, one pound less than I had hoped.

DISCUSSION: If you are still reading this, then you are really motivated (or extremely bored), congratulations on both counts.  Some things I have learned: First, the dieting mantra: no fat, no refined sugar and less salt.  Second: I don’t have to soothe my emotions with food.  I am a big boy now, life has its ups and downs and satisfying my food cravings is not the only way to find sweet happiness.  True food is one of the great delights of life, but so is discovery, and I am discovering much about myself and about food: There are a huge variety of foods and combinations of foods to select from, many are healthy—live foods mostly, but f it comes in a box its factory built and probably not good for you.

Since the 1950s Americans have grown huge, because we have caved in and become addicted to energy concentrated convenience foods, boxed factory foods, the stuff that comes from drive through windows—manufactured foods, if you will.  And we fill our houses with the packaged time bombs of fat, sugar and salt.  Go on, read the labels and blink, if it comes in a box it ain’t all that good for you. We need to grocery shop more wisely: Buy more live fruits and vegetables, switch to skinless chicken breasts, eat rabbit, skinless fish, and other game low in cholesterol and fat.  Dig a hole in your back yard and bury hamburgers, sausage, brats, pizza, sodas, donuts, Italian (white flour) pasta dishes and cheese—at least for six days.  I repeat none of these foods, not until you get through the first six days of this diet.  Then take a break, treat your self, but go “litely”, just taste and savor, don’t gorge, no second helpings, and leave something on the plate for the cockroaches. If you must have cheese use it as a condiment, not a snack—use big flavored cheeses and very little to flavor a dish. 

So after these first six days I can ease myself back into life for a week end, eat what I like with the mantra in mind of course (no fat, no sugar, little salt).  Come next Monday, I will climb aboard the scales—no cowardice now.  If I have gained weigh, back on the diet I go, for three more days until I have lost what I have gained. 

One last thought, Jill, my wife, is not my cheerleader, she did not change her diet or her eating habits, while I munched on cardboard and paste. She ate pork chops, chocolate and coffee creamed with half and half.  And it was okay.  It wasn’t her diet, it was my diet.  I did it for me.  I was selfish about it, it’s for me, for me, for me.  I love me!  The rest of the world will notice the results: I look more handsome; I feel better; I am stronger; I am more confident; my waist line and blood pressure have shrunk and I am happy.

FOLLOW UP SURPRISE:  One month later, it is Monday, January 8, 2007, and I weigh 152 lbs.  Up one pound, but that’s not bad after just returning from a 12 day trip to fat filled Mexico.  I am dieting this week and will lower my weigh to 149.  I know I can do it, no problem.  

So, as far as weight loss is concerned, my less salt, no fat, no sugar diet works, even when I cheat on weekends.  But it has not answered my blood pressure problem. My blood pressure this morning is precipitously high: 186/90/50 pulse.  What to do?  See my doctor! Now!