Your heart will respond differently when you are losing weight. On the contrary, being overweight can result in an increased risk of heart disease.
In order to know if you are overweight, you need to check your body mass index or BMI. This can be done using a BMI calculator on the internet or by calculating it yourself.
This means taking your weight in pounds and dividing it by your height in inches squared. You then multiply that number by 703 to get your body mass index.
A body mass index of between 18 and 25 is considered normal. A body mass index of 25 to 30 means you are overweight and a body mass index of above 30 means you are obese.
If you are overweight or obese, you need to do what you can to get your BMI values into the normal range. It means getting in shape through regular exercise and eating foods that are lower in calories and fat.
You don’t have to lose a ton of weight in order to lessen your risk of heart attacks and strokes. In fact, moderate weight loss enhances heart health.
A weight loss of just 5 to 10% will greatly lessen your risk of the various types of heart disease, including stroke, heart attacks, or peripheral vascular disease. 
The Results of a Recent Study
Researchers who published a study in the New England Journal of Medicine found that when you reduce the number of calories you take in, the actual type of diet you choose isn’t as important.
It means you can eat a low-fat diet, a low-carb diet, or a high protein diet, as long as the total calorie count is below that which sustains your weight.
An average person needs between 2,000 and 2,500 calories per day to sustain their weight.
If you can reduce the number of calories you take in per day to 500 calories less than your baseline, you can lose up to a pound of body weight per day, regardless of where you choose to reduce those calories.
It isn’t as much about a specific balance of carbs, protein, or fat but depends on the total caloric count per day.
Also, keep in mind that if you become very physically active you can actually eat more calories daily and still lose weight.
Weight Statistics
According to the organization that takes measurements of our health (the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or the CDC) about 66% of adults in the US are considered to be overweight while as many as 1/3 of us are to be considered obese.
If you fall into either of these categories, you will be able to lose weight through calorie reduction and will not become one of the statistics at risk for heart disease.
The Role of Exercise
Besides decreasing your calorie count by 500 calories per day, you can increase your level of exercise.
You can do this by running, brisk walking, cycling, swimming, or any other activity you enjoy that raises your heart rate and respiratory rate.
This is called aerobic exercise and should be done about thirty minutes a day 3 to 4 times per week.
On the other days of the week, you can do anaerobic exercise, which means lifting weights or using a specialized weight machine.
Anaerobic exercise can increase your muscle mass, which makes it easier to lose weight because your basal metabolic rate will be higher allowing you to burn more fat even when at rest.
Between aerobic exercise and anaerobic exercise, you will be exercising thirty minutes a day every day of the week. It’s just thirty minutes and won’t take up too much time for the benefit it gives you.
How Does The Heart Respond To Weight Loss?
If you lose just ten percent of your body weight, which is 20 pounds for those who weigh 200 pounds already, your heart will respond accordingly and these things will happen:
Your blood vessels will be more elastic.
The blood vessels will be less narrow and will be more elastic when you exercise.
This reduces the workload on your heart and will take the stress away so your heart can function more effectively.
There will be less fat in your arteries, which collects on the lining of blood vessels, forming plaques that narrow the arteries and can increase the chances that a blood clot will close off the arteries, causing strokes, peripheral vascular disease, and heart attacks.
Your blood pressure will be lower.
There is a direct connection between your weight and blood pressure.
The lower your weight, the lower is the risk of developing hypertension, which can lead to heart disease.
Exercise also lowers blood pressure, which is another reason to include exercise as part of your weight loss program.
You can also take medications for hypertension that might need to be reduced if you can successfully lose some weight.
Your blood lipids will be lower.
A number of lipids in your blood will be lower when you lose weight.
Losing weight can decrease your triglyceride level, can raise your HDL cholesterol (the good cholesterol), and can lower your LDL cholesterol (the bad cholesterol.
All of these changes will improve your heart health.
Blood clots will diminish.
If you lose weight, it is less likely that you will develop blood clots, which means that your chances of having a blood clot close off an artery will decrease.
And the chance that a blood clot in your leg could break off, resulting in it traveling to your lungs, brain, and heart.
Your belly fat will go down.
