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The 3-Part At-Home Plan to Lower Blood Pressure - Case Study · Doctor Turned Health Coach

• 0:21
  In today's episode, we're going to talk about how to lower your blood pressure.
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  So one of my existing wonderful health coaching clients, who I'm sure listens
• 0:30
  to this podcast, asked me to record something for her dad.
• 0:34
  And her dad is in retirement. He is about 5'8", 89 kilos, which comes out to 196 pounds.
• 0:44
  And his diet is pretty varied, but he mostly has a lot of bread.
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  He does eat out at a restaurant daily.
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  He has some fried chicken, some pork.
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  And as far as his activities and exercise, it sounds like he's about one hour
• 0:59
  or so a day of walking and maybe a little bit of stretching every other day,
• 1:04
  sometimes in the mornings, sometimes at night.
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  One of the recent conditions that he's been dealing with is a salivary gland stone.
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  We kind of call this perititis or siloadenitis.
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  All these terms that we use to basically describe that somebody is having a
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  blockage of the duct to the salivary gland, which means it's going to get super
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  big, super puffy, and it's really uncomfortable.
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  Every time you eat, it just gets really large. So, what's the advice for this
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  gentleman and what's the solution to his blood pressure problems?
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  Of course, giving any kind of general advice may not always work, right?
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  The most important thing for me to know as a health coach is what is it you need?
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  What is the most important step that's going to help you have the most improvement in the long run?
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  But in general when somebody's
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  dealing with an elevated blood pressure so for him for
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  david it is about 157 over
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  80 ish 90 ish blood pressure reading which is way too high for somebody his
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  age and one thing that stands out to me is his diet and his current body mass
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  index at five foot I'd like to see him much closer to 150 pounds or 160 pounds.
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  And I would like him to be eating quite a lot more vegetables because he does
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  need a balance of magnesium, zinc, iron, folate.
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  B12, you know, all these different vitamins and minerals that we need in order
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  for us to have a functioning kidney.
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  If the kidney is not functioning well, one problem that arises is all the extra
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  salt that's coming into your diet because of the bread,
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  the restaurant food, the fried food, fried food has to have a lot of salt to
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  fight all of that greasiness.
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  But greasiness and salt together tastes so good, no doubt about it.
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  But when you get that much salt, unfortunately, your body is going to have to
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  excrete a lot of the important magnesium, manganese, potassium.
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  And when you lose those, you are at a much higher risk of developing stones,
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  not only in the kidneys, but also in the salivary gland,
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  in the bile duct, in the gallbladder, and many other parts of your body,
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  calcifications and stones.
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  So one approach for somebody like this is to start thinking about what lowers blood pressure.
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  We know that exercise lowers blood pressure, diet lowers blood pressure,
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  and stress management can help lower blood pressure.
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  So sometimes just taking a few moments in the day to read a book.
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  And do some breathing techniques. So this is like the four, seven,
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  eight breath where you breathe in deep, you hold it for a few seconds,
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  and then you exhale nice and slowly.
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  That's going to put your heart rate down. And in fact, there are apps you can
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  use to see how your heart rate goes down as you're breathing.
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  You can, you know, I'm wearing an Aura ring, but you can also wear,
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  you know, one of those digital watches that connect to your heart rate.
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  There are many ways of kind of making sure that your heart rate is actually
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  going down with the technique that you're trying.
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  Walking is really good because usually for the amount of energy you're expending,
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  your heart rate actually balances it out really nicely. So it's a good exercise,
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  but it probably is not enough.
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  So on top of meditation and breathing exercises that will lower especially your
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  systolic, the top number blood pressure.
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  A good exercise activity is something where you're mixing some resistance training and cardio.
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  Now walking, cardio, that's great. One hour every day is fantastic.
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  If I could convince him to do two hours a day or one and a half hours a day, that would be great.
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  If not, I would keep the one hour of walking.
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  I would probably add some resistance band exercises or some simple calisthenics,
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  meaning while he's standing, he can do some gentle squats, he can do some push-ups
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  against the wall, he can get in and out of a chair. That's a great exercise.
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  He can get on the ground and do some stretches and do some gentle push-ups there,
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  do some gentle squats there.
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  I like exercise bands because they're easy to carry. You can put them anywhere
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  in the house and you can just hop on them whenever you want.
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  Now, I believe David has tried exercise bands in the past and they were too strong for him.
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  Absolutely makes sense. If you go to the gym for the very first time and you
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  lift very heavy weights, it's likely that it's going to be too much for you
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  and you probably are not going to want to go back.
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  So if I were to introduce any kind of resistance training for David,
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  it would be one minute, 60 seconds, that's it, 60 seconds every single day,
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  the lightest band possible and it would only be to go through a few exercises.
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  I would have him hold it in his hands and do some squats.
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  I would have him do some overhead shoulder presses and I would have him do some bicep curls.
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  The nice thing about building your muscle when you're older is that the next
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  time he goes to a restaurant and has a lot of bread or a lot of carbs,
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  he's much more likely to absorb all of that sugar and prevent it from becoming
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  high insulin state in his body where then his blood pressure is going to go up.
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  And of course, a lot of sugar can also increase your uric acid.
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  Uric acid independently can also make your blood pressure go up.
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  So this is the meditation approach. This is the exercise approach.
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  And the nutrition approach is trying to balance out his diet.
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  So I'm okay with him going to a restaurant. I'm okay with him eating all of
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  this kind of salty fried food.
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  But what's much more important is that every single day he introduces at least
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  a couple of portions of grains and vegetables.
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  So he can do the grains by making his own whole wheat bread,
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  or he can get the vegetables made at a good restaurant where he knows there's
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  not a lot of salt in it, or of course, even easier, put it in an air fryer.
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  Steam it, and just have some broccoli, some kale, some squash,
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  some zucchini, any of these vegetables, any root vegetables,
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  any regular green leafy vegetables is going to give him a lot of potassium.
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  And that's going to fight all of the extra sodium that he is consuming.
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  And the best way to do it, honestly, is to just do it every single day.
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  Don't stop. Every day when you wake up, as soon as you have some free time,
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  cook a little something.
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  Like even right now as I'm recording this podcast episode, I have some root
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  vegetables cooking in the oven because I want to have that around.
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  Every time I want a snack, I know I can have these potatoes and sweet potatoes
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  and zucchini. It's easy for me to make, and it's always going to be available for me.
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  So those are the three ways that I would help David improve his blood pressure.
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  And by doing that, he will balance out his minerals in his body.
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  And I suspect that he's never going to develop another stone in his salivary
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  gland, or even worse, a kidney stone.
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  Hope that's helpful. Take care, guys.