What Happens to Your Heart When You Lose Weight?
Posted on: June 22, 2012Categories: LiveWell 24/7What Happens to Your Heart As You Lose Weight?
If you lost 10 percent of your body weight, here is what would happen inside your body:
BLOOD VESSELS
Losing weight reduces the workload on your heart. Blood vessels supply your heart with the blood it needs to keep pumping. As you shed pounds, there isn’t fat sitting around and forming plaque that can build up and clog your coronary arteries, eventually causing a heart attack. Reduce your weight and you reduce your risk.
BLOOD PRESSURE
There is a direct relationship between a healthy weight and blood pressure. If you lose weight you may be able to reduce your blood pressure medications or even eliminate them from your daily routine.
BLOOD FATS
The blood fats, or lipids in your bloodstream change when you shed weight. Weight loss can make your triglycerides decrease, your LDL cholesterol decrease, and your HDL cholesterol increase. That means there are more good cholesterol and less bad cholesterol and fat floating around in your bloodstream.
BLOOD CLOTS
Sometimes blood flow slows down and can form clots. Healthy weight and lower blood pressure generally mean fewer blood clots, so slimming down slightly makes it less likely that a clot will break away and travel to your heart, lungs, or brain.
YOUR BELLY
Fat around the belly and the heart are especially harmful to heart health. Recent studies found that even normal-weight people with a “beer belly” or “muffin top” and heart disease have an increased risk of death than those with evenly distributed weight. And research shows that hidden fat around the heart may be an even bigger indicator of cardiac disease than the waistline.
For more information on specific heart conditions or overall heart health, visit http://www.webmd.com/heart/default.htm
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