In all of these diets the main thing to remember is that there is a difference between raw and cooked food. With raw foods, you only measure the full weight of the food and you see what their actual carbohydrate count is. The cooked food can have various seasoning and other ingredients added. This can change the carbohydrate count of these foods quite drastically.

In order that you don’t get your foods mixed up you may want to see about getting one of those carb counters that are being promoted on the many low carb diet websites on the Internet. Armed with something like this you can very easily look up the carbohydrate count of whatever kinds of food that you want to eat.

There are even carb counters that can find and work out the hidden carbs in your favourite foods and whatever the carb content of these foods is, will be displayed. You will then be able to check whether they fit into the low carb diet you are currently on. You could also see about getting a list of foods where the carbohydrate count for those foods is clearly stated.

In this way, when you work out your meals, you will only have to check your list to discover which low carb foods are acceptable. Sometimes, the Internet low carb recipe websites will have the information about the carbohydrate count that is in their recipe’s ingredients. Of course, if this information is not available you will need to resort to counting carbohydrates yourself to get this vital information.

You should not fret too much about finding what the carbohydrate count is of everything in the recipe. Sometimes, you can be a little too dogmatic and end up leaving important foods out of your meals because your carbohydrate count for that meal or the day has been exceeded.

Basically, with a carbohydrate count you can decide whether or not to use certain ingredients in your meals. However, there is a good aspect to this carbohydrate counting and there is a bad side. Maybe, the main thing that you have to do is to figure out what foods you think to be part of a healthy diet and use the carbohydrate count only to find the nutritional value of your meal.

Do you need to lose those excess kilos real fast? Well, take a free look at Carbohydrate Counters, by visiting our website called The Atkins Diet Plan

However, it is vital to strive to reduce your blood pressure, also called hypertension, before you go on tablets. Lots of people are of the belief that once your body relies on medication to moderate its hypertension, you will never be able to wean yourself off the tablets. This is what my GP told me. Therefore, if it goes against your personal philosophy to take tablets, now is the time to do something about it.

The first thing to do is quit smoking and if you regularly drink too much alcohol, to cut back on that too, as both actions will have the effect of raising your blood pressure. Adopting these measures will also have knock-on effects for the remainder of your body. You will be fitter in general by not smoking at all and not drinking very much.

The next thing to do is to raise your level of daily activity. Do you take any exercise at all? If not, you will be surprised at how much two thirty-minute sessions of light exercise will help. Walk for thirty minutes in the morning and evening or replace one walk for thirty minutes gardening or swimming.

Diet is another manner of beating off the hypertension tablets. Salt, or sodium as it is often referred to, is a major cause of hypertension, usually because it encourages water retention. So, cutting back on salt or following a sodium depleted diet can have a major impact on your blood pressure.

Try substituting something else for salt: more pepper, a mixture of some other herbs or just leave it out altogether. After a couple of weeks you will not notice, except that everyone else’s cooking will taste really heavily over-salted! I did this quite successfully.

Add more fresh fruit and vegetables to your diet, because that will also reduce your hypertension. Eating less fat and red meat will also help. Stress is a main factor in hypertension, try to relax a bit more and possibly take up meditation or yoga.

If you are on medication, it is possible that the drugs are increasing your blood pressure. If you think that this may be true, take your drugs to the doctor and seek his opinion. You might be able to substitute some of them. Some of the drugs that can have an undesirable effect are: oral contraceptives, steroids, anti-depressants and cold / flu treatments.

You will notice that many of these methods for reducing your (possible) hypertension are related, so if you are an over-weight, inactive smoker who likes a drink, you can do a great deal by remedying that and your pressure will fall and you will become healthier in other ways too.

Owen Jones, the writer of this article writes on a number of topics, but is currently involved with work on the cause of high blood pressure. If you want to know more or check out some great offers, please go to our website at High Blood Pressure Recipes.

The first is to lose weight by means of a prudent diet, if you are overweight. Cut down on salt and eat more fresh fruit and vegetables. The second is to quit smoking, the third is to not imbibe so much alcohol and the fourth, the subject of this article, is to take more exercise. Exercise will help you reduce weight and it will also reduce your blood pressure.

Blood pressure tends to increase with age and age has a tendency to coincide with a less active vocation, as you are promoted into the office and a less active home life as the kids are older and have probably left home. If you let watching TV take over from walking as your foremost kind of entertainment, the likelihood is that you will develop hypertension.

