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I’ve only been ETF-ing since March and have seen tons of issues resolve themselves. I hadn’t had my blood pressure taken since November 2012, when I was both heavily depressed and on a gluten free diet of between 800-2000 calories a day. It was slightly elevated, somewhere around 130/85.
However, in May I started working at a health clinic and since I have regular access to the machine, have been taking my blood pressure more often. It has been consistently elevated: 140/90 is not unusual. I’m not sure if I’m just taking it at a weird time of day or something, but when I took it with my mother’s machine on the 4th of July, it was 158/98. That seems insane to me. I’m 29, I have put on about 40-50 lbs since beginning to ETF in March (from 175 to 215, maybe higher, it’s been a while since I checked), and female. Because of my job, I actually take other people’s blood pressure on a regular basis and there are plenty of people bigger than me who have MUCH better BPs than I do, so I can’t attribute it to the weight gain alone.
Does anybody have any ideas? I eat tons of salt, but I also drink to thirst, which is quite a bit of fluid. Could I be drinking too much, retaining too much water, and have a blood volume that’s so high it’s raising my blood pressure? I know nothing about blood pressure, I just know that it’s been about 4-6 weeks and I’ve cut out ALL caffeine, raised my salt intake, started getting more sleep, and began taking a calcium/magnesium/zinc supplement, all in an effort to lower my BP, but it’s only gotten worse!
Granted, I was hot on the 4th of July when I took it, but I’m still freaking out, okay?! :P
I’m sure that stressing out certainly doesn’t lower it, but should I be seriously concerned, because I AM.
Anybody got any answers?
Depends on where you are coming from. If you were undereating for a prolonged period, it is totally normal to see a big rebound in blood pressure. This was seen in Leningrad after a lengthy famine, and has been seen elsewhere…
http://180degreehealth.com/2010/04/leningrad-hypertension-epidemic
One 180 follower from way back, Collden, did the best job of monitoring this – going from low BP to very high, then back to normal again.
“I was pretty shocked to see my blood pressure drop from like 175/95 three months into the HED, to 130/75 six weeks later, even as I was eating as much as ever. That was the first solid evidence that overfeeding was actually setting things straight in my body, and not just causing damage like the conventional wisdom would have you believe.”
Gustav Collden
I would give it many more months before panicking and doing something drastic. Good to take note of these things, but not good to overreact based on one number that could be very temporary.
Wow. That’s super interesting. Thank you so much for the info, I think I can stop freaking out now. I was trying to wait it out a while longer, but I made the unfortunate decision to tell my mother (who’s a nurse), about it and I think her hysterical reaction got me worried. Since I’ve gained 40+ lbs, and she has a pretty standard medical outlook, combined with a low carb/gluten and grain-free lifestyle… well, really, she’s freaking out about everything.
Anyway, thank you SO much.
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