Three months ago, I started an experiment to lower my blood pressure and cholesterol by changing my diet and lifestyle.
What triggered me to start this experiment is because I am stubborn and I don’t want to take medications. And I want to be proactive and take control of my own health.
Though losing weight is not my main objective, I got it as a side benefit from this little health experiment that I am going to share with you.
Let’s see what kind of changes that happened to me over the course of three months:
Weight loss: My starting weight was 75kg. I lost almost 5kg within the first month. Then it slowed down. Now I lost 10kg 3 months into my experiment. I am not saying losing weight is good as it depends on your body composition. For men, as you know, the most stubborn fat to lose is fat around your stomach and love handles. I am happy to say that I finally managed to lose the fat in those areas in more than 30 years! What a great side benefit to have!
Blood pressure: This is the main reason I started this experiment. The daily changes are minimal so I plot charts for my home BP readings to see if my BP is reducing or increasing over time. The charts are based on the readings I take every morning for the last 3 months. To see the trend of my BP even clearer, I bring out linear trend lines for the charts. As I can see from the chart, both trend lines of systolic and diastolic are trending down and within the healthy ranges.
Cholesterol: Triglycerides reduced from 1.8 to 0.77. HDL 1.44 to 1.58. LDL 5.7 to 4.97
Fasting blood sugar: 5.9 to 5.2
Curious how I got these results? Here’s what I did:
I do intermittent fasting by skipping breakfast. I fast for 16 hours, give and take. I used to think fasting is full of crap. Why fast when you have an abundance of foods around you. But not anymore.
I skip snacks between meals. I used to drink Milo, 3-in-1 coffee, teh tarik, and my goto snack was Ping Pong brand cream crackers. I reduce bread and cut out totally cakes, pastries and sugar. I reduce intake of fruits. If I am hungry between meals I will eat a handful of nuts and seeds. You don’t want to eat constantly but only eat for main meals.
My diet used to consist of about 80% of plant based foods but I reduced it to 50% during this experiment. On the other hand, I increased animal based foods which include pork, chicken, beef, fish, shellfish. The most important thing is to reduce your carbohydrates (especially refined carbs) and sugar.
I changed my cooking oils to lard, red palm oil, coconut oil, ghee and butter.
I don’t count calories. I eat until I am full.
Exercise: I stick to the same regimen. No changes made during this experiment. So any impact on my health has to come from my diet.
In fact many modern day health problems are interconnected. Once you solve one problem, many things will fall into place: nice BP, low blood sugar, nice cholesterol.
There you go, that’s all the secrets I have. Don’t take my word for it. Try it for yourself.
Ass-covering clause: The information here is only for educational purposes and should not be used as medical advice. You have to seek professional advice from qualified medical practitioners.