The fact is, that you ought to be getting more exercise as you get older not less. Exercising will not just reduce your hypertension, but avoiding hypertension will also reduce your chances of having a stroke and getting kidney disease. Exercising is a medium to long term strategy, because the premise of the strategy is to fortify the heart. Exercising will cause your heart to beat faster which will make it more powerful.

A stronger heart will have less trouble pumping your blood around. Exercise can reduce your blood pressure by ten points or ten millilitres. Exercise can not just reduce your hypertension, but it can prevent you from procuring it.

If you have let yourself go, be wary of exercising too strenuously at the beginning. Do not put excessive strain on your heart for the first few of months. What can you do? Well, walking or swimming is a good beginning. Most doctors would agree that hiking only thirty minutes every morning and thirty minutes each evening can make a huge difference to your heart and your blood pressure.

You can walk in the open air or if that is not convenient, you could buy a stepping machine. After a couple of months, you will be fit enough to take on more strenuous exercises like yoga or going to a gym.

If you are concerned about over doing it, you should join a gym where someone will keep an eye on you or even devise a routine for you. A home blood pressure monitor is a helpful device to have. The best sort to buy is the fully automatic digital monitor with a self-inflating cuff. If you get one that has a memory, you can easily compare your progress at decreasing your hypertension.

Owen Jones, the author of this article writes on a number of subjects, but is currently involved with work on cause of high blood pressure. If you want to know more or check out some great offers, please go to our website at High Blood Pressure Recipes.

So, how do you make sure that you remember to take the tablets as prescribed by your physician? It can be difficult for those individuals who have a bad memory, a busy lifestyle or numerous tablets to take. Some people buy pill boxes with the numbers one to thirty-one on different compartments, so that they can see whether they have missed a day. This is a good idea which works for most people.

Others keep their medication on the rack in the bathroom next to their toothbrush, so that they cannot avoid seeing their blood pressure medication. It is also a good concept to get into the routine of taking your tablets at the same time each day.

However, some tablets ought to be taken with or right after eating food to minimize the likelihood of upsetting your stomach. So, if you brush you teeth after breakfast, all well and good. Otherwise, you could keep your pills where you usually eat your breakfast or evening meal, so that you can take them with or after eating.

Regularity or routine is the best way of remembering to take your tablets. After even a short time, you will reach for them automatically like Pavlov’s dogs when you take the action that triggers taking the tablets. I work from home and any tablets that I have to take, I keep by my computer so that I take them with coffee as soon as I begin working.

This works if you work from home, yet it is not a useful idea to have one set of tablets on the go in your employer’s office and another one at home. You should never double up on this sort of tablets – it is usually better to miss a day than chance taking them twice if you are definitely not certain. Taking them late however is better than not taking them.

I do not have a pill box, so I simply write the date the pill has to be taken on the back of the foil with a felt tip pen so that I can see easily where I am.

Attempt to associate taking your tablets with an action or make it a part of another action. For example, if you maintain a diary, make a point of putting a mark each day to show that you have taken your tablets and keep the tablets by the diary. If the strips of tablets are small, you can keep them with your money – literally in with your money, so that you see them a number of times a day.

If you use a computer each day, you can easily (very easily, honest) set up a daily reminder in Outlook or some other electronic organizer to inform you each day by pop-up to take your blood pressure medication.

Owen Jones, the writer of this piece writes on a number of subjects, but is currently involved with work on foods for high blood pressure. If you want to know more or check out some great offers, please go to our website at High Blood Pressure Recipes.

When you are given your blood pressure reading by either your physician or your machine, you will be given two figures, say 120/80.

The first figure is your systolic blood pressure. The systolic pressure is while your heart ‘beats’ or contracts, pumping your blood around you body.

The second number is while your heart expands, sucking blood back into itself. This is the diastolic blood pressure. These numbers are of the blood pressure in your arteries.

There are four categories that your blood pressure readings can fall into. The first is normal and it is generally accepted that that means readings below 120/80. These numbers relate to a healthy person and can be achieved by almost anyone by keeping a healthy active lifestyle.

The second stage is called ‘Prehypertension’ and relates to blood pressures between ‘normal’ and 140/90. This is the warning stage that you ought to be doing something to reduce your blood pressure. This could mean: a modification of diet; drinking less alcohol, tea or coffee; losing weight; taking more exercise; smoking less or giving up smoking altogether.

The third stage is known as ‘Hypertension Stage One’ and is reflected by numbers between prehypertension and 160/100. If you get into this stage then you really have to see your doctor and he will advocate serious changes to your lifestyle along the lines suggested above or / and he will put you on tablets.

