What Causes High Blood Pressure?
At Habitat Health and Fitness in Lakeland, FL, identifying the causes of preventable health issues and making lifestyle changes to avoid future damage, can boost health and vigor. One common problem faced by many people is consistent high blood pressure---hypertension. About 45% of all people have or will develop it. It's a silent killer, because left unaddressed, it can lead to stroke, kidney damage, hardening of the arteries, dementia and early cognitive decline. In the early stages, most people don't realize they have a problem because there often aren't any symptoms.
High blood pressure means your heart has to beat harder.
Your blood pressure is a measure of the force your blood exerts against the blood vessel and artery walls. The top number is the systolic blood pressure, which is the force that occurs in the arteries as your heart beats. The second number is the force that's in the arteries between beats. The higher the number, the harder your heart is working. That can make the heart work less efficiently. The tissue inside your artery walls is delicate and subject to damage over time. It can cause tiny tears, which bad---LDL---cholesterol creates plaque that sticks to those damaged walls and builds up to narrow the arteries even further.
Changing your diet can help.
Not only does processed food contain few nutrients and minimal fiber, it contains salt, sugar and additives that can affect your blood pressure. The sodium in salt has a direct impact on your blood pressure. It pulls in fluid to your vessels from surrounding tissues and increases your volume of blood. More blood equals more volume and higher pressure. Salt is a common ingredient in processed and restaurant food. A bad diet can also cause weight gain and the more you weigh, the more blood the heart has to pump, increasing blood pressure.
Lack of exercise can affect your blood pressure negatively in a few different ways.
Not only will sitting too much, not getting adequate exercise, cause weight gain and less muscle tissue, it can affect your blood pressure. First, the less you exercise and the less muscle tissue you have, the more prone you'll be to weight gain. The heavier you are, the higher your blood pressure will go. Blood pressure is affected by a sedentary lifestyle another way. When you have adequate aerobic activity, it helps keep your blood vessels more flexible and makes them less sensitive to changes in hormones. Exercise helps slow arterial hardening that makes both your blood vessels and heart work harder.
- Elevated blood pressure starts when the systolic number---the top number---is over 120. Stage one hypertension starts at 130/80. Stage two begins at 140/90. A hypertensive crisis occurs of you systolic number is higher than 180 or the diastolic number is higher than 120.
- Bad habits can cause high blood pressure. Too much alcohol or a tobacco habit can increase your blood pressure. Binge drinking can cause build up of arterial plaque, while the nicotine in cigarettes can increase blood pressure and heart rate.
- Stress can cause blood pressure to rise. Exercise is one way to relieve stress, but so are meditation and breathing exercises. Getting together with friends and socializing can also help lower blood pressure.
- Some people are genetically prone to high blood pressure, but still can help delay the onset of it. Making lifestyle changes can help prevent early onset high blood pressure and reduce the damage it causes.
For more information, contact us today at Habitat Health and Fitness
Exercise is king at Habitat Health and Fitness in Lakeland, FL. However, when you eat healthier and consume foods that give you more energy, not only will your workout be better, so will all aspects of your life. Foods that give you energy aren't sugary treats that spike your blood sugar momentarily and then plunge you into the pit of exhaustion. They're high quality foods that keep your energy level at its best throughout the day.
Your calorie intake and energy expelled determines whether you gain weight, lose weight or remain the same. If you eat too many calories, your body stores the excess as body fat. If you eat too few, your body breaks down body fat or muscle to supplement your needs. Eating the right amount to balance calories burned with calories consumed is the ideal, unless you're trying to lose weight or gain it. Most people want to know how many calories to eat a day to lose weight, but there's no simple answer. It's all based on your body and needs.
At Habitat Health and Fitness in Lakeland, Florida, FL, we focus on fitness through exercise, but that doesn't mean we discount other lifestyle changes that can make you healthier. Eating healthy should be a top priority. Some people question whether protein supplements should be used on that quest toward a healthier body. As with most things related to fitness, it all depends on you and your needs. Protein supplements can be quite beneficial for some and unnecessary or even dangerous for others. Older people who may have a difficult time of eating and don't process protein as efficiently, may benefit from a supplement.
If you run miles a day and do tons of cardio workouts to burn belly fat, but find you're not getting the results you want, there's a reason. Steady state cardio isn't necessarily the best route to take. Belly fat---visceral fat---is the hardest type of fat to lose. There's no special exercise to take it off your belly either, since spot exercises simply don't work that way. To lose belly fat, you have to lose fat all over your body. While cardio does burn calories, there are downsides to cardio that can sabotage your efforts.
There's a reason that food labels provide nutritional information. It's to help you understand what you're eating and the nutrients or additives that food contains. You can watch people in any grocery aisle in Lakeland, FL, and at least one or two are reading labels. A lot of the time they end up tilting their heads quizzically or trying to hold their glasses differently to read the small print. It's supposed to make eating healthier easier, but, does it? The answer is yes. Once you understand what the label is telling you, healthy eating is easier.
For years, eating breakfast has been praised as important for your health. While that might have been extremely important when most Americans made their living farming and the work was grueling physically, is it that important now? The first meal of the day does help improve cognitive performance, focus and task performance in children, so for children it's extremely important. Once the child reaches adulthood, then whether breakfast is beneficial or not is up for grabs and often a matter of personal preference.
You might not ever think about the need for good workout shoes or have them further down the list of necessities, but they are far more important than having the latest stylish workout outfit. If you don't have good foot support, you could find yourself benched because of ankle or foot injuries. Your feet go through a lot of stress during exercise. At the least, they're the grounding force and hold up your entire body. They need to be cushioned and supportive, so when you twist and turn or land back on the ground after you jump, they're protected.
Many clients start out at Habitat Health and Fitness in Lakeland, Florida, dreading their new adventure to get back into shape, but soon change their attitude toward fitness. If you've ever tried to get fit before and failed, your attitude is the first thing you need to check at the door of the gym. Why? A bad attitude not only uses too much energy that could be better directed into doing something great for yourself or others, but it also is almost a guarantee you'll find an excuse to quit your fitness goals. The good news is that you can change how you think about fitness.
Many of my clients at Habitat Health and Fitness in Lakeland, FL, ask me about a variety of different fitness techniques and options. One that I find particularly good and have said so before is planning your meals and cooking them for a week at a time. It not only helps people stick with a healthy plan of eating, it makes it easier, saves time and money. People ask how to start meal planning and exactly what it is. Typically, it's planning a week's worth of meals during the week, often on Wednesday because grocery sales are announced, then create a grocery list. Shopping is done after you eat on Thursday or Friday and meals are cooked for the next week over the weekend.