If you don't mind sharing, I'm curious as to what kind of nutritional guidelines your nutritionist has provided for you. In my case, when I cut out most processed foods and starting eating mostly whole, real foods (lots of vegetables, grass-fed meat, fish, plenty of healthy fats (butter, olive oil, coconut oil), some fruit (especially berries), some nuts), my BP came right down to normal levels, and has stayed down for several years now. I have noticed that salt is not a factor at all.......I use salt (sea salt) on foods to taste, with no real limitations, and it has not raised my BP one iota. I understand that some people may be sensitive to sodium, but apparently quite a few people like me are not affected at all by it.
We eat the same way. I've been eating liking that for years, and was before I worked with the nutritionist.
What she did, as best as I can determine, was a metabolism reset diet. It included eating five times a day, no meal closer than one hour to the other, and no meals farther apart than four hours. Two meals could include a protein shake. No dairy, and the meats had to be lean. And of course no fast food, no junk food, etc., but I was already eating that way.
Other than that, the only other guidance she gave was to dictate the macro nutrients for the meals. I weighed in each week using a scale that also reads body fat, body water, etc. I started out with what I thought were a lot of carbs (I was eating oatmeal at breakfast and fruit, and rice with other meals), but was pretty balanced between carbs, fat and protein. I wasn't used to eating that many carbs, and actually had trouble staying on the diet because I was never hungry. It stayed that way for a month or more before she began to make changes. Over a period of several months she began to take the carbs away and started adding in interval cardio. Then there were days were there were no carbs, and then there were strings of day with no carbs (other than a lot of green veggies). Every now and then she would tell me to have a cheat meal, which consisted of eating whatever I wanted in a 45 minute window.
I almost never felt hungry, never had cravings (although I loved the cheat meals), and lost 20 pounds of fat while gaining a couple of pounds of muscle.
Max heart rate has a formula I know. However last year I did a stress echocardiogram where I had to get my heart as fast as I could, and I got it into the 180s (I'm 58) so it sort of made a mockery of the formula. So what really is the max heart rate we talk about, the 180s that I "maxed" out at, or 162 (formula: 220 - age) ?
I looked it up a few years ago and found some good arguments debunking the 220-age formula. I don't recall the specifics, but according to what I read that formula was based on some bad science and a flawed study.
I did a resting and exercising metabolism test a couple of years ago and was given my max heart rate. It was a good twenty bpm greater than the theoretical one. If that formula was any good my heart should have blown up a few years ago.
I wear a heart monitor to track calories, average bpm, and max bpm during a session. The only time I really watch my heart rate is when I'm recovering from something high intensity, and when I'm trying to do something low intensity. When I'm going all out I never worry about how high it gets - my body will tell me when I'm going too hard. Usually in the mid 170's I will get gassed and have to walk around for a minute to catch my breath, and that only happens when I'm doing something super high intensity. My trainer said you will pass out before you die so I don't worry about it - and so far he's been right.
That formula has messed up a lot of people. I know that the cardio I did years ago was mostly worthless compared to what I do now because I believed in that stupid sticker you see on every cardio machine in every gym.