The fourth stage is known as ‘Hypertension Stage Two’ and is anything above 160/100. This is quite dangerous and your doctor will want to get you to make radical changes to your lifestyle and / or take tablets which could be for the remainder of your life. If you reach this stage go to your doctor’s as soon as you can.

Whilst you are discussing your blood pressure with your doctor, be sure you tell him about any other medication you are taking, because some medication will raise blood pressure as well. Examples of medication that can raise your blood pressure are: anti-depressants, oral contraceptives and anti-flu or anti-cough treatments.

There are other things that can affect blood pressure too. lack of sleep is one. Do you have a new-born baby, a sick child, money problems, sleep apnoea or a snoring spouse that inhibit you from sleeping properly?

Fear, anger and anxiety are also reasons for high blood pressure. So is constipation, drinking too much and smoking. So, before you let your doctor prescribe medication to reduce your blood pressure, make certain he is aware of all your conditions.

Owen Jones, the author of this piece writes on several of topics, but is currently involved with work on how to read blood pressure. If you want to know more or check out some great offers, please go to our website at High Blood Pressure Recipes.

The aneroid monitor has a dial-type gauge and you read off your blood pressure figures from that. It also has a cuff, which you wrap about your arm and which you inflate with a rubber bulb. The digital monitors also use a cuff, yet it can be manually or automatically blown up. The results are read from a small screen. The choice is yours, but most people prefer the automatic digital monitor.

An aneroid home monitor is portable and requires neither batteries nor electricity so is somewhat cheaper than the digital version. It also has a stethoscope built into the cuff for easy monitoring. A problem could arise in raucous surroundings or if the user is hard of hearing. Someone with arthritic hands or fingers might have problems squeezing the bulb too.

Digital monitors are more expensive, yet they are more well-liked as well despite that, because they can be entirely automatic. The screen is also easier to read and some units come with a small printer to create a physical record of your readings. Other digital home monitors have a memory.

The one I use has three memories of thirty slots each so that you can compare records over a month. Having three memories means that you can monitor and record readings for three separate people or three separate time slots for one person over the period of a month. If you choose three time slots they could be morning, noon and night, as blood pressures vary during the day.

Whichever sort of monitor you decide on, be certain that the cuff is the correct size for you. Be particularly careful if you have very large or very thin arms. Check the age range for the device as well. Mine says for use only on individuals over 18 years, yet does not say why.

If electricity or batteries is ever likely to be a a problem, then the automatic digital home monitor might not be for you, although you may be able to rig it up to photovoltaic cells and exploit the sun’s rays.

Neither of these units are difficult to use, if you know how, so be sure that the instruction book does not seem as if it was translated by machine. It is of course vital to know how to take precise readings and how to understand them. In order to check the accuracy of your device it is worth taking it with on your next visit to your GP.

You can check your readings against those of his sphygmomanometer, which is thought of as the gold standard of blood monitoring devices. Your GP will also be able to tell you what your systolic and diastolic pressures ought to be.

Owen Jones, the writer of this piece writes on several of topics, but is currently involved with work on high blood pressure charts. If you want to know more or check out some great offers, please go to our website at High Blood Pressure Recipes.

Hypertension is a serious medical condition which can kill if not treated, but it is often an indication of leading a bad lifestyle, so a sufferer can normally avoid hypertension by introducing a few lifestyle changes. The time to instigate these changes is as soon as possible, because the changes are sensible ones, but young bodies can take more abuse than older ones, so it is a good concept to keep an eye on your blood pressure from your mid thirties.

Age and ethnicity are factors in hypertension but there is naturally nothing you can do about that, yet the other factors are good for everybody, because they merely involve living a better lifestyle.

Being overweight is a major factor in producing hypertension. The answer is evident – if you are overweight, lose those surplus pounds. Losing just ten pounds can reduce your blood pressure a lot.

Being inactive is another major factor in creating hypertension and is obviously linked with being overweight. Therefore, you can kill two birds with one stone by exercising more in order to lose weight. Eating excessive amounts of sodium (table salt) is another factor in high blood pressure, so this offers another opportunity to ‘double up’.

While you are attempting to lose weight in order to help reduce your hypertension, incorporate reduced-sodium recipes into your cooking routine. There are plenty of low-sodium or low-salt recipes on the Net and once you have been eating low-sodium for a week or ten days you will ask yourself why you ever used salt in the first place.

Salt is naturally present in some foods more than others, so you will have to get some assistance in the beginning, but merely not adding any salt or sugar to any of your food or drink is a decent start. Eating more fresh fruit and vegetables is another obvious thing to do. Strive not to use canned foods as salt is frequently used to ‘pump up the flavour’ and preserve cheap ingredients in tins.