It turns out that the amount of fat you retain around your belly greatly increases the risk of heart disease.
In a study out of the journal, Cardiology showed that belly fat could contribute to heart disease, even in people who are otherwise of a normal weight.
Weight loss around the belly can reduce your risk of developing this complication.
Trim Down Your Waist to Avoid Heart Attack
A recent global study has come to some pretty alarming conclusions about the link between your waist-to-hip ratio and the risk of suffering from a heart attack.
How does waist-to-hip ratio (WHR) work?
Well, if your waist and hips are exactly the same circumferences, you have a ratio of 1 to 1 (1:1).
If your waist is smaller than your hips, the ratio will go down. For example, if your waist is only half as big around as your hips, then it changes to 1 to 2, or 1:2.
If the opposite is true, and your waist is twice as big as your hip area, the ratio goes up to 2 to 1, or 2:1.
Apparently, having a waist to hip ratio of 1:1 or more greatly increases your chances of suffering from a potentially fatal dysfunction of the heart.
Check your waist-to-hip ratio (WHR)
Being in a state of obesity makes the threat many times worse. Currently, there are more than 300 million obese people worldwide.
An obese person is generally regarded as somewhat with a body mass index (BMI) of 30 or more.
Find out your body mass index (BMI)
What makes this issue so tricky is that some people will have a natural advantage with their WHR based on their genetic body type and shape.
Women with small waists and curvy hips will have the easiest time managing this ratio, while both men and women who have large midsections will have the most difficult time managing it.
Regardless of sex or body type, what is important for you to know is that you must do everything you can to keep your waist size down.
In addition to heart attack, the WHR has been linked to determining your general risk of developing chronic diseases.
It represents one of the many reasons why weight loss has so much more to offer you than a just a sexy body, though it does come with that.
Check this article from the experts:
How 40,000 People Reverse Heart Disease
Written by the Editors at Weight Loss Buddy Press in collaboration with Hans A. Diehl, DrHSc, MPH, FACN, CNS
It is well known that about two-thirds of the U.S. population is either overweight or obese.
The U.S.Surgeon General has stated that approximately 75% of Western diseases, such as heart disease, stroke, hypertension, diabetes, gout, arthritis, excess weight gain, hypertension, diabetes, some cancers, impotence, diverticular disease, constipation, heartburn, and gallbladder disease, are “lifestyle-related.”
They are directly correlated with our high-fat diet, inadequate amounts of exercise, smoking, high intake of caffeine, and high amounts of stress coupled with insufficient support.
Hoping to address this alarming situation, more than 20 years ago, cardiovascular epidemiologist Hans A. Diehl, DrHSc, MPH, created the Coronary Health Improvement Project (CHIP).
Since then, this 40-hour community-based lifestyle intervention program has helped more than 40,000 people rediscover their health by preventing, arresting and reversing their diseases.
It has been conducted in more than 150 North American cities as well as in Bangalore, India, Australia and Switzerland.
Depending upon the needs of the group, the meetings are held either “live” with Dr. Diehl delivering the program personally (usually meeting four times per week for four weeks) or as a “video-based” program with certified CHIP facilitators (normally two times per week for eight weeks).
In addition, Dr. Diehl is a best-selling author – To Your Health, Dynamic Living, and Health Power (co-authored with Aileen Ludington, M.D.) — as well as the executive editor of a 24-page quarterly Lifeline Health Letter; he has produced scores of health videos.
CHIP empowers people through its scientifically-documented, educational and inspirational program that addresses common western diseases — those that used to be seen primarily later in life.
Today, these diseases increasingly appear at far younger ages. CHIP may make all the difference in one’s life — even the difference between life and death.
In 1999, CHIP launched a “community health transformation template” in Rockford, Illinois, a city with a population of 130,000.
The intention was to transform Rockford into the healthiest city in American, thereby enabling it to serve as a model and template for cultural transformation on a community-wide level.
Recently, CHIP was recognized as just such a model by HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson and was “approved” under the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as a “STEPS to a Healthier US” applicant.
