Thursday, March 22, 2012

The Paleo Diet: Follow-Up III

My weight seems to have flat-lined within the optimal BMI range:
I have now collected enough data to be relatively sure that my blood pressure and resting heart rate are within healthy ranges:

My average diastolic blood pressure over the last ~3 weeks was 110.9 mmHg. The cutoff point for prehypertension is 120 mmHg. Only two of my data points were on or over this limit. Therefore, on average my diastolic blood pressure is 9.1 mmHg below the dangerous range. Over the same time span, my diastolic blood pressure averaged 61.8 mmHg. This is 18.2 mmHg less than the cutoff for prehypertension (which is itself much lower than the cutoff for hypertension). Not a single data point exceeded the recommended limit. Also, my average resting heart rate was 55.2 BPM. This puts me almost precisely at the median for adults that are well-trained athletes.

So far, the balance of evidence leans towards the Paleo Diet being both a good way to lose excess fat and relatively safe for the cardiovascular system. Of course, my evaluation is open to revision once more data comes in. In order to collect more evidence as to the effects of the diet on heart health, I plan on getting blood tests monthly starting next month.

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