Smoking is bad for you. We all know that, however it also increases blood pressure and so does drinking too much alcohol on a frequent basis. These are problematic lifestyle alterations to master, yet you could at least cut down.

Stress, fear, anger, worry and sleeplessness are also factors that increase hypertension and it is simple to see that they could all be interrelated. It is frequently said that exercise reduces stress and so that may now have a triple benefit. If you suffer from stress, meditation or yoga might help you as well.

In short, you can to do something about your hypertension. Some of the changes are not simple, yet just doing something on all these fronts will have an impact and perhaps keep you off medication for the rest of your life.

Owen Jones, the writer of this article writes on several of subjects, but is currently involved with work on foods for high blood pressure. If you want to know more or check out some great offers, please go to our website at High Blood Pressure Recipes.

There are rough figures that doctors quote as ’standard’, yet there is no clear, definitive consensus what these numbers are. In the west, most authorities will say that any reading under 120/80 is good. However, there are numerous medical professionals who will say that 140/80 does not require treatment, other than to lose a few pounds, if you are over weight.

This makes it very difficult for the unqualified person to judge for him or herself, whether his or her blood pressure is satisfactory or not. Blood pressure monitors are very comforting, very accurate but not costly nowadays, but how can you interpret the data they give you, if not every medical expert has the same opinion?

Perhaps the only way to get the most sense of this data is to go along to your general practitioner with your blood pressure monitor and talk about its findings with your doctor. Your doctor can use his or her sophisticated device and check it with yours then your doctor can give you a few figures that can be expected for someone like you.

I say this because there are a number of things that can affect blood pressure. In fact, actual blood pressure changes with every beat of the heart, so your blood pressure can be different every time you take it, which is why a BP monitor takes the average (or the maximum) over, say, a two minute period.

Factors that can (and often do) have an effect on blood pressure are:

The ‘White Coat Effect’: some individuals’ BP soars by as much as 25-50 points if they go into a doctor’s surgery. This could be anxiety or it could be fear of doctors, and it is a documented difficulty.

Mood: fear, anger, depression and anxiety can upset your blood pressure.

Age: your age has some sway on your BP.

Weather: the temperature and the humidity affects BP

Stress: stress, restlessness, lack of sleep and tiredness can affect the levels of your blood pressure.

Diet: which foods and beverages you have recently consumed have an effect as do whether you are constipated or merely ‘full’.

Smoking: smoking and drinking alcohol affect blood pressure.

Exercise: your physical condition, your metabolism and the amount of exercise you take are also factors.

Time of the Day: for all the above reasons and more, the time of the day that you take the reading has an impact, which is why it is a good thing to have your own blood pressure monitor at home. Then you can measure your BP at definite times of the day and compare the results with the hoped for levels of diastolic and systolic blood pressure given you by your GP.

Owen Jones, the writer of this piece writes on a number of topics, but is currently involved with work on high blood pressure charts. If you want to know more or check out some great offers, just go to our site at High Blood Pressure Recipes.

This piece will give tips for safely lowering high blood pressure, none of which present any risk to you unless I mention them in this piece.

The first thing to do, if you are worried about your blood pressure (BP), is to buy a BP monitor. They are not expensive but they are very comforting. Sure, you can go to your doctor to have your BP checked, yet there are reasons why this tactic is not exact.

For example, there is something called the ‘white coat effect’, which means that people who are made anxious by doctors can show a 25-50 point higher reading than is the actual case. However, you should take your BP monitor to your doctor to check it with the one there.

Once you know what your BP should be for your age and you have the ability to get an accurate measurement of your BP, you are in a situation to check your progress in reducing it.

The first thing to do is regulate your weight. In order to do this, you will probably have to to lose weight and to do this there are two tactics, both of which you ought to take. The first is exercise and the second is diet. The exercise constituent does not have to be strenuous – my medical doctor told me to walk thirty minutes every morning and each evening.

The diet part is the only advice I will give that requires checking with your GP. Sodium or table salt is positively linked to water retention, weight and high blood pressure. However, giving up salt can get perilous if you have certain complications (especially thyroid) or if you live in a hot country. Therefore, check the sodium diet with your GP.

If you smoke or drink alcohol to excess that will raise your BP. Perhaps it never did while you were younger, but as your body gets older, it certainly will. Smoking and drinking to excess regularly will raise your BP. No question of it.

Cut down on weighty foods like fatty meat. Not stop, but try to substitute more fresh vegetables and fruit. This can be integrated into your diet easily enough.

