blood pressure question...

[Rayley]

even though im overweight, iv never had a problem with my blood pressure, its always been perfect. Iv been to the doctors at least 8 times in the last 3-4 months and of course they take your blood pressure. everytime was great.. i went to the doctors yesterday and my blood pressure was quite high, which is weird. does atkins have anything to do with this? that was the first time going to the doctors since starting atkins so i was just curious.. im sure it could be many other things though as well...i just thought atkins had the opposite effect....or at least lowering blood pressure?

[imagood1]

Re: blood pressure question...

Since I started Atkins and have been loosing weight my blood pressure is lower than it has been in years. Atkins shouldn't have anything to do with higher blood pressure so it must be something else that was causing it. Were you nervous or anything when you were there? I use to have what is called "White Coat Syndrome" -- my blood pressure was always higher when I first went in the office but went down some after I had talked to the doctor and was ready to leave the office.

[chadcs]

Re: blood pressure question...

Lack of sleep, caffeine/stimulants, more salt, nerves, GI issues.

When my tummy is upset or I have not slept the night before due to chronic insomnia, my BP is high. Otherwise it is normal. Check it again soon at one of those free machines in many pharmacies to see if it is a fluke or something to be concerned about.

[Rayley]

Re: blood pressure question...

naw, i wasn't nervous at all, like i said i go to the docs all the time, (even though i hate going and don't like doctors) my blood pressure was always pretty close to perfect, so hopefully its nothing too serious!! yea i was just a little confused because i always have heard that being on atkins, lowers blood pressure!! hah. thanks for the help!

[carburetor]

Re: blood pressure question...

i would get it checked 2-3 more times before making any determinations

[T.M.]

Re: blood pressure question...

This is my first post. Thanks for the opportunity.

I'm male, 59 years old, 6'6" tall and weighed 301 lbs when I started Atkins 29 days ago. This morning I weighed 279 lbs.

I did the Atkins diet about 11 years ago until I reached 225, then completely fell off the wagon, so this is not my first experience with Atkins. Obviously, between then and now my carbohydrate-loaded diet caused my weight to rise.

I've resurrected this thread because I went to the doctor for a repeat visit so that he could listen to my lungs after I had been to him previously for a pretty bad cough that had at that point been ongoing for two weeks. The cough finally cleared up after another two weeks and he now says my lungs are comletely clear.

However, during this last visit the doctor took my blood pressure and the systolic was higher than it had ever been before I started Atkins. Happily, diastolic was as it has always been. In short, I am experiencing exactly what the person who started this thread did, so there are at least two persons in the world who have experienced this phenomenon.

Here is some additional information that may be significant. To maximize weight loss, I am doing an extended-induction, 1000-cal/day version of Atkins. For the past week my daily carbs have been below 10 g and the fat content of total calories is between 64 and 85 percent. I am taking vitamin and other nutritional supplements.

Other than the blood pressure issue, I feel very good and I have plenty of energy. For exercise, I jog for an hour per day in aerobic mode and do some push-ups, sit-ups and other free-weight training on a couple of muscle groups.

I could easily understand how a low-cal, low-carb diet might cause lower than normal blood pressure, but I cannot understand how it could cause higher than normal pressure.

Before discontinuing the low-cal aspect of my diet, I'd be very interested to learn if other people, particularly people who are doing extended, low-cal induction, have experienced elevated systolic blood pressure along the way.

Again, thanks for the opportunity.

[RosieC]

Re: blood pressure question...

Regarding blood pressure, the previous advice sounds good: to have it checked again a couple more times soon, before assuming it's anything more than temporary.

What did your doctor suggest?

Regarding your 'version of Atkins', 1000 calories sounds way too low for anybody, but especially for someone your height. The Atkins diet is not a low calorie diet. I imagine you know that

[mission to lose]

Re: blood pressure question...

This is my first post. Thanks for the opportunity.

I'm male, 59 years old, 6'6" tall and weighed 301 lbs when I started Atkins 29 days ago. This morning I weighed 279 lbs.

I did the Atkins diet about 11 years ago until I reached 225, then completely fell off the wagon, so this is not my first experience with Atkins. Obviously, between then and now my carbohydrate-loaded diet caused my weight to rise.

I've resurrected this thread because I went to the doctor for a repeat visit so that he could listen to my lungs after I had been to him previously for a pretty bad cough that had at that point been ongoing for two weeks. The cough finally cleared up after another two weeks and he now says my lungs are comletely clear.

However, during this last visit the doctor took my blood pressure and the systolic was higher than it had ever been before I started Atkins. Happily, diastolic was as it has always been. In short, I am experiencing exactly what the person who started this thread did, so there are at least two persons in the world who have experienced this phenomenon.

Here is some additional information that may be significant. To maximize weight loss, I am doing an extended-induction, 1000-cal/day version of Atkins. For the past week my daily carbs have been below 10 g and the fat content of total calories is between 64 and 85 percent. I am taking vitamin and other nutritional supplements.

Other than the blood pressure issue, I feel very good and I have plenty of energy. For exercise, I jog for an hour per day in aerobic mode and do some push-ups, sit-ups and other free-weight training on a couple of muscle groups.

I could easily understand how a low-cal, low-carb diet might cause lower than normal blood pressure, but I cannot understand how it could cause higher than normal pressure.

Before discontinuing the low-cal aspect of my diet, I'd be very interested to learn if other people, particularly people who are doing extended, low-cal induction, have experienced elevated systolic blood pressure along the way.

Again, thanks for the opportunity.

