Ever wondered how you can keep your heart healthier and stronger? Tune in to today's Simple Nutrition Insights Podcast where I, Leonila Campos, offer an insightful exploration into the world of high blood pressure, or hypertension, and its profound impact on your overall well-being. Discover what happens when the force of blood against your vessel walls becomes too high and learn about the critical roles of systolic and diastolic pressures in monitoring these levels. You'll gain a clear understanding of how hypertension can stealthily damage your blood vessels and lead to severe health issues like heart attacks and strokes.
Curious about how lifestyle choices can safeguard you from high blood pressure? This episode sheds light on effective approaches to preventing hypertension, highlighting the impact of white coat syndrome on blood pressure readings at the doctor's office. Get acquainted with the different stages of high blood pressure, as defined by the American Heart Association, and arm yourself with practical tips on incorporating moderate exercises and heart-healthy foods like vegetables, lean meats, and fatty fish into your daily routine. These easy, actionable steps can be crucial in maintaining optimal heart health and ensuring your blood pressure stays within a healthy range.
Feeling overwhelmed by the task of managing high blood pressure? Let’s simplify it together. Join me as we delve into stress and anxiety management techniques that can become second nature with a bit of practice. We’ll uncover the adverse effects of alcohol and smoking on blood pressure and the importance of moderating these habits. Additionally, you’ll find out why monitoring sodium intake is essential for those with high blood pressure and learn how to navigate nutrition labels for better health. Complete with holistic health practices and reputable resources from the American Heart Association, this episode is your guide to mastering the art of maintaining healthy blood pressure levels.
Thank you for listening. Please subscribe to this podcast and share with a friend. If you would like to know more about my services, please message at fueledbyleo@gmail.com
Ever wondered how you can keep your heart healthier and stronger? Tune in to today's Simple Nutrition Insights Podcast where I, Leonila Campos, offer an insightful exploration into the world of high blood pressure, or hypertension, and its profound impact on your overall well-being. Discover what happens when the force of blood against your vessel walls becomes too high and learn about the critical roles of systolic and diastolic pressures in monitoring these levels. You'll gain a clear understanding of how hypertension can stealthily damage your blood vessels and lead to severe health issues like heart attacks and strokes.
Curious about how lifestyle choices can safeguard you from high blood pressure? This episode sheds light on effective approaches to preventing hypertension, highlighting the impact of white coat syndrome on blood pressure readings at the doctor's office. Get acquainted with the different stages of high blood pressure, as defined by the American Heart Association, and arm yourself with practical tips on incorporating moderate exercises and heart-healthy foods like vegetables, lean meats, and fatty fish into your daily routine. These easy, actionable steps can be crucial in maintaining optimal heart health and ensuring your blood pressure stays within a healthy range.
Feeling overwhelmed by the task of managing high blood pressure? Let’s simplify it together. Join me as we delve into stress and anxiety management techniques that can become second nature with a bit of practice. We’ll uncover the adverse effects of alcohol and smoking on blood pressure and the importance of moderating these habits. Additionally, you’ll find out why monitoring sodium intake is essential for those with high blood pressure and learn how to navigate nutrition labels for better health. Complete with holistic health practices and reputable resources from the American Heart Association, this episode is your guide to mastering the art of maintaining healthy blood pressure levels.
Thank you for listening. Please subscribe to this podcast and share with a friend. If you would like to know more about my services, please message at fueledbyleo@gmail.com
Hey, hey, welcome back to another episode in the Simple Nutrition Insights Podcast. I am your host, leonila Campos, and in today's episode we are going to talk about high blood pressure, or hypertension, which is the other name, and so I think it's important to define what that is right. I'm in the field, right, and I see a lot of clients and patients that get referred to me when there is high blood pressure. But if you're maybe, if you're not, if you don't know someone that has high blood pressure, right, or if you're not so sure of what that is, I think it's important to first understand what that is right, the definition of it, possible causes, because you know, interestingly, I had had, you know, a few patients that came to me just for overall well-being, and some of them for weight management, without high blood pressure, right, and so then they they have family members that do, and so they were not sure how to help them in a nutrition standpoint. And so at that point in my mind I was like, oh my gosh, it's so important to have the knowledge right, understand the condition, because then at least, if you know somebody, or now if you're in charge of their care, you have an idea of how to support them in a nutrition standpoint. So what is high blood pressure?
