High blood pressure in the Season of cold and flu

I’ve had a cold since Friday…. so I’ve woken up with a headache every day since Friday. Yesterday (Sunday) morning I decided to check my blood pressure.

Genesis …. I took small Prof. to his hospital appointment on Thursday. The minute I walked into the waiting room, I just knew that I was going to collect whatever it was that was circulating in the air.

I am really not sure how hospital waiting areas are designed. You would think that the hospital would be the last place to get any of these germs?. But that’s not the case.

It really felt as though there was no ventilation whatsoever in the waiting area. Our appointment was at 16:10. So you can imagine 7 hours of stale air, with little or no effective ventilation. Immediately I walked in, I felt it. I was in this environment for over an hour. You could cut the air with a knife.

Needless to say when I woke up the next day I was feeling the start of a cold. That ear, nose and throat discomfort that you can’t really put a finger on. That tenderness and itching… awful.

I almost had a heart attack when I saw my blood pressure reading, goodness me. It was high, 156/89. I am not sure if it’s the cold that is impacting on me… or I have become hypertensive. It was indeed a frightening thought.

I know I have gained a bit of weight over the years. It has been a very steady weight gain. I know I have added weight because my waist beads which once sat freely around my waist, hip bone, has now relocated  itself permanently above my stomach🤣🤣🤣.

There are two options for these beads. Either I replace them for beads that actually sit around my waist, or I loose weight and get them to their original position. The former is much easier to achieve. Nonetheless the beads serve as my weight management tool. They roll up and down my stomach depending on how much food and drink I have consumed.

This is just hilarious. But I have hope. Every day I thank God for the food he provides and my ability to eat. At the same time I also make plans to embark and maintain a more physical active lifestyle.

I don’t actually eat that much. I know we all say that. But I’ve found that I am less active. Take for example, today I had a mocha coffee in the morning, then pounded yam and black soup for lunch, washed down with glasses of prosecco.

Black soup for brunch today

The problem is that I have not done any physical activity today. Except to navigate myself by public transport from one part of London to another, and back. My Samsung phone tells me that I have done 4368 steps out of a possible 6 to 10,000 steps.

It is now 9pm and I am hungry. As we all know it is not good to go to bed on an empty stomach. The problem is that I don’t actually feel my stomach is empty, but I am hungry. So once I get home I will arrange myself with small chops and something to drink.

Tomorrow I will start again to think of what I can do to keep physical active which should support to keep my bp within the normal range. It has to be a lifestyle change that can be easily maintained. It has to be something very basic. Like walking 10,000 steps a day (my foot permitting). That’s a good start.