BP Impact = 10
Transformational Impact = 10
Does being overweight cause high blood pressure?
High blood pressure is commonly seen as an effect of being overweight, but it remains to be seen whether or not there is a direct link between being overweight and having high blood pressure.
While obese people are 6 times more likely to have high blood pressure, sometimes the cause of the high blood pressure is due to medical conditions that are linked to obesity; diabetes for example.
However, when you are overweight, the excess fatty tissue increases vascular resistance, which means the heart has to work harder to pump blood through the body; more pressure is needed to move the blood around the body.
Does weight loss lower blood pressure naturally?
Yes!
Losing even just a few pounds can lower your blood pressure, especially if you are overweight and have hypertension.
Research has suggested that while achieving physical fitness is important, that people with high blood pressure who are overweight should focus first on losing weight. Developing a fitness routine can help start you on the path to weight loss, but you can lose weight with or without a fitness program.
“Math don’t lie” weight loss:
I weighed about 185 lbs. on the day I found out about my high blood pressure. At the time, I didn’t really know what my “ideal” weight should be, but I was well aware of the fact that I was overweight.
Sometimes people think that losing weight means spending a lot of money on special food or special (and expensive) programs, but it doesn’t have to be that way.
I lost weight by counting daily calories…….
I remember ‘back in the day” when my mom would try to lose weight by counting calories, it was a bit of a pain…….
- If she wanted to know how many calories something had, she had to look it up in a book that served as a calorie counter about that food.
- And then she had to have a scale and measuring cups to determine the serving size. Many times, the item she wanted to look up wasn’t listed in the book, so she’d have to guess.
- Once she determined how many calories her food had, she’d have to write it down and keep track of it to make sure she wasn’t going over her daily calorie allotment.
- It’s not hard to understand why counting calories was a burdensome and tedious task that one could become weary of very quickly.
In today’s world, it’s easy to determine how many calories are in the food you eat by reading the food packaging labels and if it’s not there, it’s a breeze to look it up through an online calorie calculator . And then if we want, we just use a free calorie tracker app to keep track of our daily calorie intake. Counting calories isn’t nearly the as cumbersome as it used to be, and it’s a reliable way to lose weight.
Some simple facts about “math don’t lie” weight loss:
- If you burn more calories than you consume, over time, you will lose weight.
- For every 3500 calorie “deficit” you achieve, you will lose 1 pound of fat.
- The amount of calories you need to function – as in, just exist without doing anything – is called your BMR, or basal metabolic rate. Most of use don’t just “exist” on a daily basis; we move, we work, we wander, we wonder…….. so the number of calories your body burns each day will vary depending on your height, weight, gender, age, and level of daily activity.
- There are many resources on the web that will tell you how many calories you burn each day based on the above factors. In addition, depending on what resource you use, you can also find out how many calories you should consume each day based on your weight loss goals (1 pound per week, 2 pounds per week, etc.)
I’ve been using this online calorie calculator.
This calculator will tell you what your BMR is, what your ideal weight is, and how many calories you should consume per day in order to hit your weight loss goals.
So for example, for a 50 year old female who is 5′ 5″ tall, is sedentary (no exercise) and weighs 185 lbs, if I wanted to lose 1 pound per week, I would need to consume no more than 1252 calories per day.
When I used this calorie calculator for weight loss, even though I had a daily workout routine, I went with the sedentary selection just to make sure that I would be able to lose at least a pound a week based on the caloric guidelines. Mentally and motivationally, it helped me to think of my daily workouts as a bonus that could make my weekly weight loss more than 1 pound per week.
Everyone is different, but my experience was that consuming anything less than 1200 calories per day was really tough. For a while, I was restricting my daily calorie intake to 1000 calories per day, but I found that I didn’t have much energy and I felt pretty weak. I didn’t think I could sustain that over the long haul. But 1200 calories per day, while it took some discipline, was definitely doable and sustainable for me.