Speaker 1:
High blood pressure, or hypertension, happens when the force of our blood pushing against the walls of our blood vessels is too high, right? So high blood pressure can lead to other serious problems, like heart attack and stroke, and so it is important to be able to prevent it. But if we have it right now, we have to manage it. And so, when you think about the role right of blood in our body, in our circulatory system, it carries nutrients, right, it carries hydration, it carries nutrition throughout our body, to our organs, to our cells, and so blood plays a huge role, obviously, in our existence and our survival. And so when there is high blood pressure, right, it affects our bodies in so many ways on a cellular level. But it also affects our hearts, right? Because when we think about, okay, there's a lot of force right going in through our veins, that means our heart has to work harder, right, to be able to pump that blood to go and, like, profuse all you know our lungs and go into our other cells. And so we don't only see that on the number, you know, which is when they checked our arm, right, for our blood pressure. It's not only oh, it's a high number, right? It affects every single part of our bodies, every single cell, and so it is extremely important to be able to prevent that, but also to manage it, right, once we have high blood pressure.
Speaker 1:
So, first of all, right, there's usually two numbers that are given when you take your blood pressure or when someone takes your blood pressure. Usually, you get these done, for the most part, every time you go see a doctor, right? They want to check those numbers. So you have something called systolic pressure, and that happens as blood pumps out of the heart right into the arteries. And then the second force, which is your low number, your bottom number, that's your diastolic pressure, and that pressure is created as the heart rests between heartbeats, right? So think of it as like if you squeeze your hand, right, so the blood gets pumped out of the heart and then you relax your heart, right? So those are two pressures systolic and diastolic.
Speaker 1:
And so we're going to go over, right now, what is normal, what is not normal, or what is high and low. And so how is this affecting our cardiovascular system, right? Our cardiovascular health, when the blood pressure is high for too long, right? So this is not something that, oh, I have. You know, for some reason I have high blood pressure today. And just keep this in mind, right, that our blood pressure is going to change. It's not always the same, right? If you're sitting down, relaxed, your blood pressure might be lower or more stable, and you get up, right, and you start walking, then your blood pressure is going to change, normal, right, because your body, your heart, is trying to pump more blood to your extremities.
Speaker 1:
But when you think about those higher numbers which I'm going to go in a moment, discuss that in a moment when it's high for too long, chronically high, all the time high, it can damage the wall of the blood vessels, causing them to develop tiny tears. Obviously, you don't feel them, they're inside, you don't see them, they're inside. Obviously you don't feel them, right, they're inside, you don't see them, they're inside. But our bodies are so efficient, right, that they're noticing hey, there are tiny tears on these vessels, we need to do something about it. So, in order to fix those damaged areas, our bodies sense special cells right that stick to the site by trying to heal. Cells, right, that stick to the site by trying to heal, but over time, the substances that you know there's.
Speaker 1:
Obviously there's different nutrients that pass through our blood cell, pass through our vessels and our arteries. They can get stuck right. They can get stuck to or they can build up into those vessels, such as cholesterol, sometimes calcium deposits, fats, and so they build up right into these damaged spots, forming plaque. And this plaque continues to build up right. This is called atherosclerosis. It can make the inside of the arteries narrower right. It can make the inside of the arteries narrower right. So when you think about your heart, already you're working so hard right and we have these damaged arteries right Now with this plaque on them. And so if you had a nice open artery right and the blood flow is going seamlessly right, smooth, there is no slowing down.
