I love numbers, but only when they mean something.

For quite a while now I've been measuring my health by numbers... weight, heartbeat, blood pressure, blood indicators... that type of thing.

Pretty basic stuff, but fascinating to me.

It's all part of my interest in how to stay healthy.

So I have been exploring something different in my search for improving my health.

And the most recent results were quite spectacular.

Here's what happened...

In a brave move, a week ago I cut out all dairy and all animal foods after watching a DVD called "Forks Over Knives."

I bought their recipe book too, along with a similar one written by researcher Jane Plant.

Jane had cured several of her cancers and improved her health tremendously.

Testimonials from the DVD were also overwhelmingly positive about moving to a plant-based diet.

But what was more interesting to me after just a week was the effect on my blood pressure.

For the last year or two, it had always been around 120/80.

Now, there is nothing wrong with that.

Most doctors call it a good average but to me, it's a little high for my level of fitness and age.

But after a week of the plant food lifestyle, my blood pressure almost immediately dropped to an average of 113/68, and stayed there.

This shows my low salt intake. That is very good for my heart.

As I tried to figure out what caused the difference, I was finally able to see that reducing my salt intake had contributed to this dramatic change.

Like sugar, there's a lot of hidden salt in almost everything we eat.

Reducing my daily salt intake from around 2300mg down to 250mg by eating just vegetables and fruit helped make the difference.

It's not only reducing salt that helps to make these numbers drop, but it is a big part of it.

So whether you want to win the lottery or get your waistline back, watching the numbers are the answer.