Blood Pressure - a Story

HoneyBadger302

Caveat - I am in no way a medical professional, nor should you take this as medical advice - I am simply sharing my story as it currently stands.

I'm from a family of high blood pressure - both parents have always suffered from it, as far as I know, most of my extended family also has. Even when I was young, super fit, and in the military, while close enough to the then-standards to not raise any flags, I have always ran higher than "normal" (at the time 120-130 over 70-80, spiking at dr offices due to my white coat syndrome and fear of needles lol).
Most of my family, especially on my mom's side, is overweight to obese. My father was always trim and active, of us three kids, I was the only one who seemed to get those genes more than my mother's - my sister got the ta-ta's, I did not LOL.
Well into my mid-30's I was very active with active jobs, then I got the dreaded desk job and started to put on some weight, eventually creeping into the overweight BMI category, but definitely overweight for my frame (about 35-40 lbs over my previous "happy" weight).
Weight went down a bit when I couldn't fit into any of my pants one day, even my fat pants unbuttoned with a belt, but only about 10-15 pounds from that high. I wavered from that weight in a ~10 pound range for years (still am in that range). I did focus on weight lifting in that time and have probably put on some muscle mass, but there is still plenty of fluff to lose lol.
Anyways, about 18 months ago I went in to donate plasma. Life at this time was extremely stressful - finances after a layoff a year prior were in a very bad place, personal life was okay but going through changes, fitness and health was not a priority. I couldn't donate plasma that day because of my blood pressure. Thinking nothing of it, I asked what those numbers were and about fell out out of the chair - 189 over 101. It was a shock - I felt fine of course, but realized this was very serious, so the next day bought a home BP monitor and started tracking it.
I knew stress was a major factor, so that was my first focus - a few weeks after this I happened upon a podcast that talked about a daily "power list" - Win the Day he called it. Well, I needed some 'wins' in my life, and the big things weren't going to happen overnight. I started a power list that next day (and continue to this day). Having small daily wins started to bring me around mentally a bit, and having that list started to keep me focused and pushing forward.
I added a high quality Omega-3 to my diet, and started reducing some sugars, started tracking my meals more often than not again. Fitness still came in spurts though for a couple/few months then nada again.
My blood pressure started to drop over time, away from the scary highs, into the high-for-me areas, but started to stabilize there. I kept it all moving along, doing my list, keeping my focus. I was fairly stable in a range that didn't freak me out, but was still higher than I wanted.
I began to question if medication was the answer, but I really wanted to avoid that if there were lifestyle things that could still be stepped up - and there was, primarily, my fitness at this point.
So, going into this year, with my finances finally on the mend after a year+ of working every day towards that, landing my business (that I established in that time) landing it's first big client alongside my day job. I knew with all of this my self discipline game needed to be stepped up, along with my fitness, so I set up a plan for this year to up those games and see if my BP would get in check once and for all.
Well, I'm 5 full weeks into my new training plan and into my 'live hard' year. I'm being careful to listen to my body, but the cardio game has definitely been stepped up along with regular strength work 5x/week. I won't lie, my cardio was AWFUL when I started - I couldn't even get into a cardio HR zone before I was huffing and puffing and feeling like I was dying.
Thankfully past fitness may have made this a little easier as I've been able to carefully and steadily ramp up my workouts.
This week, my BP has consistently been in the 130's over 82-88's, with a couple readings dipping into the 120's over high 70's. I'm still working to get that bottom number lowered consistently, but having some readings in the right direction has been huge, and tells me the new work IS paying off in more ways than the obvious "feeling better, stronger, faster."
It IS a lot of work - I'm busting my booty every day to get it all in, but it's not stressful - I just move from one task to the next, use my list to keep focused, and chug along, feeling better every day.

I just wanted to share as I know if I had asked a doctor, they would have thrown a pill at it immediately. Not saying I'll never need a medication for it, but to see these kinds of results with some effort makes me glad I did my own research and could admit my own shortcomings in these areas and work to correct them - without a pill...