The following is unofficial non-medical advice that has worked wonders for me, and I hope to help others in situation similar to mine. I want to make it clear that my intention is to help and in no way replace a personal doctor or physician who has studied medicine unlike myself. So with that in mind, I will continue. So this is a Fitness camp, weightloss camp, and boot camp directory right? So, why is it dealing with blood sugar and blood pressure? Well, because this is so much more than just a Fitness camp directory! Whenever I go to a fitness camp, I run into two people almost as certain as death and taxes; those afflicted by diabetes and those afflicted by high blood pressure. And while I am not a doctor and I don't want anything to be misconstrued as medical advice, I am allowed to talk about my experience in weight loss camps, as well as the experience that I, your personal blogger, have had in the areas of blood pressure and blood sugar.
What is blood sugar?
Blood sugar is the common term given to the amount of sugar present in your blood usually expressed in units of milligrams of glucose per deciliter of blood (mg/dL). Healthy ranges for this (again I am not a doctor simply someone who knows what the National Health Institute thinks what range is safe and healthy) are 60-120 mg/dL.
Where do you find out about this information?
Go to your physician. If he or she cannot administer a test or answer your question your doctor might be Dr. Nick from the Upstairs Hollywood Medical College from "The Simpsons". So unless that is the case, he should probably point you in the right direction. From what I've heard as a Non-Medical person who has an opinion based on personal history, your doctor may want to administer a Glucose Tolerance Test and/or a A1C Test (a.k.a. HbA1C Test), the latter being an unofficial convenient way of giving your doctor an idea of how you're doing with regards to blood sugar.What unofficial advice as a non-medical person can I offer?Watch what you eat. It's that simple. When you put pasta, potatoes, bread, and all other forms of goodies that are starches or starch based, as soon as those carbohydrates hit your belly, they turn into sugar. On a molecular level, they are a bunch of sugar-type molecules that loosely form together to form big long strands of molecules that are really sugar molecules in disguise. So what does this mean? You're blood sugar goes through the roof! This means, if you eat a lot of these foods, chances are you're setting yourself up with a future diabetes problem. You don't want to get diabetes!
What else do you have to say about eating starches and blood sugar?
If you are going to eat these foods, don't do so at night! When you go to bed and you have a belly full of sugar, your body doesn't know what to do with that extra energy and it stores it all as fat. The big difference is that when it gets stored as fat, it also creates a big problem for your heart in the form of cholesterol. Most of the cholesterol in your body doesn't come from eating those eggs or cheese, it comes from your body not knowing what to do with all that excess "junk" you put in it before it was shutting down. This is a good reason for exercising at night after you've eaten the last thing you're going to eat for the day. See the Menu for Night Eating Syndrome
What about blood pressure?
Blood pressure, a.k.a. the silent killer, usually refers to the pressure in the arterial walls; the arterial walls being those of the arteries which are the blood vessels that lead blood away from the heart. A sphygmomanometer is the name of the equipment used to measure blood pressure and pre-digital days used a column of mercury to see what the equivalent blood pressure was comparted to a column of mercury. While now most shygnomanometers do not use mercury, the units are still reported in terms of millimeters of mercury (mmHg). This pressure is usually reported in systolic and diastolic.
What do Systolic and Diastolic mean?
Systolic blood pressure is the pressure referring to that pressure on the arterial walls at the beginning of the heart-pumping phase, meaning that right when the heart beats, that's the blood pressure on your arterial wall. The second number is in that split second when your heart does not beat or rests, near the end of the cardiac cycle. This number is lower than the first, but is just as important. Both numbers are read in terms of mmHg and the norm, which can be very different for many people, but nonetheless the norm is about 120mmHg/80mmHg. This means that for a healthy person (again, people are different and these numbers are just averages on a bell curve) the pressure on the arterial walls is 120 mmHg at the beginning of the cardiac cycle, and 80 mmHg at the end of said cycle.
What does a civil engineer that is a non-Medical person have to say about this?
As a person with an engineering background, I can provide a very simple and tidy analogy that is what strikes me the most about high blood pressure. I am not saying this is what a doctor would say, I am saying that this is what I am saying as a civil engineer. The heart is a pump. The more pressure that any pump has to overcome to send a fluid to its final destination, shortens the lifespan of that pump. This isn't to say that a person with extremely low blood pressure is well off in health terms, this may mean something else is terribly wrong that only a doctor can diagnose. But for general terms, when a pump has to exert a higher force to send a fluid somewhere it is shortening its lifespan, so what does that say about your heart? You're wearing it out, and you're asking it to work double time without any rest. Remember that a human heart can work up to 120 years! How long can any machine made by man work for? A year or two at best. That's amazing! From an engineering point of view, that is absolutely amazing. The pump never turns off, so take good care of it. Don't make life harder on it than it already is. Which also says something about cholesterol, blood sugar and exercising properly (perhaps in this "engineering example", exercise can be called maintenance). See the Menu for Good Guidelines for Exercise
How do I lower my blood pressure?
This may not be the answer to all of the guests on this page, but it is a topic of much interest for most guests. The best way to lower your blood pressure is by starting off with a doctor. Get together with your doctor to see what you can do concerning your situation. He may suggest things like taking a medication if he or she sees it fit. He may suggest you eat more fruits and vegetables, and reducing the amount of salts you eat. He might put you on an exercise program that you can ease into. All of these or none of these might be his recommendation, the only way to find out is by acting sooner than later with regards to seeking help from your doctor.
What can a fitness camp, weight loss camp, or bootcamp do to help?
There are two types of fitness camps I've been to. One where it's lose weight, lose weight, and lose weight. And one where it's about more of a lifestyle change. Each camp has its merits, and each camp has its drawbacks. I recommend you give each camp you may be interested in a call, and see for yourself by speaking to a human being what the camp has to offer. That is the main reason I don't include links to them on this page. Talking to the person who answers the phone is a far better way of gauging who you're going to spend a couple of weeks with concerning such a personal and intimate part of most of our lives. So what is the best thing to do to lower blood pressure, go see your doctor and see what he has to say about your situation. I know several people who have attended a lifestyle change type of camp. Most camps prohibit smoking, but these usually take the "prohibition" a bit further, so for any smokers out there, lifestyle changing fitness camps are good (smoking is a cause of raised blood pressure). Your doctor might say things along the lines of reducing/quitting smoking, adding some exercise to your day, increasing the amount of fruits and vegetables you consume, decreasing the intake of salty foods, and in many cases even taking some medications. Again, the best thing to do is to see your doctor, and together, in a very personal fashion, you can come up with what solution is best for you. Ask him about going to a fitness camp and see what he has to say. If you have never attended one, you may be surprised to see how enlightened you leave.
