Hi again,
I've struggled with weight all my life. I am a male 58, who currently weighs 14st 7lb. I'm pretty fit and do loads of exercise and track both my calorie intake and expenditure. Since taking beta blockers (Bisoprolol) since August I'm really struggle to keep my weight down. I'm just wondering if anyone has had experience of the same and has found a really effective diet. I'd like to get down to 13st. Cheers all.
You won;t like this but I decided I had to lose weight fast after my heart attack. I just didn;t eat dairy (except I had skimmed milk),, no alcohol, no processed foods (think cake, bread, biscuits, desserts, ice creams, sweets and chocolate) , no eating between meals and only one piece (very small) of red meat a week. I ate vegetables, fish, turkey and chicken. Cooked with olive oil, used a non dairy spread, skimmed milk, ate porridge (with banana, nuts and flaxseed) to start the day. Walked every day (by time not distance). ANd I halved the portion size of anything I ate.
I lost over two stone in just over three months and my cholesterol dropped from 6 to below 4. I have managed to maintain a steady weight for the last year. It's not easy and to start with I was permanently hungry but you have to decide whether getting the weight off is more important than continuing to eat in a way that hasn;t helped you in the past. I had the same problem with the Bisoporol and was starting to say I couldn;t shift more weight - forget it - reduce your intake and the weight goes. Finding something to blame for weight gain/no loss just allows you to not take responsibility for yourself. Not wanting another heart attack was a great motivator for me. Another person in my rehab class keeps going because he wants to see his kids grow up. Different things motivate different people.
Thanks Calliope. The depressing thing is that I do all of what you do already but still don't shift anything. My calorie intake is rarely over 1,600 calories a day. For example, this week, my average calorie intake has been 1,500 calories a day, and my burned calories 2,700 per day. Weight shifted = 0! It seems to defy science
You have checked your scales I take it?
Good thought, but yes. I do a lot of travelling for business and the scales in the hotel room tell a similar story.
and even more interestingly my still goes out for a pub lunch twice a week , drinks beer and eats butter husband lost three stone over six months eating and walking with me..... explain that if you can!
Ha! Now you’re just making me jealous 😊.
I often feel like giving him a good slap myself - particularly when he modestly tells his doctor he has lost weight because he is taking the doc's advice to lose weight.
DO you eat a lot of cheese?
Nope, no cheese.
Shame, I could have given you a recommendation for a good cheddar cheese at 8% fat instead of the usual 33% 0r if you like eating transparent rubber, one at 3%, There;s something you are eating (for me it was cheese) that is whamming up your weight. Think carefully....
You are probably right Calliop153. I’ll have to go back and look at my food diary.
What's the 8% cheddar please? I brought a low fat one and after one mouthful put it in the food composting bin!
As someone got dead snotty with me when I mentioned something else to do with food I will send you a private message........
Thank you! There are some strange people about!
sent - look in your message box.
Got it - thank you!
Hi Cricket. How are you measuring burned calories? In my experience my Fitbit radically overestimates the amount of exercise I’ve done. I don’t think weight gain is a known side effect of newer beta Blockers but the lethargy they can cause can lead to less physical activity etc. What other meds are you on. Have you had your cholesterol and blood sugar checked?
Hi, I have an Apple Watch Series 5. It tracks calories in 2 ways. The general moving around day to day stuff and those expended during exercise. I’ve no idea if they’re accurate.
I’m in Bisoprolol, which can cause weight gain. I’m also on warfarin which doesn’t as far as I’m aware.
I’ve had my cholesterol, sugar, iron etc levels checked and they’re fine.
In terms of physical activity, I do loads. This week being a typical week: Monday 45 mins cardio class, Wednesday weights session in the gym, Thursday 3hrs badminton, Saturday 45 mins cardio class and a 25 minute run.
I lost a stone when I had my heart attack age 55 3 years ago in my first year. And then I started to put on weight when I started to measure calories in and out. I think that was a combination of underestimating portion size and my device overestimating exercise (so I gradually ate more!) I’m on Bisoprolol and weight gain isn’t on the list of side effects that I’m reading. For older beta blockers average weight gain appears to be just over a couple of pounds.
Hi. I joined the forum as I was found to have raised cholesterol and be pre-diabetic. So far I have lost over a stone with all numbers (including BP) improving. I am in a statin for the cholesterol. The diet I am following is the BHF recommended Mediterranean one sticking to average portions and being very careful with fruit (hidden sugars). I have seen your comment about expending more calories than you take in and not losing weight. Sorry but that is impossible! You need to double check how you are getting those figures.
Thanks Heythrope51. I’ll have a look at their diet. I know the numbers should mean that I lose weight regularly, but I find that if I’m ‘naughty’ then I pile on the pounds very easily, and then it takes weeks getting that weight back off, only for it to stay more or less in the 14st 5 to 7 range. Nevertheless, I’ll have a look at my diary.
Yesterday I was quite lazy and only walked 4,590 steps which my logger say equates to 300 odd calories. A packet of crisps can have as many calories! No I didn't eat them just looked at the packet! So a couple of minutes snacking takes 40 minutes to burn off! Frightening really!
Yes, indeed, it is frightening. Equating eating say a chocolate bar to ‘x’ amount of exercise. Sigh.....
