May Blood Pressure Results: Salmon

May was hard. We had a few weeks of setbacks at the beginning of the month. Some stress issues that resulted in higher blood pressure readings. More on that later.

For now, let’s talk about salmon.

The goal for May was to eat salmon once per week. We added this on top of the January  goal to practice yoga three times per week, the February goal to eliminate added sugar from our diet, the March goal to meditate three times per week and the April goal to drink tea three times per week.

This one was a weeeeee harder than normal because we don’t eat a lot of salmon. In the past it’s been thought of as a delicacy in this house, served on special occasions. We enjoy it, but it smells funny when cooking it, doesn’t make great leftovers, and is more expensive than the average protein.

But those long-chain omega-3 fatty acids are powerful little buggers that can lower blood pressure, strengthen the immune system and impact the nervous system as well. An article by Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health says that omega-3’s can lower your blood pressure and heart rate and improve blood vessel function. However. “About one-third of Americans eat seafood once a week, while nearly half eat fish only occasionally or not at all.”

So we weren’t even in the one-third of Americans that ate it once per week.

Well, we are now! Cheers for being in the top 33.33333 to infinity percent!

What We Ate

The first week we had a lovely salmon with risotto. I had this at a resort once, on a weekend girls trip, and I had to recreate it when I got home. Basically, the side dish is what it’s all about. Typically, we make the risotto with manchego and walnuts, but this time we ate it plain. Either way works. Risotto is so yummy. Oh, there was salmon too. Cooked very simply, with oil, salt and pepper.

The next week, we had less time, so we ordered sushi from our grocery store. We live in Texas and are fortunate to have a great grocery chain (H.E.B.) which makes great sushi. I just ordered it in my grocery order and picked it up curbside. So easy. I can’t believe I never thought of doing this before. But that’s what this experiment is all about, right? Trying new things, gaining new experiences, which will all lead to lower blood pressure over time.

The third week, I forgot all about the MONTH OF SALMON. I ordered CostCo for the weekly grocery haul and didn’t order any salmon. Though, I know they tend to have some nice options. Thankfully, we get canned salmon from Thrive Market every month, so I made a salmon salad (like tuna salad, only with salmon). My husband ate it with some salad greens and I scooped it up with some almond crackers. The kids did not partake on this one. But still. There’s another flexible last-minute item. 

We tried to get a little more fancy with the fourth serving of salmon we had this month. (Note – fancy does not mean hard.) We have a basil plant on our backporch that is doing really well and we had a farmhouse delivery with a bunch of potatoes in it. So we roasted the potatoes and made a pesto sauce to go over the top of the salmon. The pesto recipe was SO GOOD. We got it from Steph and Adam from Fit Couple Cooks. The kids were not a fan of the salmon in this meal, but they coated it in the yummy pesto and ate it anyway.

Overall, I don’t think it will be too hard to keep working salmon into our diets on a regular basis. The kids are getting used to it and I’m always interested in trying new recipes, and there are a ton out there that I’d love to incorporate. You can follow along with this plan on my Salmon Dinners Pinterest board.

The Results

My average blood pressure for May was 127/86 with a resting heart rate of 69.

To give some perspective, let me share with you where I started and what my goals are. I started by taking a baseline in December. I take my blood pressure every Monday morning. I take an average of three readings in one sitting. If one reading looks much lower or much higher than the others, I adjust the blood pressure cuff and take it again, throwing out the abnormal reading.

Here are those results:

And here are my goals:

Here’s the explanation of those goals:

1. Lower blood pressure to the same levels as what my body was producing on 20 mg of hydrochlorothiazide (HCTZ). Without any use of pharmaceuticals. This would still be Stage 2 Hypertension.
2. Lower blood pressure to the same levels as what my body was producing on 50 mg of hydrochlorothiazide (HCTZ). Without any use of pharmaceuticals. This would still be Stage 2 Hypertension.
3. Fall out of Stage 2 Hypertension, into Stage 1 Hypertension.
4. Fall out of Stage 1 Hypertension, into Elevated status.
5. Fall out of Elevated status, into Normal status.
6. Maintain for life.

In March, I achieved  my first small goal, which was to naturally lower my blood pressure to the same levels as what my body was seeing when I was taking 20 mg of hydrochlorothiazide (HCTZ) without any use of pharmaceuticals.

In the above table, the first two readings are those I recorded myself, back when I was tracking my progress on the pharmaceuticals my cardiologist prescribed in 2019 and the early months of 2020.

In April, I met two other goals:

I’m no longer in Stage 2 Hypertension, according to the below chart from the American Heart Association AND my blood pressure is now at the same levels as what it was seeing when I was taking 50 mg of HCTZ. Without any kind of pharmaceuticals. I never went higher than 50 mg on the HCTZ. By that time, I was reacting negatively to the medication and knew I needed to find another path. 

I did not meet any new goals in May. However, my numbers are still falling, which is fulfilling to see, and makes all this work worth it.

My Systolic pressure (the amount of pressure in the arteries during the contraction of your heart muscle) came down by 3 millimetres of mercury (mm Hg) during the month of May, and has come down a whopping 27 mm Hg since December 2020.

My Diastolic pressure (the amount of pressure in the arteries when the heart rests between beats) came down by 3 mm Hg in May and by 19 mm Hg since the start of the experiment. 

