Walking
After my little scare, I'm doing many things to try and put the problem (well at least the majority of the medication) behind me. In many ways it is the "usual suspects', viz:
- Exercise
- Weight loss
- Diet
- Low sodium food (less than 1,500 mg per day)
- and, of course, medication
For exercise, I'm doing a bit of walking. (Well that's pretty much all I'm allowed to do.) So, each day I try and walk 10,000 steps. My progress is shown in the graph. The red line is my daily average; the blue band is my target.
Graph of steps taken
So far, the exercise (and everything else) seems to be having a pay-off. I do feel that I've lost some weight. I've actually had to tighten my belt a couple of notches—and some of my clothes seem to be a bit baggy.
I took the idea from Lisa—she's been doing it for over a year now—and she is definitely fitter and slimmer. The trick is to buy a pedometer and record what you actually do. I find it is a great motivator.
I'll probably never get off all the medication, but I hope to minimise my dependency on it.
PS: The graph is built automatically using JPGRAPH from data stored using MySQL. The whole thing is glued together using PHP.