Controlling your weight is a very important step that you can take to reduce your high blood pressure. Losing just a few extra pounds can help lower your blood pressure. Keeping your weight under control can also help you feel better, be more able to exercise, and reduce your chance of having a heart attack.
For some people - those with less severe high blood pressure - losing weight may be all that's needed to control their hypertension. For others, losing weight may reduce the medication they need to take for their high blood pressure. Two things count about weight: how much and where.
How much
Research has shown that weight reduction, even as little as 10 pounds reduces blood pressure in a large percentage of overweight persons with hypertension, makes blood pressure medications more effective and reduces cardiovascular risk factors.
Where
Extra pounds are bad enough, but it also matters where those pounds are stored. If they are around your belly, you are "apple shaped." If they are around your hips and thighs, you are "pear shaped." Where you store weight is for the most part inherited from your parents, just like the color of your eyes or hair, although men tend to be "apple shaped," and women "pear shaped." If you are apple shaped, you are at a greater risk for heart disease. But whether you are an "apple" or a "pear," you should take steps to lose extra pounds.
How to lose weight
Eat fewer calories than you burn. Don't try to see how fast you can lose weight. It's best to do it slowly. "Fad" diets do not work over the long haul because they cannot be followed for life. When people go back to their old way of eating, they usually regain the weight, leading the cycles of weight loss and gain.
Try to lose about ½ to 1 pound a week. This isn't as hard as it sounds. One pound equals 3,500 calories—or seven times 500. So if you cut 500 calories a day by eating less and being more active, you should lose about 1 pound in a week.
Here's an example. In one day:
- Replace a chocolate candy bar at lunch with a small apple.
- Have a piece of baked chicken instead of fried chicken at dinner.
- Then take a 15-minute brisk walk after lunch and dinner instead of lingering at the table
You can cut your calories by 500 that day. Making these kinds of changes every day will help you to lose about a pound a week.
Here's an overview of the Weight Management module.
Balance
Learn about the energy you get from food, and how your body can best use that energy to reach the best weight possible within the context of your overall health.
Eating Well
A balanced diet is based on internal cues
for hunger and fullness. Learn strategies to eat more fruits and vegetables, and
less fat and sugar, and to drink more water.
Menus
A week of menus from the DASH eating plan. The menus are based on 2,000 calories a day--serving sizes should be increased or decreased for other caloric levels.
Activity
Regularly doing a variety of physical activities will help give you energy as well as help you manage your weight. Discover ways of exercising that you may not have tried before.
Attitudes
We believe weight management is a process, not an event. So we give you support for the psychological and emotional issues related to weight.
Recipes
Healty and tasty recipes.
News
Weight management new articles.
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