A Pinch of This and a D.A.S.H. of That

One thing I've been trying to accomplish for most of my life is to reach and maintain my ideal weight. Lately, I've also been concerned about my blood pressure. While I was pregnant with my daughter, my BP was elevated at every midwife appointment. I'm sure this can be attributed, in part, to the so-called "white coat effect". Still, losing weight and eating more healthfully overall should help my BP to regulate at a more normal level.

In an effort to start afresh with the new year, I've decided to begin the D.A.S.H. plan again. D.A.S.H. stands for Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension. I tried this over the summer and found it worked well for me. I didn't feel much like I was deprived of food, since you're actually expected to eat quite a bit. In fact, many days I had trouble getting in enough fruits and veggies to meet my quota.

I started developing some recipes that were in line with D.A.S.H. guidelines. Over the next several weeks, I'll be posting these over on By Hook or By Cook. If you're interested, I created a weekly food diary to help me keep track of what I was eating, how many servings of any given food group I may have left, and so forth. I also set it up to keep a running total (for daily calories, protein grams, carb grams or whatever you may be watching) and included a column for drinking water. You can view the PDF here--for those of you who like to be warned about such things, the link is set to open a new window.