About 5 or 6 years ago my primary care physician prescribed a beta blocker to treat my high blood pressure. After that I started to put on weight. The weight gain progressed fairly slowly, and over time I had to buy new pants with a larger waist, and I had to replace some of my dress clothes. For the wedding of my son I had to buy the business size suit rather than the regular cut, which is meant for people who are on the plump side.
It didn’t really register in my mind that there was a connection between the blood pressure medication and my weight gain for quite a while. I just figured that perhaps the aging process was catching up with me. This was surprising on second thought, however, because I still did my normal exercise routine. I have exercised vigorously for years, and my normal regimen consists of bike riding for about 20 miles three times per week, one day walking 2-3 miles, and two days of a weight routine at our local gym. I normally take off just one day per week from exercising.
I have exercised like this for quite a while, 20 years or more, and with this routine I was always able to keep my weight under reasonable control. Sure, from time to time I figured I should drop five pounds or so, but with a little portion discipline at the table I was able to accomplish this. Now I was faced with a much more serious problem.
The way a beta blocker works is to control a person’s heart rate, and thus the rate of metabolism is lower. My resting pulse rate in years past was normally in the low 60’s, but today it is about ten beats lower than that. When riding up a difficult hill on my bike I now barely get over 130 beats per minute, whereas in the past I would be at 170 or so on the same hill.
I finally got motivated to get serious about losing some weight after seeing pictures of myself swimming last summer. Photographs are much more telling than looking into a mirror. The photos were awful. I’ve always been concerned about trying to get on a diet for fear of falling into the diet yo-yo routine. We’ve all seen people who lost weight with a lot of effort and then put it back on again a few months later. That is not a healthy cycle. In any event I have been slowly working at this for about four months, and I have managed to drop about 8 pounds. At first I thought losing ten pounds would do the trick, but I now see I’ll need to lose at least another 7-8 more pounds to even think about getting back into my old trousers.
The way I go about losing weight is simple and it really isn’t too hard. I just cut back on calories. I have cut back on drinking wine because alcohol has a lot of calories. I still drink a couple of glasses per day, so I was probably having too much to begin with. I also eat a good portion at meals, but I don’t stuff myself. In particular I don’t have seconds like I used to, no matter how much I enjoyed the dish. Except for meal times, I am not hungry except every day about 4pm. Then I need to have a snack, but I only eat fruit or perhaps a cup of soup. The latter is only 60 calories. If I have trouble losing the next seven pounds or keeping the weight off, I’m considering a healthy supplement like African mango, which has become quite popular lately.
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