My low sodium diet

We like to use Spike Seasoning on some veggies, which is a blend of a bunch of different herbs and spices developed by a nutritionist. It does have salt, but is considered low sodium. They do sell a salt free version, but I haven’t tried that. They also have a bunch of other flavors now, but I’ve only had the original

I add a lot of cayenne to any food I eat now too.

Yeah I actually read that when I was googling the DASH diet. I’m eating eggs and yogurt most days, and there is iodine in my multivitamin. Pretty sure I won’t be deficient.

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Seaweed snacks are quite delicious too!! They’re naturally flavorful because they’re high in glutamate (the umami flavor profile MSG tries to replicate).

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So I’ve had 3 better (not good yet but better) readings in a row. That tells me that stress is at least as important as diet bc I had an afternoon off Friday and yesterday my sister came down to hang out. Also I ate Mexican food yesterday. (But low sodium the rest of the day.)

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not to steal your thread, my BP readying was around 110/75 just now.

I’m thinking of stopping my meds and see where that gets me. Last time I did that I got a rebound that scared me a little (135ish). But right now I’m on the lowest dosage so hopefully the rebound won’t be as drastic.

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dr google says that stress isn’t a proven reason for increased blood pressure other than in a short-term situation.

Most things aren’t proven, or probably can’t be proven due the inability of an unbiased random human trial. And of the proven things, many are questionable (methodology, funding, biases, interpretation, level of significance, etc.)

You know your body best

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yeah, i suppose. doctors are entirely clueless in figuring out what’s wrong with me. does seem like a lot they don’t know.

If watching House has taught me anything, it’s that you might have any number of things, but you definitely don’t have lupus.

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and the first thing to assume is that the patient is lying and probably also on drugs

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Interesting, bc everything I’ve read about reducing blood pressure talks about managing stress.

actually, in looking again, another source claims it can raise blood pressure long-term. doctor google isn’t consistent.

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So after going out of town on the weekend and eating what sounded good without going too crazy (and also walking a lot and going on a 2 hour hike) my bp was 118/80 this morning.

It has been decreasing and I haven’t had a diastolic reading in the 90’s for almost 2 weeks.

Now if I could just get some sleep… my new bed comes Thursday.

I am getting a bit tired of chicken or fish and salad, so I put some Dash Diet cookbooks on hold at the library. Hoping to get some brown bag lunch ideas for days I go into the office.

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an amazing reading!

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Way to go! Keep it up! You’re doing great!

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Getting enough sleep is supposed to help your blood pressure.

Why only chicken or fish and salad?

Yes and I need to figure that out. I haven’t found a physical cause so my next step is to try an anxiety med.

I mean that’s not really all I ate but that’s been a lot of my dinners bc I was trying to keep things simple. But now that I have a sort of rhythm going I’m ready to branch out a bit. I’ve put a bunch of recipe books on hold at the library & hoping to find some things to try.

You have to be so careful though. One of the books I looked at had a recipe that was 700+ mg of sodium, which is really on the high side for one meal. It had another recipe that vastly underestimated the amount of sodium (which I knew having looked at a ton of labels recently). Finally, it recommended fasting at least once a week for quicker weight loss.

Nearly all the books assume you are trying to lose weight. :roll_eyes:

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Preach.

As someone who struggles to gain weight who needs to be more ever more muscular in the gay world, it’s a struggle.