One of my favorite quick dinners is to throw some veggies in a skillet with a little olive oil (I'm partial to asparagus and/or baby bok choi these days -- asparagus is about 2.99 a bunch at Trader Joes, and baby bok choi's about 1.99 a pound, at least out in L.A.), throw on a little red pepper, and saute for a few minutes.

Then I'll toss in some pre-cooked shrimp at the end for half a minute to warm it up (you can get a decent-sized bag of medium, precooked shrimp at Trader Joe's for about 5 bucks -- I put 'em in stir fry, pasta, pizza, etc.). Serve up with brown rice.

Yeah, you've got to cut out the sodium. Prepared and processed foods, along with fast food, will put you over your daily limit right fast.

Cook more from scratch. Stay away from stuff in boxes. Read labels. (Seriously, read labels. You'll be surprised how much sodium is in stuff you eat every day.) Buy low-sodium varieties when you can.

One way to trick your palate into liking a food with less salt than you're used to is to use acid instead -- a squeeze of fresh lemon or lime juice works really well.

Yes, 30 is young, but don't beat yourself up. A lot of it is hereditary. You've got to change your diet and lifestyle, yeah, but this is still something you're going to have to manage for the rest of your life.

You should also invest in a b/p monitor so you can keep track of it yourself.

BP drugs work wonders, too. I'm on atenolol and have been for many years. It helps keep it in check.

Yeah, your BP is very high. My advice? Start by eating stuff you love for lunch. Don't try and make yourself eat salad if you don't love it. When I was starting to eat more healthy, a few years ago, I let myself eat fruit salad for lunch every day for a month or so, because, yum, and it was still good for me.

Now, I usually make a salad (prewashed greens, $3, does 3 lunches, plus handful of walnuts $3 for a few meals, plus goat cheese plus oil and balsamic (a few cents per meal) and that's a cheap lunch. But a day or two per week, especially in summer, I still stop at a street fruit seller and pick up a couple of nectarines, a couple plums and a small bunch of grapes. mmmm delicious lunch!

scody: If only I liked peppers and spices and could actually taste the differences in herbs like other people do! I did recently get some brown rice, but I mixed it with the remainder of some Thai rice I got and now the grains kinda cook unevenly in my rice cooker. I am too Filipino to toss the rest of it out, so I'll just have to keep at it until I can stock up on just brown rice again. I do have lemon, so that's one condiment I don't need to buy again.

mudpuppie: After I crunch some numbers, I'm going to buy a B/P and pulse rate monitor this weekend. Tell me, do I have to get the full arm dealie, or can I make do with the finger one?

gaspode: I adore salad, but maybe what I really should say is that I adore salad dressing. Someone on my blog said to shy away from "salad bukkake" but damnit... I loves me some dressing something fierce. And this is coming from a gal who used to only like Italian dressing.

I only wish I could eat fruit and think it was a meal. My brain doesn't seem to work that way.

I don't know if this will help you or not with salads, TrishaLynn, but I actually pretty much dislike lettuce and associated greens.

The way I got myself to eat more salads is to dump a lot of fruit on top, and a very, very small bit of Parmesan. That got me to the point that I stopped eating salad dressing (the fruit replaced it) so maybe that will work for you for that. I usually buy whatever is on sale (apples, strawberries, grapes, whatever) so it stays cheap and I don't get bored.

My kidney doc said only about 25% of high blood pressure is from salt. He suggested you it measured, go on a fantastically low-salt diet for 3 months and then get it measured again.

Improved= you're out of luck on the salty-foods front.
Unimproved= you can keep eating salty foods.

I'm not sure, but I assume this means you shouldn't take up oatmeal or exercise or any other corrections in your lifestyle that might lower your blood pressure.

disclaimer: not only am I not an MD, I don't even have high blood pressure. I'm not sure how it came up in the coversation. Something about healthy kidneys, I think.

Yes, cook from scratch as much as possible. If you don't have a wok, buy a carbon steel one from an Asian store, season it properly (heat, rub with oil, heat, rub with oil, repeat several times) and you'll wonder how you ever lived without it. I use lots of garlic, I grow my own herbs, some indoor, some outside, and I use very little salt but my food is tasty.

Vegetables aren't expensive, especially if you buy to cook that day - supermarkets (in the UK, anyway) reduce prices on lots of fresh items towards the end of the day. Fry garlic, scallions and whatever veggies you want. I usually part-steam (in the microwave) harder vegetables like broccoli or carrots before stir-frying, so everything cooks evenly in the wok. Peppers, mushrooms, bean shoots and bok choi or cabbage, serve with a piece of chicken or fish.

A Mediterranean-style diet is good - pasta, tomato sauce - fresh, made with onions & garlic softened in a little olive oil, add canned tomatoes - lots - and basil and oregano (or a spoonful of pesto) and simmer and reduce it until it's thick and pungent. Add a little chili for added bite.

