Good News on BP and Suggestions for Tracking Your Results

The chart is a screen shot of my blood pressure measurements, which I try to take every morning when I sit down at my computer.  What it shows is that over the course of the time since I started monitoring it, my systolic pressure (the “top number”) has dropped significantly and more important, consistently.  This can’t be due to anything other than my exercise program.

In the long run, blood pressure will generally respond to weight loss, and also, to some extent, to diet (which is why we get all that “lower your salt” advice.)  But personal experience tells me that whenever I’ve been physically pretty active, particularly with lots of good aerobics, my BP tends to be fairly healthy (if you consider still needing a med for it “healthy,” but I take what I can get.)  On the other hand, I’ve never, over many years, stopped in to the doc’s and had it checked and look okay when I was going through one of my “not so much exercise” periods.

So I’m glad that it’s going down.  But I’m also glad that I have the data here to prove it, and in the long run, this may be more critical than my current BP, because it tends to confirm that my skills at monitoring health data are getting better.

As I’ve been mentioning, the real and often unspoken key to weight management is often contained in how well we can manage our behavior.  And very often, we sink or swim in that regard based on ridiculously little things.

A Day Off? Weekly weight loss regimens

It’s a pleasantly rainy Sunday and my wife seems to have located an endless supply of cozy TV movies involving medieval settings, dragons, and swords.  It’s tempting to loll about just watching the flash of sword and armor, or to catch up on my long-overdue reading, but then there’s the guilty conscience and the call of the gym.

Which brings up the question of “days off.”  From both a physical and a psychological perspective, I’m gonna weigh in as being all in favor.  Whether it’s Sunday or Thursday, you probably need a day off from your regular workout routines every week.

Physically, this may be partly a matter of recovery — a bit of rest for well-used muscles is important.  I’m not an expert on muscle growth but the folks I’ve read often point out that most of the improvement, say, in muscle strength and tone comes on the days between lifting — those days when you may feel a bit sore after a workout.  Other sources talk about “recovery days” (Lance Armstrong’s trainer, for one, has mentioned these); recovery days may involve a workout, but just a light one.  For instance, after a day of hard biking, working on hill climbs or whatever, you may do a day of slow riding, just to get some blood in the muscles, to get them working, since they recover faster with some activity than if you just lounge around.

Psychologically, the main issue to days off may be burnout prevention.  Part of the trick to keeping motivated is staying fresh.  If you work out so much that you start to feel it’s more burden than pleasure, your motivation may sag.

Seven Attitudes for Weight Loss

I’ve mentioned previously that one of the most important ingredients in a weight control program is more often implied than specifically mentioned: the role of psychological factors.  I know that for myself, I have learned that it takes me about four or five specific psychological “tricks” every day to stick to my program.  As I’ve been working on this blog, I’ve come to realize that I’ve never really listed them all in one place before.

I assume that it’s not just me.  It seems likely that for the vast majority of people, the psychological factors are key to sticking with and succeeding at any significant weight control program.