Blood pressure, muscle, and bodyfat

[JamesH]

So to gain muscle we train hard and we eat big. Pretty simple. Just over a year ago I was at my heaviest at 210 at a height of 5 food 8. This was also my strongest. Not that strong as I had barely got into the texas method at that point. But I could press 165 and deadlift 350 for 5. Unfortunately my blood pressure was very high. I lost the weight and the blood pressure went down. Problem is my lifts went down with it. Now I'm just under 180 and my blood pressure is just about "normal". I'm going to keep going down till its settled. But I want to get my strength back. So I'm going to need to start eating again at some point. I don't know what the fuck to do. If I eat big my blood pressure goes up. If I don't I stay weak. Maybe I could eat big for say 2 months then diet down for a month rinse and repeat. Maybe That would allow me to not get too fat.

On another note has anyone heard of john barban or brad pilon? They wrote how much protein and eat stop eat.

[Tom Campitelli]

Do you have a sodium sensitivity, or a family history of high blood pressure?

[JamesH]

No sodium sensitivity. I eat more salt now than I have in awhile and it is not a problem. I think it may be in my history though.

It was high when I was over 200 and even in the 190s. Now I'm 175 and its fine. I'm 5 foot 8 if that gives you an idea of my size.

[MazdaMatt]

When you "eat big" are you eating healthy-big or mcdonalds-big? Do you eat food that comes in a box or a can more than 5 meals per week?

[msingh]

Might be time to check out Pavel. Power to the people, you can read excerpts on google

http://books.google.com/books?id=6vJ...ed=0CDUQ6AEwAA

[ColoWayno]

How shallow is your breathing when you are just kicking back and resting?

It may seem like silly bs but you can lower your blood pressure using a breathing technique for 15 minutes a day.

http://www.resperate.com/us/welcome/index.aspx

You can check out the reviews on Amazon. I bought one a few years back and it works. I hope they've improved the music (it's guided breathing using music). It looks like they've improved the footprint of the thing.

Basically, it measures how you are breathing now and slows your respiration down to as low as 5 breaths per minute by having you breath to music which is gradually slowing down.
You can learn to do this without the music or the device but if you are really worried and can afford it it would probably be worth it.
The biggest thing people miss is they don't exhale fully.

[cervicornis]

Alas, blood pressure is one of the few markers for health that we should all treat seriously. If you notice a direct correlation between your body fat and BP, it would be wise to maintain your BF at a reasonable level for the sake of your long term health. Some may scoff at this idea, but it certainly beats the alternatives (taking meds or risk stroking out at age 50).

I'd recommend you get a home BP monitor ($50) so that you can test yourself and make adjustments to your diet as required. This will also help you track trends to see if you're sensitive to certain foods, stress level, etc. Get a log going.

If you're willing to adhere to a very strict dietary program, you can probably continue to make gains while limiting fat. Lyle's body recomp site has a ton of info, Martin's IF approach, etc.

[kfreeman]

We need some more information. The biggest question I have is what do you mean SPECIFICALLY by "my blood pressure was very high"? Was this a singular reading or is it an average of multiple readings that you've had taken while resting?

If it's one of the store brand BP machines then you need to know that you can't power walk through the store, sit down at one of these with larger than "normal" arms and get a reliable reading.

If, on the other hand, it's the general average from a MD, Nurse, Medic, etc (Any trained monkey can take an accurate BP reading) then we might have a different story on our hands.

Do you take fish oil?

How do you know, for sure, that you aren't salt sensitive? Did you try cutting salt out of your diet while you were big or getting big?

Drink a lot of caffeine, or drink it directly before you get your reading taken?

You could also just have white coat syndrome.

[bie]

What sort of figures are we talking before and after? As kfreeman says is it from one off readings or multiple testings?

[fnet]

I went in for a prostate exam last year. I arrived at my doctor's office after fighting traffic for an hour. He kept taking my BP and kept making a perplexed "hmmm..." I was getting more and more nervous. I knew we were going to be very intimate in a few minutes. He said my BP was high and that I needed to lose weight and cut the salt. He put me on blood pressure medication. Ever since then, my numbers always come out as prehypertensive. I hate those damned inflatable cuffs. As soon as my circulation starts to feel cut off, I want to rip it off. I check my BP at one of those do-it-yourself contraptions at the supermarket. Again, the damned cuff is too small. I think they're designed for 80 year old women. I don't know how accurate those things are. The readings fluctuate wildly. For some reason my diastolic usually measures out high. Anybody know what can be causing this?