Fruit is cheap and in the summer I often have fruit salad for dinner, maybe with cottage cheese or yoghurt.

Now that summer is here, and having seen the NY pictures, I have the incentive to lose some weight. I love good food (and bad food too), but eat too much of it.

Pre-made broth can be very salty. Always read the label. Or, buy a chicken leg, roast it, eat the meat, boil up the bones with onions and a bouquet garni. There's your broth.

Tell me, do I have to get the full arm dealie, or can I make do with the finger one?

Go for the one with the arm cuff. They cost $40 or $50, but you ought to use it once or twice a week, so it'll pay off.

You should also take it to the doc with you and have it checked against theirs, just to make sure that it's accurate. I've had ones that weren't.

I loves me some dressing something fierce.

Here's a way to deal with that. This is what good restaurants do to dress their salads without dumping blobs of glop on them. It saves both money and calories.

Put a measured amount of dressing (like 1 T.) in a large bowl (stainless steel is good). Put your greens on top of that, and then your salad ingredients on top of the greens.

Take a pair of tongs and toss the salad. Swish it around many times until each leaf is coated with the dressing.

This works wonders. Every bite is full of flavor and the salad is evenly dressed, yet you haven't used a lot of dressing. I don't know why everyone doesn't do it this way. It makes for a much better-tasting salad, too, than does sprinkling dressing spottily over a few greens while leaving others dry.

I tend to make my own dressing because it's incredibly easy and you can vary it in a lot of ways. Just start with an empty bowl, put in a couple teaspoons of olive oil, add half that amount of balsamic, cider, red wine, or any other vinegar (or lemon juice or lime juice), add a pinch of dijon mustard from a jar, add a sprinkle of salt and pepper, and whisk with a fork to emulsify. You can change it up by adding herbs and changing the acid and even the oil.

If you're using canned chicken broth, you can just use half the can and make up the rest with water. The gyoza and tortellini will fill in the rest of the flavor, especially if you are willing to poke a few holes in them.

WHat Miko said about the salad dressings. Also, it is relatively trivial to start paying attention to the ingredients of things you buy and begin to avoid those things that contain partially-hydrogenated oils, high-fructose corn syrup, and excessive amounts of sodium.

Also, simply making the shift to WHOLE GRAINS can make a major difference.

If you do these things, you can still eat things like (unsalted, because it's better) butter, and remain relatively healthy.

WAIT!!! You are still at the initial phase of diagnosis for chronic high BP. Don't buy a BP monitor just yet. Is this your first high BP reading? What did your doctor say about it? Was it the usual "first-thing-in-the-treatment-room" reading, or was it after sitting for five minutes?

Go ahead and change your eating habits though since those would be good even for healthy persons.

Did you try occhiblu's broccoli? I love that stuff (pro tip: crumble some feta on top for yumminess! I also use more garlic.).

For more flavor with less salt, yeah, lemon or lime juice is great, garlic is marvy if you love it, ginger and hot spices are great, too. I also use fresh hot peppers in lots of things. I often sautee or stirfry strips of it alongside whatever else I am cooking for the extra flavor, without actually eating it. Some people can create symphonies with different pepper ingredients... I wish I had more access to different kinds of peppers, and more knowledge of them. And speaking of pepper, I use fresh ground pepper and I think it also makes a big difference in extra flavor (just don't get a cheapie peppermill - they're utterly useless... ask for a good peppermill for your birthday, maybe, or find a good one at a thrift shop). The other thing you can do is throw away the regular salt, and use a saltgrinder with sea salt - you will be much more conscious of how much you are adding, and the effort makes you less likely to oversalt.

You can substitute low-fat yogurt for a whole lot of things that call for cream or cheese or sour cream. It's pretty much my go-to ingredient for cutting down on fat.

You can put just about anything on salad greens or chopped, raw cabbage (or slaw mix, except without all the mayo). For example, I love blackeyed peas (cooked with onion, celery, bell pepper, olive oil and some chopped lean ham) served over mixed greens. Whenever I have leftover stir-fry I throw it on salad greens for lunch the next day. In fact, I do that with a ton of different leftovers.

I've found that almost any vegetable is good if it's quickly steamed or stir-fried and served simply with lemon and olive oil. I hated cauliflower and beets, for example, but I like them both with just the lemon and olive oil... I've also loved beets cubed in a green salad sprinkled with chopped walnut and topped with yogurt. And I really, really thought I could never like beets at all.

For carb I use brown rice or Basmati, wild rice (love it), wholewheat pasta, or rice noodles (the angelhair kind, that you just dump into some boiling water and they're ready - totally instant, and I first heard about them on some diet site, I think), or sometimes potato, usually boiled and sliced then drizzled with olive oil and lemon juice, as above, or baked and topped with yogurt.

