Search for

2009-04-05

Exercise regime to control blood pressure and diabetes

I had a scare many months back. The doctor said my blood pressure was 150 over 90. The next day he said it was 150 over 100. He said I have high blood pressure. He wanted to put me on hypertension medication. I said if I start, I will have to take the hypertension medicine for life. I negotiated to try exercise and diet control.

I first tried cooking my food using no salt and only garlic, onions and spices like kunyit (Curcuma longa or tumeric), pepper and oregano. I cooked with oats instead of rice as it was easier to cook. I exercise only sparingly. It helped but my blood electrolyte (sodium) went down.

Next I tried exercise more regularly. It worked. My blood pressure is now under control. However, exercises are very dull. What I did was to put on the music and march up and down following the beat of the music. It is just like soldiers marching or dancing to the beat of the music. It becomes more enjoyable and not dull. When I saw that it had a good effect on the blood pressure and heart beat (pulse) rate, I had extra motivation to exercise plus I know exercise also helps to keep diabetes at bay and lowers the resting heart beat rate. Now, motivated by the positive results, I exercise for half and hour everyday and believe me, it is not dull. It has become enjoyable.

This is the exercise regime I followed: I had downloaded songs into appropriate folders in my computer arranged according the how fast are the beat, starting with the slow ones and increasing with tempo. When it is time to exercise, I opened the folder and played the songs with Windows Media Player. I then march or jog up and down the stairs according to the music. The music not only keeps me entertained, motivated and help regulate the rate I walked up and down the staircase, it also keeps the time. I now know how long I exercised depending on which song in the playlist I stopped exercising. At the moment I am able to exercise up to Maybellene by Chuck Berry which means I have exercised for slightly more than half and hour. I also check the blood pressure and heart beat rate with a blood pressure monitor immediately after the end of the exercis and it showed that when I exercise up to Maybellene by Chuck Berry, I have achieved 97% of my maximum heart beat rate.

This is the playlist I used:
Respect by Aretha Franklin
I wanna hold your hands by the Beetles
She loves you by the Beetles
Satisfaction by the Rolling Stones
Good Vibrations by the Beach Boys
Good Vibrations by Chuck Berry
What's I do by Ray Charles
Blowing in the wind by Bob Dylan
Maybellene by Chuck Berry
Hound Dog by Elvis Presley
Whole lotta shakin' going on by Jerry Lee Lewis
Sunshine of your love by the Cream
Jail House Rock by Elvis Presley

So far I had been successful in exercising right up to Maybellene by Chuck Berry which has an extremely fast beat and I practically have to run up and down the stairs and it induced my heart beat rate up to 155 beats per minute which is a little bit below the maximum heart beat rate of 160 for a sixty year old (220 - age = 220 - 60 = 160).

1 comment:

frank Huddleston said...

I had a high BP scare yesterday and your post helped calm my fears. Thank you very much.

LinkWithin

Blog Widget by LinkWithin