My heart rate (the number of times the heart beats per minute while at rest) stayed the same in May, but has come down by a cumulative total of 10 beats per minute (bpm) in 2021.

My next goal is to fall into the Elevated Blood Pressure category from the AHA table above. My Systolic pressure is already there, but not the Diastolic. 

Anomalies

What was different this month (other than the consumption of more salmon)? A couple of things.

Most importantly, a dear family friend died on May 4th from complications from COVID-19. It sent a ripple through our household. He was my husband’s dear friend and work colleague, the best friend he’s made in his adult life outside of the army. He was the dad of our oldest son’s best bud since kindergarten. And he was the wife of a dear friend of mine.

We were tight with him. And it’s hit us hard. Grief can raise blood pressure, I’m sure. I don’t have the heart to look up the science on that. But I’m sure it’s true. 

The second thing that was different this month is we did more things outside the house. My husband and I are both vaccinated, our 14-year-old has his first shot, and we are making more plans to hang outside of the house. A good portion of that, obviously, has been helping to facilitate funeral arrangements and hang with our friends who just lost their patriarch. But some has also been eating on restaraunt patios for the first time in over a year and doing some thrifting in brief spurts. 

We haven’t gone overboard with this. Our youngest son is in the high-risk category and he’s the only one who has not been vaccinated. So we are still taking precautions until he gets his vax in September. We aren’t eating indoors at restaurants yet, and we aren’t getting too close to unvaccinated people. However, the belt has been loosened a bit. And that is naturally creating a mix of relief and anxiety.

Also – I had a work trip to Dallas this month. That definitely created some stress. And we had an emergency rush-the-cat-to-the-vet situation on Mother’s Day, which upped my blood pressure readings, I’m sure. The cat is fine. We are fine. But it was definitely a stress-filled afternoon.

We’ve missed some yoga and some meditation sessions. Because we are finding ourselves busier. And I’ve had to be very conscious of how we reel that back in. I have to be more mindful of getting back to center. Doing the small habits. Making sure we aren’t too busy. One reading – from May 24th – was notably elevated. I made a note reminding myself that I had gotten away from yoga and mediation the week before and I’d been grinding my teeth more at night. It was a good reminder to recommit to the habits.

Also – we’ve continued with our chiropractic care. So that is something to keep note of in the data from this month. Some studies have linked neck adjustments to lowered blood pressure. 

In the interest of science, I took my blood pressure before a chiropractic neck adjustment on May 26th, and then after, and the results are shocking. My Systolic rate came down by 6 mm Hg between the two readings and my heart rate came down by 4 bpm. My Diastolic pressure stayed the same. Both of these readings – before and after – are included in my numbers for May.

This obviously impacts the independent variable in the experiment. But trust me when I say I NEEDED it. I’ve thought about scheduling a month of regular chiropractic care as an experiment in the future, and that might still happen, but I also want to make sure the habits I form are something everyone can do. Regardless of budget. But. Something to think about.

I should also note that I’m still taking 120 mg of CoQ10 and a multivitamin (almost) every day. And I also am (almost every day) taking a modified version of the COVID-19 vitamin regimen recommended by my local health officials:

• 5000 IU of D3 per day
• 600 mg of NAC per day (health officials recommended twice a day, but I take it once)
• 1000 mg of Vitamin C per day (health officials recommended twice a day, but I take it once)
• 3 mg of Melatonin before bed (bonus) (for me, this one is rare – maybe once a week or so)

We started taking these on March 1 (I ordered them that second week of February, but the Texas arctic blast delayed the shipping). So for the past three months, this regime has likely contributed to my results. However – this past month, the vitamin regimen has been more sporadic, because I’m running low and trying to stretch.

The Habits

While the habits are meant to build upon each other over time, and not individually stand on their own, I have created a chart to show how each habit, incorporated each month, has affected my blood pressure results within that month.

As you can see, I saw the biggest impact in January, when we started incorporating yoga three times per week. Cutting out sugar inspired another deep decline in my numbers, but keep in mind I was also continuing my yoga habit, so that return is compounded. Also interesting to point out, my Heart Rate came down the MOST in the Cutting out Sugar phase in February.

Meditation March didn’t have the same intense results, but I do have to say my commitment waned a bit that month, and we had more setbacks than usual.

Adding tea and salmon to our diet in April and May was so simple, it feels like those results were effortless.

If I want to reach my next goal, I need to focus on my Diastolic pressure, and that came down the most with yoga, cutting out sugar, and adding salmon. So, I don’t recognize a pattern there. My heart rate remained the same in May, which is why there’s no bar for that one in the Salmon category. But that one is in the target range of 50 to 70 bpm, so I don’t need to worry about it.

My Period

My cycle has been very telling during this experiment. In February, when we cut sugar out of our diets, my period came EIGHT DAYS early, which is unheard of for me. Hence the caps. I indulged at Easter, eating allllll the Cadbury Mini Eggs, and my period was SO PAINFUL in April as a result.

After that, I made it a point to stay away from sugar, as a side experiment. And my period was SO MUCH BETTER this month. I still had pain, but it was manageable with a warm compress and a hot bath with magnesium oil.

From now on, I’ll try to remember that pain when I’m tempted with sugar. I can’t promise I won’t eat another bag of Mini Eggs next Easter. But I can promise you I KNOW what I’m getting into now.

Now, on to experiment #6.