In addition to “live” CHIP, a series of CHIP videos are offered through schools, churches, corporations, and hospitals. In Rockford, CHIP is sponsored by the Swedish American Health System’s Center for Complementary Medicine.
Who is the typical CHIP participant? Generally, CHIP participants are over the age of 40. Most are between the ages of 50 and 59.
There are twice as many women as men, and almost 90% are married. Clinical research, published in peer review journals, has found that they have the following lifestyle diseases:
10% report having heart disease
27% have elevated blood sugar
42% are overweight
49% show evidence of hypertension
60% are obese
89% are cholesterol above 160 mg.
Over the course of the program, strict adherents are likely to experience significant clinical improvements such as the following:
Serum cholesterol reduction average 15 – 20%
Average weight loss of six pounds
In about half of the participants with type 1 diabetes, a dramatic reduction in the need for insulin and hypoglycemic agents
Lowering of high blood pressure levels
Diminishing of angina
Reduced levels of depression and increase in self-esteem
Class & Video Lecture Schedule
Week 1
Modern Medicine: Miracles, Medicines, & Mirages
The limitations of high-tech medical approaches in dealing with lifestyle related diseases
Portrait of a Killer: Onslaught from Within
Atherosclerosis, the culprit in many lifestyle diseases
Stalking the Killer
Reviewing the risk factors for coronary heart disease
Eat More and Weigh Less
Basic guidelines for healthy, sustained weight loss
Week 2
Going Up in Smoke
Smoking – the most controllable risk factor for coronary heart disease
The Magic of Fiber
The role of fiber in preventing and reversing lifestyle diseases
Reversing Hypertension
Changing the major risk factors for high blood pressure
Disarming Diabetes
Lifestyle factors that can arrest or reverse diabetes
Effective Cholesterol Control
Dietary factors that prominently affect blood levels of cholesterol
Fats in the Fire
The role of excessive fat intake in lifestyle diseases
Week 3
Fit at Any Age
Benefits of regular exercise in preventing and arresting disease
Boning Up on Osteoporosis
Cause and prevention of this so-called “disease of aging”
Lifestyle and Health
Clinical studies that demonstrate how lifestyle choices are related to health
The Optimal Diet
Positive dietary guidelines for the prevention and reversal of Western diseases
Week 4
Diet and Cancer
Dietary factors in the development and prevention of common cancers
Atherosclerosis of the Mind
The importance of adaptability in achieving and maintaining optimal health
The Gift of Forgiveness
How a spirit of forgiveness enhances emotional and overall health
Building Self-Worth
The development, preservation and role of self-worth in a healthy person
Connie Thebarge’s Story
At the age of 59, Connie Thebarge, a patient at the Ottawa Heart Institute in British Columbia, Canada, was told that her doctors could no longer help her.
After all, in addition to suffering from hypertension, she had diabetes and painful diabetic neuropathy.
She had two heart attacks followed by a triple coronary bypass surgery and an unsuccessful angioplasty. Every day, she had to take 27 pills. Not surprisingly, she was also depressed.
Yet, today, more than a decade later, Thebarge walks three miles a day, swims twice a week, dances, and travels to Florida and Europe. No longer depressed, she also requires far fewer pills.
How was this accomplished? Thebarge participated in CHIP and transformed her life.
POINTS TO REMEMBER
A weight loss of just 5 to 10% will greatly lessen your risk of the various types of heart disease, including stroke, heart attacks, or peripheral vascular disease.
- Decrease your calorie count by 500 calories per day
- Increase your level of exercise
How does the heart respond to weight loss?
- Your blood vessels will be more elastic
- Your blood pressure will be lower
- Your blood lipids will be lower
- Blood clots will diminish
- Your belly fat will go down
Trim Down Your Waist to Avoid Heart Attack
- A study shows there’s a link between your waist-to-hip ratio and the risk of suffering from a heart attack.
- It has been linked to determining your general risk of developing chronic diseases.
TAKEAWAY QUESTIONS
– Are you aware of how your heart responds to weight loss?
– Are you convinced on the importance of losing weight to your health?
– What measures are you doing to have a healthy heart?
– What measures are you doing to lose weight?
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I could not refrain from commenting. Well written!