Speaker 1:
But now, because we had high blood pressure for a long time, chronically, and we have these stairs and our bodies are trying to fix them, but now we have this plaque on it and now we have this narrowing of the arteries right, so there's less room for the blood to go through it, there's still that force right. Your heart's still trying to work really hard to send the blood wherever it needs to go. So in that process right in that narrowing of the arteries, it blocks the flow of blood too many Bs and further increases the blood pressure, right. So now we have this feedback of like, hey, there's not a lot of blood coming this way, hey, heart pump more blood, right, so the heart is pumping more blood and there's a higher pressure in that artery, right, because it's trying to send that blood out, and so there's so much pressure. And with that pressure and with that force, right now we have a breakage of some of that plaque. Now, guess what's going to happen?
Speaker 1:
If there is a breakage right of something breaking off of that plaque, then that can can lead to a stroke, right. Right, it gets stuck in the brain, right, some part of the brain, and you get a stroke. Or the heart. Then you get a heart attack, right, but not only that right, we have tiny vessels through our bodies, tiny vessels in our eyes, our heart, our kidneys, right General area, and so those tiny vessels even you know, you also hear issues with blood flow in our legs, right and so they start to get damaged, right, there's so much damage happening and our bodies can only do so much, and so then you start to feel that right. So, for example, maybe you're starting to not see very well, right, because those vessels are damaged or your heart gets really fatigued. Right, because it has been uncontrolled.
Speaker 1:
Diabetes and uncontrolled blood pressure, right or high blood pressure, are the two main contributors to chronic kidney disease, kidney failure, right and so because it is affecting the tiny, tiny vessels right in the kidneys and so because there's so much blood flowing to the kidneys, right and so there are other filtration system, and so the kidneys get affected, right, significantly because of that high blood pressure, right, significantly because of that high blood pressure. Now, if we had the component of, we have uncontrolled high blood pressure, uncontrolled diabetes, right now we have these two huge conditions that essentially are going to completely damage the kidneys to the point where we are going to need dialysis, right, so of course, ideally we want to make sure that we prevent that condition, right, we prevent high blood pressure. And so just to give you some numbers here, and I am going to link this article right from the American Heart Association, so you have the reference so normal blood pressure, right, is less than 120 systolic, so your top number right is less than 120 systolic. So your top number over less than 80 diastolic, so less than 120 over 80. That means that your blood pressure is fine. You don't have to worry about it.
Speaker 1:
If you go to the doctor and it's elevated because you get so nervous, you can feel it in your heart, right? This is called white coat syndrome and this can happen even if you have high blood pressure, right? And so just checking it yourself at home, right? Or randomly, let's say you go to Walmart and you're like, oh, let me check my blood pressure random times and it's normal, right, less than 120 over 80. Then just keep track of that, Because if you notice that every time I go to the doctor my blood pressure is high, I know it's not high. The other thing that you can do is you can check it at the end of the visit, or ask them to check it at the end of the visit and you can see how your blood pressure is at that moment. But that is normal.
Speaker 1:
Now, elevated blood pressure right. According to the American Heart Association Blood pressure right. According to the American Heart Association, it's between 120 to 129 systolic over or less than 80, right? So the systolic is the one that is going to be more in that range. If it's elevated, right, there's still not a diagnosis of high blood pressure, but your blood pressure is elevated 120 over 129, no, 120 to 129 over less than 80, right, it's just elevated. There's no diagnosis for it of high blood pressure.
Speaker 1:
Then we get into high blood pressure stage one. That is 120 to 139, over 80 to 89. That's high blood pressure stage 1. High blood pressure stage 2 is 140 or higher, over 90 or higher Right, that's stage 3. And then you have hypertensive crisis, which means that you have to consult your doctor immediately, right, which is higher than 180 and higher over 120. Just imagine how hard your heart has to work, right? But there's also not your blood. Your pressure is really high, right, so your heart is working really hard, but also there's a possibility that there is not enough blood flow going through your systems, right? So, yes, that is a hypertensive crisis. So again, diagnosis right, high blood pressure stage one 130 to 139, over 80 to 89. High blood pressure stage two 140 or higher. High blood pressure stage 2, 140 or higher, over 90 or higher. And then hypertensive crisis 180, higher than 180, over higher than 120. Right, those are your numbers. Again, I'm going to link this article in the show notes so you can go back and reference that as well.