Mood affects your BP, so strive to remain calm. This might mean taking up relaxation techniques such as meditation or yoga, but it could also merely mean watching a film, going for a walk or listening to some classical music.

Swimming is very relaxing for me and many others too. It is a way of relaxing and fighting the flab at the same time. Furthermore, coupled with some of the other suggestions for safely lowering high blood pressure might help keep you off tablets for the remainder of your life.

Owen Jones, the author of this piece writes on several of topics, but is currently involved with work on high blood pressure charts. If you want to know more or check out some great offers, please go to our website at High Blood Pressure Recipes.

Therefore, if you have been given this warning, take it seriously. The doctor’s advice can take different forms, but it usually encompasses: lose weight; stop smoking and drinking; take more exercise and eat less salt.

In the spirit of this latter piece of advice, I have put three low salt soup recipes from three different countries in this piece. I hope you enjoy them.

Recipe One: Germany

Two Bean Soup (Zwei Bohnensuppe) (Serves Four)

1 1/4 cups white beans, dry 1 cup cut green beans 1 green onion, diced 1 potato, peeled & diced 2 tbls unbleached flour

Garnish =================== 4 oz ham, chopped 1/4 cup celery,diced 1 onion, yellow, chopped 1 tbls unsalted butter (optional) 3/4 cup beef broth, unsalted 1/4 tsp pepper 1 parsley, sprig

The beans can be either fresh or frozen, but do not use canned. Boil the beans until softish; add the potato and continue to boil. Add the flour to thicken when the potato is soft. Stir well. Serve in bowls and then add the garnish. Crispy bread is a good accompaniment.

Recipe Two: Ireland

Sorrel Soup (Serves Eight)

1 lb Sorrel 3 oz unsalted butter (or margarine) 1 large onion, chopped 2 tbsp flour (heaped) 2 1/2 l stock 2 tbsp breadcrumbs 1 pepper 2 egg yolks 150 ml cream

Wash the sorrel well and chop it up. Heat the butter or margarine in a saucepan and just soften the sorrel and onion in it. Sprinkle the flour on to the vegetables and mix well. Let it cook for around 1 minute. In the meantime bring the stock to the boil, then add to the pan. Add the breadcrumbs, add pepper to taste, and bring to the boil, then simmer for about 1 hour covered. (It can become liquidized at this point, if liked). Whisk the egg yolks with the cream and add a little of the hot soup to the mixture, stirring well; then add gradually to the soup pot, stirring well on the heat, being careful not to let it boil.

Recipe Three: Russia

Borsch (Serves eight)

1 cup navy beans, dry 2 1/2 lb beef, lean 1/2 lb slab bacon 10 cups cold water 1 bay leaf 8 whole peppercorns 2 cloves garlic 2 tblsp parsley, dried 1 carrot 1 celery stalk 1 red onion, big, chopped 1 tsp salt (optional) 8 beetroots for soup 2 beetroots, small 2 cups green cabbage, shredded 2 leeks, large, sliced 3 potatoes, cut into eighths 1 tin (1 lb 13 oz) tomatoes 1 tbspn tomato paste 3 tbspn red wine vinegar 1 lb kielbasa (optional) 2 tbspn flour 1 tbspn butter, melted 1/2 cup sour cream (optional)

Cover beans with water and allow to soak overnight; cook until tender; drain; set aside. Place beef, bacon and water in large soup pot; bring to the boil. Skim fat from surface. Add bay leaf, peppercorns, garlic, parsley, carrot, celery, onion. Cover and simmer over a low heat for around 1 1/2 hours.

Scrub beetroots for soup and cook in boiling water until tender, around 45 minutes; drain and dispose of water; cool. Peel and cut every beetroot into eighths. Scrub small beetroots; grate; cover with water to soak.

Remove meat from soup; lay aside. Strain soup into another pot and add cooked beetroot, cabbage, leeks, potatoes, tomatoes, tomato paste, vinegar, sugar, beef and bacon.

Bring to the boil and simmer for 45 minutes. Cut kielbasa into chunks and add with navy beans to soup. Simmer 20 minutes longer. Blend flour and butter together to make a paste. Stir into soup to thicken slightly. Strain raw beets, saving liquid yet discarding beetroots. Add beetroot liquid to soup.

Additional sugar or vinegar can be added for a sweeter or sourer flavour. Cut meat and place in individual soup bowls. Pour hot soup with vegetables on to meat. Garnish every serving with a spoonful of sour cream, if desired.

Owen Jones, the writer of this article writes on several of subjects, but is currently involved with work on high blood pressure charts. If you want to know more or check out some great offers, please go to our website at High Blood Pressure Recipes.