Surprised Doctors and Busy Bees

Two days ago I went to Sindecuse Health Center here at WMU, which for those who don’t know me very well are the “Company Docs” that provide non-urgent medical care free of charge to University employees. I went in for a blood pressure screening.

Some history is in order to explain why my blood pressure is so important to me. I have a hereditary predisposition for hypertension that I inherited from the males on both sides of my family. My father has controlled hypertension and my maternal and paternal grandfathers both died of associated circulatory failures, heart attacks and strokes. So I am very aware of my blood pressure and like to screen myself for it every once in a while. My biggest problem with it is that my blood pressure is linked to my body weight pretty much directly. I am 6 foot 3 inches and when I weighed 280 pounds (very overweight) my blood pressure was 149/93. That put me smack dab in the middle of hypertension. I am young enough where the doctors gave me an ultimatum, either address this issue now or they’ll write a perscription for me which will start me on the drug treadmill that I can never stop running on once I get started. A pretty direct message if I don’t say so myself.

The fear of the drugs, and in a way the nebulous fear of hypertension on its own was a good portion of my recent decision to finally address my weight issue. I started at 280 pounds and currently I weigh 245 pounds. I have another 45 pounds to lose, as my goal weight is 200 flat and even pounds. When I went for the screening the doctor asked me why I wanted the screening and then I informed her that I had lost a lot of weight recently and wanted to see if my blood pressure was still linked to my body weight, as I really deep-in-my-heart know it truly is. She of course went from one hot-button statement to another. Someone comes in out of the blue for a blood pressure screening is one thing, but rapid precipitous weight loss? It could have been a medical emergency, a very bad sign. She did ask, and I told her that I had simply had enough of weighing so much and being so fat and lazy. Truth to be told, it wasn’t anything really new that I have done to myself except perhaps listen. If you ask any medical or weight-conscious professional about how to lose weight they will yawn, stretch, and mutter “eat right and get plenty of exercise.” It has to be exceptionally dull for these people, they keep on saying the same thing over and over again and people don’t want to do that, they want something magical and instant. So telling her that I was working out every single day and eating better helped calm down the red-button-mashing she was on the edge of with me. My blood pressure at 245 pounds is 136/88. I have lowered both the systolic and diastolic numbers and now I am not hypertensive anymore. I found a chart that doctors use to explain to patients what their blood pressure measurements mean and this chart tells me that I am now regarded by the medical community as “high normal” when it comes to blood pressure. I used to be hypertensive, now I am not. I know that anyone can live for years in a hypertensive state, but like a machine with too little oil, eventually that condition will wear out all the parts, especially the kidneys and the blood vessels in the brain and lead to a sticky and quick end – either renal failure or a stroke, if not something else equally as hazardous and unpleasant.

While my screening was underway, the doctor asked if I had any allergies. I told her that for the past few years I have not suffered from my hayfever or my allergy to poplar-tree pollen1. She asked what I had done to do that, or if I was taking any OTC medications and I told her that I simply included local unfiltered honey as a sweetener to my breakfast in the morning. She looked at me with a curious light in her eyes, as if she had never heard anyone do this before. There is an old-wives-tale/superstition that local honey can alleviate allergies, especially if those allergies are linked to pollen. The honey I buy is from Meijer’s markets and it comes from Onsted, Michigan. It’s local enough apparently to do the trick for me. I apply one serving (21 grams) of honey to my breakfast cereal every morning. I have not had the runny eyes, the clogged nose, nor the inability to swallow properly that usually comes when I’m in the thick of my seasonal allergy attacks. It could be all a giant placebo effect, or it could actually be helping me. Either way honey is good for you, and as a replacement for table sugar it makes a great sweetener all around. Cereal, Coffee, Tea, anything really that needs some sweetening. I keep on telling people about the benefits of local unfiltered honey and every once in a while I win someone over who adopts it as their sweetener of choice. If you have a choice between table sugar and honey, one is more ‘natural’ than the other, just on that basis it makes sense to me.

So I am in the middle of losing weight and so far I’m doing quite well. I haven’t had any injuries and I blew past my old plateau of 260 pounds long ago. I feel really good, I have a lot more energy now than I did before, in so far that I don’t feel so sluggish all the time and nearly everything else in my life has improved. My mood, my digestion, and yes, all the other parts of me that we don’t talk about in pleasant conversation, those have improved as well. When people ask me what diet I’m on, I tell them it’s the oldest one in the book. The one that doctors and fitness people yawn on through when they say it, “Eat right, get plenty of exercise”. I’ll write up my “diet” in another blog entry for those that might want to try it.