Dash Diet

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dmcxz
dmcxz Posts: 6 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Is anyone using MyfitnessPal and is on the DASH diet?
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Replies

  • Sabine_Stroehm
    Sabine_Stroehm Posts: 19,263 Member
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    I'm not, but I did see that it was named best diet of 2014. Best of luck with it. It sounds like a pretty sensible and nutritious way to eat.
  • Jenniferstone86
    Jenniferstone86 Posts: 18 Member
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    I have been doing research on this today and haven't found any good resources yet. If anyone finds anything please let me know! My fiancé needs something heart healthy and we both need a change in lifestyle.
  • Sabine_Stroehm
    Sabine_Stroehm Posts: 19,263 Member
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    I have been doing research on this today and haven't found any good resources yet. If anyone finds anything please let me know! My fiancé needs something heart healthy and we both need a change in lifestyle.
    Resources on the basics of the diet? (their website isn't very user friendly lol)

    Do these help?

    http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/public/heart/hbp/dash/dash_brief.pdf
    http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/health-topics/topics/dash/
  • VorJoshigan
    VorJoshigan Posts: 1,106 Member
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    Every time I hear about the DASH diet, I think of the movie Flash Gordon, and in my mind Flash is renamed Dash and he eats lots of fruits/veggies and lean meats.


    ETA: The groups on here kinda suck, but this one might have some archived resources that could prove useful to you: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/groups/home/11954-dash-diet
  • Sabine_Stroehm
    Sabine_Stroehm Posts: 19,263 Member
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    Every time I hear about the DASH diet, I think of the movie Flash Gordon, and in my mind Flash is renamed Dash and he eats lots of fruits/veggies and lean meats.
    Great, and now I'm picturing a character from veggie tales.

    DASH is, of course an acronym, and I suppose a double entendre.

    It's really a pretty healthy diet. You'd need to watch calories to make it a weight loss diet, but it's healthy and focuses on macro and micro nutrients (along with reducing sodium etc).
  • AKcanookie
    AKcanookie Posts: 230 Member
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    yes, working on the DASH plan and its working really well, i've lost 10.5 lbs in December
    working on losing 50 lbs by the time i am 50 (january 2015)
    i cleaned out my fridge and pantry of anything that wasn't on plan (all processed foods, anything with sugar, excess salt etc.)
    loaded up on a great variety of fresh fruit and veg
    i have protein with every meal - no bigger than a deck of cards - fish, chicken, tofu etc
    and then one or two big veggie servings, as well as one or two pieces of fruit a day (or a bowl of mixed berries)
    low fat or non fat dairy
    and for snacks i have a bucket of roasted pumpkin and sunflower seeds (not salted)
    drinking 8+ glasses of water a day - primarily decaf iced tea with stevia and lemon juice
    so far so good - good luck!
  • Sreneesa
    Sreneesa Posts: 1,170 Member
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    Sounds really interesting.

    I have high blood pressure, not on meds yet, but seems this diet was made in response to hypertension.

    Seems well balanced. Will have to read more or ask about it when I see my doctor. :smile:

    Edit: Link

    http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/health-topics/topics/dash/

    Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) - For those that do not know what it means.
  • Sabine_Stroehm
    Sabine_Stroehm Posts: 19,263 Member
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    Sounds really interesting.

    I have high blood pressure, not on meds yet, but seems this diet was made in response to hypertension.

    Seems well balanced. Will have to read more or ask about it when I see my doctor. :smile:
    It was designed for hypertension, but also "won" as best diet for folks with diabetes. It seems pretty well balanced. I only wish their website wasn't so dumb.
    The cheat sheets I linked above seem to be user friendly.
  • Sreneesa
    Sreneesa Posts: 1,170 Member
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    Sounds really interesting.

    I have high blood pressure, not on meds yet, but seems this diet was made in response to hypertension.

    Seems well balanced. Will have to read more or ask about it when I see my doctor. :smile:
    It was designed for hypertension, but also "won" as best diet for folks with diabetes. It seems pretty well balanced. I only wish their website wasn't so dumb.
    The cheat sheets I linked above seem to be user friendly.







