Has anyone else improved their health outcomes through diet and lifestyle changes?

In Nov. 2021, I was hospitalized with diastolic dysfunction and acute heart failure with BP at 200/100. I was started on anti-hypertensive medication and furosemide since I presented with left pleural effusion and ascites. I was sent home with the same meds. I had a bad reaction to the BP med and the following 2 prescriptions and never needed the furosemide.
I decided no meds for me and reduced my sodium to under 1500mg/day even tho the recommendation was no more than 2000mg/day. Then I managed to get down to 1000mg/day and sometimes less than that.
At my yearly check-up last week, 13 months after, my BP was 116/68. No evidence of edema, no pleural effusion, and I was given a clean bill of health. The cardiologist told me to keep doing what I was doing because it was obviously working.
Does anyone else have that experience with changing diet and lifestyle?
I was thin, not diabetic, and very fit for a 64y/o woman at the time of my ER visit. The only thing I've changed since then was sodium intake. I don't have a cholesterol issue. My Dr. says he's seen it happen before and he usually waits a year to see if someone goes back into the ER for heart complications from the initial Dx. My life expectancy is expected to be normal as long as I don't develop diabetes or cancer or change my eating habits and lifestyle in a negative way. All this after I was accepting the prospect of my imminent death. My mother died of heart failure but my doc told me mine was different. She lived for 12 years after her Dx and this was in the 80s. It wasn't easy for her or her family but she held on by sheer will. She died in 2000.

Please chime in!