First of all if your are restricting calories, especially to 1000 a day at your weight and height, and eating no more than 10g of carb, you are NOT DOING ATKINS! You are making up your own version of a carb restricted eating plan. Secondly what you are doing can be very dangerous without being supervised closely by a Dr.

[T.M.]

Re: blood pressure question...

Regarding blood pressure, the previous advice sounds good: to have it checked again a couple more times soon, before assuming it's anything more than temporary.

What did your doctor suggest?

Regarding your 'version of Atkins', 1000 calories sounds way too low for anybody, but especially for someone your height. The Atkins diet is not a low calorie diet. I imagine you know that

Thanks.

I've been checking my bp at home. As far as I can tell, the doctor's readings were accurate. He did not seem alarmed about it, I think because the diastolic was unchanged.

I do know that the Atkins diet is not a so-called low-calorie diet, but I want to lose weight as quickly as possible............ as long as I do not have a heart attack or stroke in the process.

But other than the blood pressure issue, my body seems to have adjusted quite well to 1000 cal/day. Even at this low-cal level, I experience no hunger pangs, even prior to "meals". Atkins' 2002 edition mentions a study in which two groups of individuals were placed on 1000-cal/day diets - one relatively high carb and the other, low carb. The low-carb group lost an average of 0.9 lb per day, which matches my daily weight loss for the past week.

Again, anyone experienced above-normal systolic during induction?

Thanks.

[liv]

Re: blood pressure question...

You may be losing some water weight no. I would guess that your metabolism will slow down after a bit of doing what you are doing. We follow the book here. So we eat food and do not undereat in attempts to lose faster. Losing slower is probably better in the end. What is the hurry? Relax - enjoy your food. Make it a life style.

[mission to lose]

Re: blood pressure question...

even though im overweight, iv never had a problem with my blood pressure, its always been perfect. Iv been to the doctors at least 8 times in the last 3-4 months and of course they take your blood pressure. everytime was great.. i went to the doctors yesterday and my blood pressure was quite high, which is weird. does atkins have anything to do with this? that was the first time going to the doctors since starting atkins so i was just curious.. im sure it could be many other things though as well...i just thought atkins had the opposite effect....or at least lowering blood pressure?

Hi Rayley,

My BP has been the same my whole adult life, when I was thin and when I gained weight, it never changed. Approx 120/80.I started Atkins on 8-10. I had a DR appointment last week. BP was 118/78.

So I have had a slight improvement, even though it is ok to begin with.
Hopefully yours is just a temporary one time rise. When can you check it again?

[T.M.]

Re: blood pressure question...

First of all if your are restricting calories, especially to 1000 a day at your weight and height, and eating mo more than 10g of carb, you are NOT DOING ATKINS! You are making up your own version of a carb restricted eating plan. Secondly what you are doing can be very dangerous without being supervised closely by a Dr.

Yes, I am not doing Atkins. I never said I was. To repeat, I am doing a low-cal version of Atkins. If you prefer, I am making up my own carb-restricted eating plan and I fully realize that what I am doing might be dangersous, just as I realized how my previous eating regimen (the diet of the vast majority of people in north america) was certainly dangerous to my health.

Throughout history, human beings have survived even horrendous eating regimens in concentration camps, cities under siege, etc.

At the age of 64, Gandhi survived a 21-day fast.

People of my physical dimensions have not only gone on low-carb/low-cal diets, they have also gone on low-fat/high carb diets (typically recommended by the present-day medial establishment), fasting (starvation) diets, etc. - every diet one can imagine.

You may be losing some water weight no. I would guess that your metabolism will slow down after a bit of doing what you are doing. We follow the book here. So we eat food and do not undereat in attempts to lose faster. Losing slower is probably better in the end. What is the hurry? Relax - enjoy your food. Make it a life style.

I doubt very much if my metabolism will slow down with my level of activity. If it did, I would likely see less weight loss on the same diet. I'll know it if it happens.

I fully understand the Atkins methodology and I realize that losing slower is the standard, wiser way to proceed. But, regardless, I want to lose weight more quickly and that is why I'm doing what I'm doing. A thousand calories a day is better than a fast. As I said, other than the bp (which I would not have known about had I not visited the doctor), I feel just fine and, quite amazingly, to this point have experienced no hunger pangs or cravings whatsoever.

But for now, I'm interested to hear from anyone who may have experienced higher-than-normal bp while in the induction phase of the Atkins diet and what meaures they may have taken to correct it. (In addition to the original poster's experience, I have found one other person on this forum who has had this bp phenomenon. But neither person has follwed up with further information.)

Thanks again for the opportunity.

(If my posts are unwelcome in this forum, the moderators should simply delete them and I won't post again.)

[atkinsgal08]

Re: blood pressure question...

>>I want to lose weight as quickly as possible..>>

Atkins isn't a quick fix.

Rather than having a goal of losing weight quickly, you might want to think about having a goal of keeping the weight off ...

The slower you lose the weight, the more likely you are to keep it off.

[mission to lose]

Re: blood pressure question...

Throughout history, human beings have survived even horrendous eating regimens in concentration camps, cities under siege, etc.

At the age of 64, Gandhi survived a 21-day fast.

Again, these are extreme examples, and by "survived" if you mean "lived", yes "SOME" lived, certainly not all. And many of the survivors most likely suffered from some long term problems.

But I am not posting to argue about those things. I said, "Secondly what you are doing can be very dangerous without being supervised closely by a Dr."

I don't think my comment that what your are doing should be supervised by a Doctor should be taken as offensive. It was an intelligent, informed opinion. I presumed that it would be taken that way as well.

[liv]

Re: blood pressure question...

Your posts are not unwelcome by any means. But if you post we will give our opinions