    Thank you for the links. :smile:

    I seem to have been redundant above. Sorry. lol
  • AKcanookie
    AKcanookie Posts: 230 Member
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    my BP before DASH was 140/90 .. now i run around 120/80 or a bit lower
    my blood sugars ( I have dawn phenomina) were around 200+ first thing in the morning - now down to 140
    and much better blood sugars during the day overall - i've cut my insulin and metphormin dosage in half so far, that can only be a good thing! i was consuming way too many carbs before - now when i carb its lower glycemic carbs (higher in fiber) and fewer starchy veg - switched from potatoes to sweet potatoes (they are great for breakfast btw with a little stevia and cinnamon - hot of course.. wonderful when its cold and snowy outside). 2/3 of every plate of food i eat is fresh or cooked veg - can't believe the energy i have - i used to be sleepy all of the time.

    Canookie
  • LowcarbNY
    LowcarbNY Posts: 546 Member
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    I did DASH many years ago.

    - It didn't do a thing for my blood pressure.
    - It is virtually impossible to stay under 1/4 gram of sodium (ie 2500mg) unless you make everything yourself from scratch. Anything out of a can or the frozen food section or most packaged dry mixes will sabotage you.

    I found it too difficult to stay on for long.
    Low Carb did more for my cholesterol and weight loss, was easier for me and as the weight came off my BP went down too. (I'm sure that more exercise helped that also)

    For Sodium and BP my doc thinks you are either sensitive or not. If you are sensitive you need to be very very low on sodium. If you are not sensitive then you can be one of those folks who take in 4 gram of sodium a day and have not issues.
  • SezxyStef
    SezxyStef Posts: 15,268 Member
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    I did something similar at the beginning of my weight loss and it worked but as said previously these sorts of things can be very hard to maintain. I did lose 30lbs so not saying they aren't a good start...

    The restrictiveness of it makes it hard to stay on tho.

    Losing weight in itself will help with blood pressure and cholesterol (mine is down)

    I am not bashing the dash just saying don't beat yourself up if after a month or two you are fed up...when you do get to this point you will have lost weight and got a handle on eating a fairly balanced diet.

    Then I would suggest moving to counting and eating "normally"
  • Gizziemoto
    Gizziemoto Posts: 430 Member
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    There are 2 different books for the DASH diet. The first is DASH and the 2nd is DASH for Weight Loss which I just got. The weight loss one appears to have the first two weeks eating without carbs (just started reading). I have high blood pressure and this was recommended to me by my doctor. The emphasis is on eating healthy, work on avoiding processed foods(very high in sodium), exercising, and learning to watch your sodium by reading the labels.

    I do not find that this is restrictive at all. I eat what I want but just have to watch my portion sizes. I am trying to eat lower sodium while reading this book. It is not easy but you learn that salt is added to so much it is unbelievable. I like that I am able to make changes to the items to suit my needs (number of food allergies). Example, eat low calorie yogurt with artificial sweetener. I have low blood sugar so I do not worry about my sugars and eat Greek yogurt with fruit and real sugar.

    I did find out that 1500 is recommended for over 50 and that even eating 2300 like this site has, will help.
  • Sreneesa
    Sreneesa Posts: 1,170 Member
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    Edit
  • Sreneesa
    Sreneesa Posts: 1,170 Member
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    I did something similar at the beginning of my weight loss and it worked but as said previously these sorts of things can be very hard to maintain. I did lose 30lbs so not saying they aren't a good start...

    The restrictiveness of it makes it hard to stay on tho.

    Losing weight in itself will help with blood pressure and cholesterol (mine is down)

    I am not bashing the dash just saying don't beat yourself up if after a month or two you are fed up...when you do get to this point you will have lost weight and got a handle on eating a fairly balanced diet.

    Then I would suggest moving to counting and eating "normally"




    Yeah, I'm at a healthy BMI at least by textbook standards and still have high blood pressure.

    Its been like that for years. Everytime I go in to the doctor always note my BP is high.

    Went to dentist and the student took my BP(4th time going in two months) and BP still is a little high.

    Maybe its my norm. Then again my ethnicity is at higher risk and my dad does have high blood pressure and he is not overweight.

    I do not know. I just got insurance back so I need to talk to my doctor more about it.


    Edit: 24.94 or something like that. Maybe losing more will help.
  • 257_Lag
    257_Lag Posts: 1,249 Member
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    I accidentally tried it with good results!

    I started MFP just short of one year ago. Started with just calories and progressed to watching sodium (high BP and want to get off the meds) then macros, then quality of my calories etc.