Speaker 1:
High blood pressure is considered a silent killer, right? Because, again, you're not going to have symptoms right away, uh, unless if, like, for some reason, your heart just you know, I don't know, but it's usually a silent killer, right, you're? It's something that happens over time and chronically, and so if someone has had high blood pressure, right, and maybe they haven't done anything about it, and there's that continuous damage to the vessels, and now we have these narrow arteries, right, it's hard for the blood to flow and your heart is working harder. So then it leads to a heart attack, right, or a stroke if some of that plaque breaks off. Okay, how can we prevent high blood pressure? Right?
Speaker 1:
Number one we have to move our bodies, right. Any kind of movement that we do is going to improve our heart function. It's going to improve our circulation. Again, our bodies are meant for movement, right? When you think about sitting down and you sit down for a long time, you start to feel your legs get numb, right, maybe your buttocks, maybe your back, and so we have to move, right. It has to be that blood flow to continue to feed and continue to take nutrients and hydration through our bodies. Same thing for our heart, right, Movement helps with that blood flow, but it also helps with our heart's function, right? So any kind of movement that we do is going to help. I'm not telling you go, sign up to go to the gym, right, and spend hour to two hours Walking is a huge way to help our bodies get better, right? If we can start with like maybe we're not walking at all, okay, let's start with like a thousand steps a day, right, you can even do that at home while you're pacing back and forth and then increase it slowly right to the amount that you feel comfortable with, ideally, right? The general recommendation for movement for adults is, at least let me see that's about 30 minutes a day, right, every day, of moderate physical activity walking, cycling, swimming, whatever you want to do right, but it helps with that oxygen more efficiently circulating through the blood system or the circulatory system. So that's one movement.
Speaker 1:
Number two, of course, our nutrition. Right In order, for this is, we're talking about prevention. Essentially, the management is going to be about similar to that, right, but we're trying to prevent high blood pressure. So we want to focus on our nutrition as well. Right, we want to be able to add these wholesome foods. And if you've listened to my podcast, right, these are things that I I repeat time after time, so it's not a specific diet, with the exception of our salt intake in this case. Right, but because we're in the preventative aspect of it, essentially is everything that I've talked in pretty much all my episodes, right? If you haven't listened to them, definitely go back and take a listen.
Speaker 1:
But the idea is to make these balanced meals right, lots of veggies and a variety of fruits. Choose leaner sources of meat, right Chicken breast, adding your fatty fish salmon, tuna, sardines, mackerel two times a week to give you those healthy fats, those omegas that are going to help with inflammation and oxidation. So we want to be able to add them as well. Right, we want to limit more of our processed foods in the sense because they are going to usually have higher amount of salts, have a higher amount of you know sugar depending on what you're eating and higher amount of saturated fats or hydrogenated oils, which are your trans fats, right, which they are. Also impact your heart, right? If we're struggling with those higher cholesterol, so cholesterol can also affect the function of of our heart. Right in the blood pressure, because there's a buildup of cholesterol, and so then that can also create atherosclerosis or the plaque buildup, which can also affect your blood pressure.
Speaker 1:
So we want to be able to create these balanced meals where we have our proteins, leaner sources of protein, adding some plant sources of protein, right Beans, legumes, soy, aromame, tempeh, seitan as a way to also adding some of those phytonutrients, right, some of that fiber, and then we have a variety of our vegetables and our fruits, our healthy fats, nuts and seeds, right, that all provide these nutrients that our bodies need. And you know, once in a while or less often, we have more of these processed foods, right? So see how I'm saying here you don't have to avoid them, right? But if the majority of your meals are ultra processed right, and you're having higher or fattier meats right, and you're not focusing on your fiber or your fruits and veggies, then just making that meats, right, and you're not focusing on your fiber or your fruits and veggies, then just making that switch right a little bit and that will help. So that's for the nutrition aspect of it, right, weight it also plays a role, right, because when we think about that significant weight gain right, even if we're gaining 5%, 7% of our previous weight, that's usually right. Excess body fat, and so then that means that there is more fat also right around our organs or within our organs. That might also be in our arteries, right, so we have to mostly the cholesterol. We have to also keep that in mind. So, as much as we can, trying to maintain a healthy weight, right, a weight that feels healthy for you.