Hi Cricket
After my heart attack in December 2018 I had a radical overhaul of everything. Stopped smoking, stopped drinking for 6 months - now only having the odd drink, changed diet completely, no dairy (apart from semi skimmed milk in coffee) removed all processed food from diet almost no red meat, now eat mainly chicken, turkey or fish, no chocs, cakes biscuits, cooked all meals from scratch, also became very mindful of portion size, got active and now exercise every day. Started off at 12st 12lbs weight down to 10st by the middle of July, BMI now in the good range.
It's not easy,but the best motivation I had was to do anything and everything that would hopefully prevent me having another heart attack
Excellent comment, and one that a lot of people are unaware of
A calorie is not a calorie. For example, Insulin is the fat storage hormone. Some people make more insulin than others meaning they store more fat. And has been mentioned above your body can go into fat store survival mode if you don’t eat enough. That is why so many hit a weight loss plateau.
Btw, you should find that carbs cause you to put weight on and eating more fat causes you to lose weight. I suggest you stop eating anything with flour or sugar in it (that’s what causes small dense LDL). If that’s not enough then quit rice & potatoes too. Eat fibre rich (non-starchy) veggies to help your liver and digestion.
The best mainstream diet for the heart is likely the Mediterranean diet once you get to your target weight but clean keto is also favoured by some of the world’s top scientists so don’t be scared of good fats (nuts, eggs, fish, avocado’s etc).
Thanks Ader42, very interesting.
I agree with Ader42. I now do intermittent fasting (no breakfast, in my case) and greatly restrict my carbs. Remarkably, I now have to put work into keeping my weight up. Michael Moseley has reported that he found the same with intermittent fasting, i.e. his wife told him off for losing too much weight. It might be worth your reading Michael Moseley's fasting book.
I think that intermittent fasting is related to low carb, as both put the body into fat-burning mode. My experience is that I had a bit of a hunger battle to undertake at the start but, once my body was adapted, hunger was not a great problem - my peak hunger is mid-morning and I do not suffer desperate hunger at lunch time.
As I understand it, the problem with carbs is that they don't activate your bodies appetite-control mechanism whereas fat and protein do. I have read that a combination of fibre with fat/protein is the most effective for controlling appetite, and I therefore eat masses of green veg (fibre no carbs) with meat/fish/cheese. For lunch, I eat masses of salad with nuts/houmous/sardines/cheese/cold meat but I try to include egg perhaps twice a week - but never more than one slice of wholemeal bread. In the evening, I eat normal home-cooked food with my wife but with little starchy foods and ample veg.
You can read endlessly about diet and health on the internet. I suspect that different diets suit different people. But everybody seems in agreement that sugar and refined carbs are bad. So far as I can understand, omega-3 fats found in oily fish & walnuts and monounsaturates found abundantly in some plant foods (avocados, some nuts, olives) are good. Saturated fats now don't seem to be considered all that bad according to recent research and dairy products perhaps to be beneficial. Some consider omega-6 fats found abundantly in sunflower oil and other seed oils to be harmful.
As one of your earlier correspondents said, I limit fruit because of its fructose content.
The low carb promoters on the internet say "stop counting calories", because a low carb, high fat diet automatically causes weight loss.
Good luck. You may have a lot of reading ahead of you!
Thanks, much appreciate. ‘Food for though’, one might say, and no calories either!
Thanks Jonathan. Very encouraging. Regards C23
Thanks StillConcered.
For me the devil is in the hidden added sugar in things like baked beans, some soups, tomato sauce, bread buns, low fat products and so on. The diabetes.org site has a wealth of information on the amount of sugar that you should eat and the amount that creeps into everything, as it is a quick, cheap and easy filler to stick into almost everything.
I find that it is very addictive and hard to get rid of the cravings, so I make sure that I have plenty of celery to munch on . Am acquaintance of mine had the fear of god put into him when he was diagnosed with diabetes as in:- you will go blind / have your toes fall off/wind up in a wheel chair/ lose your driving licence. etc. His doctor even had a gruesome photo album to show him.
He went on a 800 calorie day diet, under the supervision of his doctor, and rapidly lost weight. Having achieved his target weight he now lives on 1600 calories a day and eats quite well
Have s look at drinking 2.2 litres of water a day and read up on insulin resistance. Have fun.
I was on Beta Blockers and still lost a good chunk of weight after my stents. I was a serious meat eater and had a sweet tooth. I’ve now stopped sugar in hot drinks and switched white pasta / bread / rice to brown. Eat mostly fish and chicken. Porridge or poached eggs / salmon for breakfast. Lots of nuts. I still screw up and I had a Big Mac last week - but I’m consistently under 10 stone now.
Was it the burger that "did it", do you think?
I have seen your recent thread.
If so, that would be the answer.
Hmmmmmm
PS Mac Hospitals would be the way to go for their dedicated Customer Base. I have been saying. . . They are known to run decent charities in association with the NHS for many years. They could expand their Good Work earned from the Big Mac Business.
I have just come back to this thread. That our bodies are designed to run on fat seems a strange theory. Our ancestors used to forage and hunt. I doubt the rabbits and deer had a high fat content.
Hi,
I have had the same problem myself too over the years. It is definitely Bisoprolol in my opinion. I went on a low carb diet a few years ago and started at 16st - within 3 months of low carbs, my weight went UP to almost 20 stone. For some reason the bisoprolol and low carb does not mix and there has been some studies done on this very thing. I find a reasonable carbohydrate intake with natural sugars worked best for me. It is said that a calorie is a calorie is a calorie. May be true - except when being on bisoprolol though!
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