I have lots of boneless, skinless chicken breast meals; I stir fry it, or pan fry it with a (very little) bit of olive oil and sesame oil plus soy sauce or teriyaki for nice browning and have it with a huge plate of sauteed mushrooms (sautee in a little olive oil, then splash with a bit of nice vinegar towards the end - sounds weird, but is delicious).

That sort of thing takes about a half-hour and is cheap, but, yeah... nothing is going to be as instant as a lot of the processed stuff, and you just have to come up with techniques to make it easier to eat right. For example, with stir-fries, they are superfast to cook, and delicious, but chopping all the veggies beforehand can feel a little daunting sometimes. But you can do this - is there a TV show you like to catch every week? Let's say you like to watch X-show on Tuesday at 7 pm: make Tuesday stir-fry night, and sit down with your chopping board and veggies to watch the show.

Likewise, you can use the same technique once a week to chop up a bunch of onion, celery, peppers, ginger, and garlic to freeze in little baggies, so that whenever you want to cook something with any of those ingredients, you're good to go. (And doesn't pretty much everything use at least one of those?)

You can get a crockpot to cook healthy soup/stew/bean things while you're at work. If you have your prechopped ingredients ready to go, it's less than five minutes to toss the stuff in there before you leave the house.

As far as the canned chicken broth goes, you can live without it. I know this for sure, because I can't even get that here, and it seems like every other recipe calls for it. I just use water instead, and maybe add a dash of something - worcestershire sauce, soy sauce, mustard, etc., to add a note of flavor, or I use some kind of vegetable broth if I have any (like, if I've cooked spinach, I save out some of the cooking water).

For reassurance, I can tell you that it's fairly certain that your tastes will begin change after a few weeks of eating healthy. You'll probably begin to favor less salt/fat and more greens and veggies... really! As long as you don't do some radical diet that leaves you feeling constantly deprived. You can cook delicious things that are healthy, but it won't ever be as easy as dumping a packet in some boiling water or opening a can, so concentrate on ways to make the process enjoyable (cooking with a friend, when possible... enjoying a relaxing glass of wine and some music while you prepare... cooking a nice dish with the intention of giving half to a good friend, planning healthy-food pot lucks with likeminded friends). It can also be fun to go shopping with someone who's also trying to eat healthy - you can look for cool new places to shop, find great produce stands, discover new ingredient, and stop for a coffee or a drink and have fun with it.

I lost over 20 pounds (and have continued to keep it off over six months, plus have even lost a bit more) without feeling like I've sacrificed much by just cutting way back on the obvious excesses and trying to make every single meal as healthy as possible - like, if I have something I love that is more high-fat than I'd like, I just have a much smaller portion, with a lot more veg/salad to accompany it. And no sodas or fast food at all (not a sacrifice to me, since I don't really like that stuff), and almost zero processed stuff. I do have some mushroom ramen about twice a month because I adore it, but I usually have it mixed with greens or chopped cabbage.

The biggest sacrifice, really, was scaling way, way back on the beer. I'll have beer occasionally, because I really think that totally cutting out something you love tends to lead you to breaking the diet/health plan and getting on that dreadful go-on-diet/break-diet/gain-back-even-more cycle... but in the summertime, I used to go sit out at a cafe with my sweetie every couple of days for a couple of beers, and I do miss that.

Anyway, I know this isn't about dieting but about healthy, it's just that they tend to coincide. Good luck, sweetie - and let us know about any groovy recipes you come up with!

TrishaLynn, I have had high blood pressure and cholesterol from my late twenties. I was on, then off, and now back on medication.

My experiences tell me that like s_r mentioned, cutting salt may or may not help you. Try it but don't beat yourself up if that doesn't work.

How do you know if it's working? I'd say DO get a blood pressure monitor. I actually have an old school arm one just like at the dr's office with the stethescope - a sphygmomanometer is actually quite easy to use on yourself and should run cheaper that other models - about $30, I'd guess, even taking into account NY prices.

Then take your reading every day first thing in the morning and record your results. You probably won't see a change very quickly w/o medicine, but at first, the habit, and the record of the readings over time can track your condition for you and your doctor. (I assume you have a follow up?)

Finally, I have to mention exercise. Even if that doesn't help your blood pressure (yes, it can be a very genetic disposition, and mine, while not as high as yours, is something I've never made go away) is WILL help your heart health and cholesterol.

oh, wait... there was another big sacrifice - pizza! I adore pizza!

(Anyone who has any brilliant pizza substitution ideas, please, post 'em here. I'm not very likely to make my own pizza dough, though - unless it's the ultimate rule-the-universe, killer-fast-n'-easy dough that is the gateway to a mystic experience that will change my life and save the world. Or something similar.)

Oh, also, you should have blood work to check that cholesterol and have a diabeties check too, just to know where you stand. You've got plenty of time to make changes, and the good news is - it isn't something that hurts - you don't know you have it. Also, bp medicines, at least the lower grade ones, are not likely to cause side effects, so, you wouldn't know you'd be taking something either. And there are plenty of cheap generics.