I am a walkin' foo!

Because I had nothing better to do this morning before work, I took my car and drove the route that I walk; both at home and at work. When I'm home, I walk 3.3 miles and when I'm at work, I walk 1.4 miles. Well, my blood pressure has been elevated since I've started fertility treatments. It likes to hang out at 140/90. I read on WebMD that this could be caused by hormone therapy. My doctor and my NP don't think it's because of that....probably the stress of infertility. Anyway, so I began an expirement to see what could be causing my high blood pressure besides stress. There was a list of things you could do to lower your bp on WebMD. It is as follows:

• Losing weight if you are obese or overweight. (check, I've lost over 60 lbs since May 2007)
• Quitting smoking (check, never did)
• Eating a healthy diet (check, I started eating healthier in May 2007)
• Reducing the amount of sodium in your diet (check, I've never salted my foods)
• Getting regular aerobic exercise (check, I'll get to this in a minute)
• Limiting alcohol intake to one per day (check, I don't drink....ever)
• Limiting your intake of red meat (check, I cut it out completely)

So, basically, I've done everything I could to lower my bp naturally. A couple weeks ago, during the week before graduation, I had way too much to do and didn't walk at all around my home. My bp was high that week. The next week I had eaten a lot of red meat, but was walking at home again. My bp was high that week, too. So, this week I walked around my home on Sunday evening and Monday morning, didn't eat any red meat for a week, went to the doctor Monday morning and my bp was 124/62. YAY for me! It's got to be a combination of walking and eating healthy....with a little less stressed out Lisa thrown in.

I added up the distance I have walked this week and it was 25.4 miles so far. I plan to walk again this evening and in the morning so my bp is nice and low when I go to the doctor tomorrow.