Gettin’ Better

All the time.

Well I know that blood pressure control starts with diet and exercise.

I’ve been exercising, to the tune of 2400+ miles ridden on my bike in the past 12 months!

Plus, we’ve always eaten reasonably well, not too much in the way of fast foods or fried foods. We did eat more fresh veggies in California, it’s true, but overall we eat what is generally considered a reasonably healthy diet.

But my BP has taken a hike, and I’m not happy about it.

I’ve investigated the wide variety of medications used to treat high blood pressure, and also the many possible side-effects.

At this point I accept that diet and exercise, alone, aren’t enough.

…

Ha! Who am I kidding? I’ve always said I’ll take medication to treat high blood pressure (back when it was a future thing) only if diet and exercise aren’t sufficient.

So I took a look at what I eat, and have come to the sad conclusion that my twice daily use of soy sauce is two times too many. 920 freaking milligrams of sodium per tablespoon pf soy sauce. And I probably used at least one per meal!

My poor heart!

I’ll have to find something new for lunch. Ramen noodles, flavored with soy and sambal have been instrumental in  driving my weight loss these past 18 months. And as for flavoring my rice with soy and sambal, I’ve been doing that since my friend Jeff turned me onto the idea back in 1996. I’m sure I can have soy/sambal noodles and rice once a week, but 3-5 times like I did until today? No more!

And that’s how I measure getting older or some might even say growing up. Figuring out the problem and accepting the solution and then doing it, no whining, no complaining. I’m not happy, but some things you don’t mess with.

Here’s an unrelated image just to brighten the post a bit. It’s a composite of a time-lapse set of photos I took of the birds feeding outside my office window.