Speaker 1:
Sleep Sleep plays a huge role, right, plays a huge role in so many functions of our bodies. But that's when our bodies recover, that's when our bodies repair, that's when we have that balancing of hormones. And so if we're not having good quality sleep, right, not only the amount of hours that we sleep at night, but the good quality sleep also plays a huge role, right. So if you're waking up tired, if you're always tired, if you toss and turn, if you can't seem to have that good quality sleep, talking to your doctor about it, right, because that can also affect your blood pressure, because we're almost like we're not resting. Right, your body is tense and so that affects your blood pressure too. But it can also affect other body functions. Right, it can affect your mood. It can affect yeah, you know your nutrition. It can affect your cravings, your desire to eat certain foods. So sleep plays a huge role. So, absolutely, talking to your doctor about it. If you haven't found someone, let me know, because I have a doctor that specializes in sleep. I can give you their contact information and you can reach out to them.
Speaker 1:
Stress, oh my goodness, aren't we all stressed? But when we think about stress, think of it as a fight or flight, which it does what it is right. Fight or flight response, although, right, we live in a more advanced society. Our brains and our bodies, essentially, are still pretty primitive, right, meaning that we're going to respond to stress in a way that we would otherwise responded when we saw a lion, right, or something dangerous. We're going to get this adrenaline going. We're going to feel like, oh my gosh, we're alert all the time. All the blood flow has to go through our extremities. Right, because we have to be ready to go. But think about how much work that is for your heart, for your brain, for your body, if that is consistent all day, day after day, day after day, that your body and the systems in your body, your organs, get fatigued, right, and then that affects your blood pressure too, because then that's also going to affect the way that you eat, it's going to affect your sleep, and so stress plays a huge role in our blood pressure and many other functions, right?
Speaker 1:
So if we are dealing with a lot of stress and this is a question that I ask all my clients, right, and we go these every time, we see each other how is your stress? What are you doing to manage your stress? Right? If the answer is nothing, I don't know how to manage my stress. I just forget it or I put it in the back burner. Well then, guess what's going to happen? It's going to get to a point where you're like I can't do this anymore. You're going to get to that breaking point, right? And because you don't have the skills to know how to deal with it, then that's when we start to get sick, right? We feel like every single part of our bodies and it is just so unhealthy.
Speaker 1:
So here's what we can do, right, if we have these higher levels of stress or anxiety, or like we feel like we can't seem to get a hold of things. Where it can seem to get a hold of things, talk to somebody, right, talk to a therapist, talk to a psychologist, because you need to build these skills and tools to be able to manage your stress to the point where they become second nature, right? So you want to practice and practice it. I probably should do an episode on just that. But you want to be able to practice these tools and skills on a daily basis. So when you do need them, right, they kick in right away. Right, you don't have to think about, okay, what did the therapist say that I should do when I'm under high levels of stress, Because it's not going to happen, right, you're going to be really stressed and that critical part of the brain is not going to like, kick in right away. Right, like, we're in alert mode. So you want to be able to get these tools and skills way ahead of or way before that happens, and you want to practice them time after time. But that can also help you when to bring down your high blood pressure, right, like, if it's more because you get so anxious or because, like, just stress affects you. That way, at least you get those tools to hopefully help you bring down your blood pressure too. So stress management is huge. Management is huge.
