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MyFitnessPal Community

Heart Healthy Diet

_rodrii011

Hello everyone,
I found out that i need to start taking high blood pressure medication. I didn't log anything for the last couple of days due to the fact of feeling disappointed and scared for not controlling my bad habits. I don't blame anything but myself control. So for anyone who has been on a heart healthy diet and taken high blood pressure medication what nutritional advices can you give me and anywhere you guys get recipes

Replies

Chef_Barbell

I try to follow the DASH diet ever since I was diagnosed with hypertension after my last child... I'm also on Amlodipine which helps regulate

paperpudding

The biggest single thing you can do, diet wise, for heart health is lose weight to a healthy BMI

(other non diet things like excercise regularly and not smoking too)

I would suggest limiting sugar and some people on blood pressure med's need to limit salt.

Some people find their cholesterol markers are helped by diet measures (low saturated fats) - but for others diet is not a factor in that.

d1957rendon

Don’t beat yourself up! Our bodies have a way to correct itself sometimes. As you lose weight you may find yourself able to come off the meds.

ddky

You may very well be able to come off the medications after weight loss. I know many who have. For recipes or meal suggestions just google WFPB recipes. It stands for Whole foods plant based. Whole grains, fruits, vegetables, minimally processed foods. You don't have to follow them exactly. WFPB suggests no meat or eggs, but we still had eggs while we were doing that program. I limited my meats to meals we ate in restaurants. Sounds like you are doing great. Stay strong.

corinasue1143

You can’t change yesterday.
You can change tomorrow.
You didn’t do better yesterday because you didn’t know better.
Now you know better, time to do better.
Google heart healthy foods.

beabria

Lots of good advice here - I thought I'd add my experience. About 6 months ago, my doctor said my blood pressure was getting a little high and we should monitor to decided if I needed to go on blood pressure meds. During that time, I started implementing "tiny" exercise habits. For example, until recently, this was a mere 3 minutes of intentional walking (i.e. not just walking during daily activities) and 10 squats every day - inspired by reading "Atomic Habits". Sometimes it was more, but the idea was to ALWAYS do that low minimum, which was easy to stick to since I could never say "I don't have time/energy for three minutes". When I went back to the doctor about 2 months ago, my blood pressure was much lower and she didn't think medication was necessary. And, more recently, I started tracking and reducing calories. I've lost some weight, but the response of my blood pressure has been much bigger than the weight loss would suggest - it's almost as low as it was 20 year ago! So, I find it motivating that I'm seeing much healthier blood pressure long before I've made it back to a healthy weight. (Not sure why that's happened to me - if anyone knows the science behind that, I'd love to know!)