My weight has been slowly creeping up over the last couple of years. Lately it seems to be gaining speed. On top of that my blood pressure has gone up and my cholesterol is high. No real secret to how it all happened. I am a carboholic and am basically a couch potato – and I am getting older (damn!). Some people have said “hey, you look good for your age!” – maybe, but I do not FEEL good.

When the doctor told me about my blood pressure I was aghast (it has always been right on). It started me to think about my health in a different way. While it is not life threatening at this point, I started to think about the what-ifs. What if I suddenly keel over and Jake is left all alone. He is only 13 and a challenging child. His difficulties make him hard to manage and I know that no one that I know would want to deal with it. What would become of him? So I determined that I HAD to get healthier for the sake of my son. People often say, “you should only change for yourself, not for someone else”. Hogwash!! It doesn’t matter what your reasons are if it is something that is so important to you that it will keep you on track!

I did some research and found a health plan that I think will actually work for me. It is called the DASH Diet. It is not a diet to lose weight per se, but a diet to deal with the health issues that I have. The DASH stands for “Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension”. It will ultimately help me to lose weight too (an extra bonus) and to reduce my cholesterol, but was originally designed to lower blood pressure. An article recently listed the DASH Diet as the best there is because of its health factor and that you are eating good for you food in appropriate portions (I will say that I was aghast that an appropriate portion of breakfast cereal was 1/2 cup – not the 2 cups in the giant bowl that I usually had).

The book I got on the DASH Diet has a lot of good info and it does say that it is gonna be hard at first. I respect that. I get so tired of the diets that say, “It is so easy!” – “I never felt hungry!” – “The pounds just melted off!”. Give me a break.

So this morning I had my 1/2 cup of whole grain cereal (okay so I added a few extra flakes) with a banana chopped up in it, my 1% milk (am sooo used to 2%) and a 6 oz cup of orange juice (I really wanted a full cup – or two). And while I am not hungry, I am a bit agitated. My body is definitely gonna go through withdrawals.

I decided to blog about this stuff to help me keep on track – and to let you all know how it works – is it terribly hard, what are the things that throw me off, do I feel better? And I think blogging will help me when I feel agitated or hungry or want to give up. Anyway, I better go to the kitchen and start cutting up my skinless, boneless chicken. I hate cooking.

18 Jan This entry was published on January 18, 2015 at 7:12 pm. It’s filed under Uncategorized and tagged change, cholesterol, dash, dash diet, diet, food, health, healthy, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, hypertension, meal, weight, weight gain. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.