    An employee asked me if I knew anything about the DASH diet a few months ago as their doctor recommend it to them so I researched it for them.

    Well, it turns out I have been pretty much following it without knowing it.

    44 pounds down and lowered BP from 145/105 to 125/85. Yup, it works.

    Lowering the sodium is the hardest part but once you get the hang of it it's fairly easy. You do have to ditch a lot of processed foods but just learning where the sodium is make this a lot easier.

    What I had to pretty much get rid of:
    Lunch Meats and American Cheese (I'm a low fat lacy swiss guy now)
    Olives and Pickles (the hardest for me since olives are my all time favorite food, now I consider them a treat, not a staple)
    Canned or packaged soup
    Ham, pastrami etc
    Cut back on the bread or at least made better bread choices
  • Macstraw
    Macstraw Posts: 896 Member
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    Every time I hear about the DASH diet, I think of the movie Flash Gordon, and in my mind Flash is renamed Dash and he eats lots of fruits/veggies and lean meats.

    Made me think Dine & Dash, with all the calories you could burn running from the staff of the restaurant (after dining on healthy foods, of course).........
  • SezxyStef
    SezxyStef Posts: 15,268 Member
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    I did something similar at the beginning of my weight loss and it worked but as said previously these sorts of things can be very hard to maintain. I did lose 30lbs so not saying they aren't a good start...

    The restrictiveness of it makes it hard to stay on tho.

    Losing weight in itself will help with blood pressure and cholesterol (mine is down)

    I am not bashing the dash just saying don't beat yourself up if after a month or two you are fed up...when you do get to this point you will have lost weight and got a handle on eating a fairly balanced diet.

    Then I would suggest moving to counting and eating "normally"




    Yeah, I'm at a healthy BMI at least by textbook standards and still have high blood pressure.

    Its been like that for years. Everytime I go in to the doctor always note my BP is high.

    Went to dentist and the student took my BP(4th time going in two months) and BP still is a little high.

    Maybe its my norm. Then again my ethnicity is at higher risk and my dad does have high blood pressure and he is not overweight.

    I do not know. I just got insurance back so I need to talk to my doctor more about it.


    Edit: 24.94 or something like that. Maybe losing more will help.

    My husbands is like that too and he is very slim...about 6ft tall and 185lbs...his is most definatly genetics. He does not have one uncle on his mom's side that lived past 30...all died due to heart attacks brought on by high blood pressure...(except the alcoholic who died 3months after he quit drinking)...so I suspect his will always read high so we do watch his sodium intake etc but no special diet for it.

    Mine on the other hand is low..90/60 which causes issues too trust me...
  • Sabine_Stroehm
    Sabine_Stroehm Posts: 19,263 Member
    Options
    There are 2 different books for the DASH diet. The first is DASH and the 2nd is DASH for Weight Loss which I just got. The weight loss one appears to have the first two weeks eating without carbs (just started reading). I have high blood pressure and this was recommended to me by my doctor. The emphasis is on eating healthy, work on avoiding processed foods(very high in sodium), exercising, and learning to watch your sodium by reading the labels.

    I do not find that this is restrictive at all. I eat what I want but just have to watch my portion sizes. I am trying to eat lower sodium while reading this book. It is not easy but you learn that salt is added to so much it is unbelievable. I like that I am able to make changes to the items to suit my needs (number of food allergies). Example, eat low calorie yogurt with artificial sweetener. I have low blood sugar so I do not worry about my sugars and eat Greek yogurt with fruit and real sugar.

    I did find out that 1500 is recommended for over 50 and that even eating 2300 like this site has, will help.
    No carbs??? It's a crap ton of vegetables. Those are carbs. :happy: Do you mean no starches?
  • AKcanookie
    AKcanookie Posts: 230 Member
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    hmmm sounds like you could have a little bit of white-coat syndrome
    every time you see a doctor the dentist your blood pressure shoots up - we see it a lot at the clinic i work in

    yes, it is difficult to reduce your sodium consumption especially if you are eating processed foods
    if you rely on processed foods for the majority of your meals you won't be happy with the DASH system
    it also takes a considerable amt of time doing lots of slicing and dicing, but thats the work you have to put in to it to help get something out of it - i wash and prep all of my fruit and veg after i bring it home from the store, which makes it so much easier to help myself when its time for a meal.

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