This particular calculator will also tell you what your ideal weight should be based on 4 different methodologies of calculation. The Miller formula gives a slightly higher ideal body weight than the other 3 formulas (Robinson formula, Devine formula, and Hamwi formula). Whichever one you decide to adopt, they’re all within the ball park of each other.
I dropped about 55 pounds during my “blood pressure journey” and am at my ideal body weight, according to the calculator.
My first 20 came off just by transitioning my diet away from processed foods and towards whole foods and starting a workout program.
The last 20 came off after I stopped consuming alcohol.
35 of the 55 pounds I lost was accomplished by counting calories to lose weight.
I personally can testify to the impact that losing excess weight can have on blood pressure. Although, because I implemented several new habits at the same time, I can’t isolate how much of an impact the weight loss on it’s own had on my blood pressure. I can say this: during times when I kept all other factors the same except for my calorie consumption (and therefore consequent weight gain), my blood pressure would go up a bit.
Staying Strong: Keeping the Muscle and Fat Loss
So yes, a calorie is a calorie and if you burn more calories than you consume, you will lose weight. But, what those calories consist of can make a difference between keeping and losing your muscle mass. There was a point along the way where I was feeling fantastic about what the scales were saying but I was not pleased with the lack of muscle and strength in my body.
I remember one morning when I was bending down to tie my shoes, I noticed all the loose skin in the bicep area of my arms. Had a strong breeze come up, I imagined that there could be a small chance that I might have been in danger of suffocating from a flap of skin being blown across my face……… (ok, perhaps a bit dramatic).
Without engaging in regular resistance training, women start losing 5% of their muscle mass every 10 years starting at the age of 35. The weight loss, along with the past decade and a half of little to no resistance training made this glaringly apparent to me. I made a more conscious effort to focus on protein and limit carbs. I didn’t make this complicated or strict. When I did consume carbs, I tried to make sure there was some nutritional value to them; a piece of whole grain bread for example, instead of a piece of pumpkin spice cake or a brownie.
I’d made assumptions about protein and weight loss shakes based on 20 year old information; mostly that they tasted awful. But I decided to see what is out there these days and I was pleased to discover some very good tasting plant based protein powder. I also discovered that almond milk isn’t half bad and it has a lot less calories than whole milk. The plant based protein shake that I use is Orgain, which is available either as a mainly protein shake, or you can also get it with superfoods included. It provides 20 grams of protein per serving and with a cup of unsweetened almond milk, we’re talking approximately 200 calories for a very satisfying meal, or for in between meals.
I’m no expert on the facts about carbs, the Atkins diet, etc. All I can tell you is that for me personally, staying away from the carbs and focusing on healthy proteins started making me feel stronger and more satisfied with my daily calorie allotment. I also added some resistance training into my workouts every other day and it kind of amazes me that I have more visible muscle mass in my mid fifties that I did in my high school and college sporting days.
As with all things, losing the weight and then keeping it off takes focus and discipline, but it’s not drudgery, and it’s not unsustainable. It’s a choice, daily. Now that I am at my ideal weight, I have a pretty good idea of the caloric content of most of the foods that I eat, so I don’t actually count calories anymore. I weigh myself regularly to stay aware of whether or not I’m gaining weight and if I put on a few pounds, I go back to my calorie tracker and limiting myself to 1200 calories per day until I’m back on track.
The Transformation:
- As I was losing weight, there would be milestones that filled me with gratitude.
- Once I got down to about 165, I felt like my knees wouldn’t take a total beating if I started going for runs outside or using the treadmill.
- When I hit 145, my body totally felt different when running. The jarring of the extra weight was so much less; the ability to carry my body through each stride required much less effort. It really put into perspective to me how difficult it is to stay on an exercise routine for people who have a lot of extra pounds to lose. But with consistency, and a commitment to just keep doing the work, the payoff will come.
- I lost weight in order to manage my high blood pressure But the benefits that I have reaped from it have reached far beyond my blood pressure. It is a major part of why I say that this journey to lower blood pressure naturally has had the unexpected consequence of a life transformed.