Speaker 1:
Um, we know research in um in terms of, like, alcohol drinking right, that also, it's a toxin, so your body's gonna see as that. The more that you add a toxin to your body, right, the more work that your body has to do. So, um, if you don't drink, right, you don't have to worry about that. If you drink consistently, right, um, right, the general recommendation is moderation, but what it really means is one drink for women a day, two drinks for men a day, right? If you don't drink, don't worry about it. You can also not say, oh well, I'm going to accumulate all these drinks so I can have them on the weekend, right? So if I'm not drinking let's say I'm a male, I'm not drinking per se my two drinks, so at the end of the week I can have 14 drinks, right? No, that's not how it works, right? That's just on a daily basis. So that also plays a huge role in smoking.
Speaker 1:
We also know, right, that it's also a toxin. So it has been shown to raise blood pressure and increases the risk of heart attack and stroke. So those are the preventative parts of it which can also be used in the management. Let's say now we have high blood pressure, right, we have been diagnosed, or that we have, you know, that number that is indicating high blood pressure. Now we have to manage it, right?
Speaker 1:
One of the things that I see often is that if it's what's the word normalized, right, not so in a positive way that we can say, oh yeah, my mom had it, my dad had it, my grandpa pretty much anybody that I know had high blood pressure. Right, but as an individual, right, we can say, oh, because they had it. Then it's totally fine if I don't do anything because they had it. So it's like I was wanting to. You know, I was expecting it to have it too. That is not the case, right? But either way, we have it. Now, what do we do? Right, the same thing with the preventative aspect of it.
Speaker 1:
But here is a specific recommendation. When it comes to sodium, right, if you already have high blood pressure, the recommendation is to limit it to 1,500 milligrams, coming from any sources. Right, if you add salt to your food, that's part of it. If you buy salty foods or foods that have salt added to them, that's part of it. But here's the interesting thing Oftentimes the amount of salt that we use at home is not a concern, right? Unless if you're, like, used to eating just tons of salt. Right, somebody cooks, someone cooks and they add a salt already and you're here with a salt shaker adding more. The majority of the time this added salt comes from processed foods. Right. The time this added salt comes from processed foods right, because the food industry uses salt not only for flavoring, but they also use it for preservation. Right, and so you have to worry about that as well.
Speaker 1:
And the way that we look at that right is the nutrition facts label. Right is the nutrition facts label. So I did a whole episode on how to read the nutrition facts label. If you have a chance, go back and take a listen, right? You can also watch it in my YouTube channel if you want more of a visual. But I do want to pinpoint the, or focus on the nutrition facts label specifically where it says, obviously, sodium right, because that is based on the general recommendation of the 2300 milligrams sodium right that is recommended for the general population.
Speaker 1:
So when you see something that has 500 milligrams right of sodium and maybe it says, oh, I don't know, this is 15%, let's say that and I can give you the side calculation. So if you divide 500 by 2300, that's 22%, right? So 22% of my daily value is in this product? We already know. Anything you know closer to 20% is considered high. So this product is high in sodium. But if it's for somebody that has high blood pressure, right, 500 milligrams is 33% of what they need for the whole day, right, and so it doesn't mean that that's all we're going to eat, right? Usually we tend to eat other things throughout the day, so 500 milligrams for that one serving in that specific product is extremely high, right? When we think about we already have high blood pressure, even if we're, like, in that elevated area, right?
Speaker 1:
So we want to be able to really pay attention to the nutrition facts label, unless, if you can tell me, oh, all my foods are fresh, right, I'm not buying any processed food or any packaged foods. Where I need, where there's a food label, then you don't really have to worry about it, right? Just be mindful of how much salt you're using at home, or and I want you to pay attention to these or if you're using concentrated amounts of seasoning, right? So, for example, in my Hispanic population, and I'm sure in other cultures too, we use this concentrated amount of sodium to flavor food, and that is nor-suiza, right? We call it nor-suiza, so it's like bouillon, right, and that is highly concentrated, so like one little tiny block is going to give you like the actual 2,300 milligrams, right, and I'm just overestimating here. I can look it up for you, but you can also look it up yourself if you're like curious.
