The Dash Diet for Blood Pressure

You may be able to prevent or control high blood pressure through your diet. Doctors have devised the DASH diet for this purpose. DASH is an acronym for Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension. The DASH diet emphasizes eating a low-sodium diet with a lot of vegetables and fruits, whole grains, beans, nuts, seeds, poultry, fish and low-fat dairy products.

Calories and Servings

• There is no set diet to follow on DASH. Instead, it is based upon the number of servings you should eat each day considering the amount of calories you should consume. To determine your calorie level, choose your activity level, gender and age. For example, if you are female, age 50 and sedentary, you should require 1,800 calories per day. If you are moderately active you should need about 2,000 calories and if you are active you should need 2,200 calories each day.

  Once you have determined the amount of calories you need each day, you must find the number of servings you should eat from each food group. If you require 2,000 calories each day, you are to eat six to eight servings of grains, four or five servings of vegetables, four or five servings of fruit, two or three servings of low-fat milk products, six or less servings of fish, poultry or lean meat, and two or three servings of fats per day. You should also eat nuts and seeds four to five times each week and limit your sugar to five servings or less each week.

Gradual Change

• The DASH diet is meant to be a lifestyle change and not a fad diet. Following this style of eating is healthy even if you do not have high blood pressure. Rather than making a drastic change in your eating habits, which might cause you to give up, make gradual changes in the way you eat so you become accustomed to a healthier way of eating. Gradually substitute fat-free or low-fat dairy in place of full-fat products. Serve vegetarian meals a few times each week to become accustomed to eating more vegetables. Reduce portion size of your meat until you are eating 3 oz. a meal on average.

Lifestyle

• To get the best results with the DASH diet when trying to lower your blood pressure, increase your activity level to where you exercise most days of the week. If you are overweight, use the DASH diet to help you lose weight as this also can help lower your blood pressure. If you are taking prescription blood pressure medication, continue to take it until your doctor determines you don't need it any longer.