A couple days ago, I went to the doctor for asthma-related problems. My blood pressure was 137/85*, and the nurse told me that I am at pre-hypertension levels.
Oh, the irony.
What is pre-hypertension? I'm glad you asked. Pre-hypertension means that I do not yet have hypertension, but my blood pressure is a bit too high and it could develop into hypertension if I don't make some lifestyle changes. As I am only 25, it's definitely not something I anticipated having to worry about for another 15 years.
In my defense, hypertension is hereditary, and I am inheriting it from both my mom's and dad's side of the family. On the other hand, I haven't been exercising since David and I cancelled our gym memberships a couple months ago (and even before then when I got busy with school and my internship). Also, since David and I are both busy because we are grad students and work full-time, and because funds are tight because only one of us is actually getting paid for working full time, we've been making a tradition of eating frozen pizzas every Friday night. Not exactly habits I should have when I am doubly predisposed to hypertension.
According to the huge glossy poster in the doctor's office, hypertension puts me at risk of stroke and heart attack, which is kind of scary considering that my mom's grandma had a stroke and my grandpa on my dad's side had two heart attacks. The poster also said that hypertension can be combatted with the following lifestyle modifications (which I copied word for word into my planner):
- Increasing physical activity
- Losing weight
- Losing dietary sodium
- Limiting alcohol consumption
- Consuming a low fat diet
- Eat more fruits and vegetables
- Tobacco cessation
Fortunately, I've already made exercising and eating vegetarian meals part of my New Year's resolutions, and these will hopefully lead to some weight loss. I don't smoke or chew tobacco, and I rarely drink alcohol - just the very occasional glass of wine. Unless I start to deep fry my vegetarian meals, I don't think the low fat diet will be a problem.
I wish that cutting my salt intake could be as easy as giving up potato chips, but other than the frozen pizzas, I already try as much as I can to eat healthily. I make almost every meal from scratch. I avoid canned and/or processed foods as much as possible, with the exceptions of tomato sauce, tuna, chicken broth, and cheese. I rarely ever eat junk food. For me, drastically cutting down on salt would mean to stop cooking with salt. I know it's possible - I have a friend who never, ever consumes salts - she just uses garlic and herbs in her cooking. While I'm not sure I'm ready to give up salt competely, I have no problem with giving up frozen, processed foods - no more weekly frozen pizzas for us. I read somewhere that pre-packaged deli meats are high in sodium, so I might get my sandwich meat from the deli counter from now on. Hopefully, these small changes will be enough.
I'm going to see how these modifications work out for me. My mom, who absolutely flipped out when I told her about it, is mailing me a blood pressure monitor so that I can track my blood pressure. If my blood pressure is still too high by June, I'll try being more strict with my salt intake.
* For some perspective, readings equal to or greater than to 140/90 is considered to be hypertension. You need below 120/80 to be healthy. I'm definitely closer to the hypertension readings than the desirable readings.
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