Speaker 1:
But these higher concentrated amounts of flavorings, right, can really have a high amount of sodium, so you have to pay attention to that as well. And so if you're telling me you know I'm not buying a lot of processed foods or foods that have the food label all my flavoring is coming from home, right, and you start to look at your seasonings or spices or you know whatever you flavor your food with. And you start to look at your seasonings or spices, or you know whatever you flavor your food with, take a look at that too. Right, is there any sodium significant right, like 200, 300 milligrams that I have to worry about? And so and here's why because when someone has high blood pressure, already right, adding higher amounts of sodium, right, or concentrated amounts what that does, right, when we think about because the kidneys also play a huge role in blood pressure regulation when we eat something salty, right, it goes into a bloodstream that triggers the kidneys to be like hey, there is a lot of concentrated sodium in the blood, let's send some water right to dilute that. And so that water right then increases the blood pressure, increases the pressure in our systems, and so then that adds you know, it's extra work for the heart again, but also the kidneys. And so now we think about not drinking enough water right, which also concentrates the blood, which can also affect our blood pressure, unless, right, there's some nuances here. If you already have congestive heart failure, where your water has to be limited, then you have to worry about the water right. Or if your doctor is telling you, limit your water to this amount, but other than that, again, water is another recommendation which Ashley didn't talk about. But you want to be able to stay hydrated, right, and I did another episode on hydration and the importance of water, so also listen to that if you like.
Speaker 1:
But coming back to blood pressure, right and sodium, so your nutrition facts label is going to play a huge role in choosing the healthier options when it comes to, like, buying foods right, veggies right. Sometimes that is easier, you know, more affordable. Just make sure that it says no added salt, right, or reduced sodium, which means that it's going to have a lot less. And if it's cheaper let's say, maybe the regular sodium one is cheaper then while you can do which is odd, but sometimes that happens just come home and rinse it out, right, at least when you eat it it's going to have less amount. Or if you're making a batch, you know a bigger amount, maybe for the entire family just don't add any extra salt, right? And that's how you can reduce the amount of salt in that specific product. But if you're able to choose no added salt or reduced sodium, right, that's one of the ways that you can do it, absolutely.
Speaker 1:
Looking at the nutrition facts label, again, if we're more into looking at okay, I have now high blood pressure, you have to keep that in mind that the recommendation is 1500 milligrams a day, right, or less, of sodium coming from any sources. So when you look at the nutrition facts label, right, if it's, you know 300 milligrams, right, let's do that calculation 300 divided by 1500, that's 20%, which is high, right? So ideally we want foods right, maybe in the 200 range Also, because we have to remember that it's per serving, right. So if you decide, if it's something that you really enjoy and it has 200 milligrams per serving and you eat two. Now you are at 400 milligrams right of sodium, which it can add up. So definitely keep that in mind.
Speaker 1:
Now I talked about so many things, right, and so if it's easier for you to go back and listen to the podcast or the episode again and just choose what's going to be helpful for you, then go ahead and do that. Right. But we talked about the preventative aspect of it. So if you don't have high blood pressure, but maybe you're in this elevated area and you're like I need to do something now because I don't want to get into that hypertensive area, then just really look at how your nutrition is, how your exercise is. If those two areas are great, right, you're like I'm doing a great job here. Then look at your sleep. Then look at your stress and your hydration right, these are other things that also affect that. And really, when it comes to just our overall health and well-being, all those areas can improve our health. Right, if we focus on our movement, if we focus on our nutrition, our sleep, our stress, our hydration, right. It may seem like it's a lot, but we're really taking care of ourselves in a holistic way. So I'll link the American Heart Association. As to your reference, right, and I'll probably add the nutrition facts label too, just to have it in some things to consider If you think of anything else, right, or maybe something specific that you're like oh my gosh, I have a question about whatever.
Speaker 1:
Send me a text right In the podcast. Now, when you go to the part whatever, you listen to podcast, it should say there, send us a text. So send me a text there, or maybe, if I forgot to mention something, let me know too. But that is it, my friend. Please share this podcast episode with someone that you think will benefit, and I appreciate your time. You take care, stay safe and stay strong, and I'll talk to you and see you in another episode. Bye, bye, for now.