Taking Stock.

It's been a few days now since my aneurysm episode and while I'm still getting over the initial shock of it all, I have certainly had time to ponder things. My first thought was, how the hell could this happen to me? Sure I've put on some weight since getting out of the Army but I'm still only 36 and it's not like I'm grossly obese, hell, I'm only about 20 pounds (10 kg) overweight. I'm still pretty active, I lift weights, work out regularly with my kettlebells, and when the weather is warm I do a lot of hiking in the mountains that surround our house. I also go for a walk everyday at work after lunch for about 20-30 minutes. Meanwhile I see people all around me who are exceedingly overweight, eat like pigs, never exercise and yet they seemingly have no health problems.

Looking back I probably should have seen this coming. Way back in 2000 when I got transferred from Germany to Italy they did a medical screening on me and told me that I had borderline high blood pressure and that I should be careful. Now this is back in 2000 when I was in the Army at the peak of physical condition. I did PT (physical training) 5 days a week and had very little body fat. I was in the best shape of my life and yet my BP was borderline high. So I guess it would make sense that it would go up considerably when I got out of the Army. As my friend Don said, aneurysms are hereditary, there's nothing you can do about them, but BP is the trigger that can set them off - and you can do something about your BP.

So that's where I'm at. Major changes to my diet and cutting way back on alcohol. I'm taking my pills but, as I told Don, I HATE taking drugs for anything. I much prefer to do things naturally and since my wakeup call I'm finally taking this seriously. I'm doing extensive research online about all kinds of foods and such that will help me lower my BP. I'm already down a few pounds the past couple days just from taking it easy and watching what I eat (and when I eat it). I've got the top number on my BP down to around 140-150 which is still really high but a hell of a lot better than what it was the day of my episode - a whopping 190. I need to get it down to around 120 to be normal but I'll be happy with anything between 120-130.