How low can a person’s blood pressure drop before it’s cause for concern?
Low blood pressure, or hypotension, is rarely cause for concern — unless it’s extremely low and related to shock. Hypotension is commonly defined as a blood pressure less than 100/60 (pressure between 100/60 and 120/80 is considered optimal). For most people, living with low blood pressure is not an issue. In fact, studies show that the lower your blood pressure, the lower your risk of cardiovascular disease. That said, there are a couple of conditions regarding low blood pressure that I’d like to explain.
The first is postural hypotension, medically known as orthostatic hypotension. This is a type of low blood pressure that develops momentarily when someone rises too quickly from a sitting or lying down position and there is inadequate blood flow to the brain. Individuals can sometimes pass out from postural hypotension, although lightheadedness or dizziness that goes away on its own in a few seconds or a minute or two is more typical.
Postural hypotension is more common in the elderly: Roughly 15 percent of those over age 65 experience it, but it seldom needs to be treated. Once a person is aware of the condition, learning to get up slowly usually resolves the problem. Occasionally, this form of hypotension is severe enough to require treatment — and sometimes it is a sign of another ailment, such as a virus. In addition, dehydration, extended bed rest, lack of exercise, and certain medications can all be factors associated with increased episodes of postural hypotension. If you are susceptible to frequent incidents, your condition should be evaluated by a physician.
More serious is extremely low blood pressure, which can lead to shock. The body goes into shock when the blood flow to critical organs is so minimal that they don’t get enough oxygen and other nutrients. This can result in widespread organ damage and sometimes death. Shock is always a life-threatening condition that needs emergency treatment.
There are different types of shock, depending on the underlying cause of the low blood pressure — for example, heart attack or heart failure (cardiogenic shock); low blood volume from bleeding or dehydration (hypovolemic shock); allergic reaction (anaphylactic shock); and widespread infection (septic shock).
Extremely low blood pressure can develop in seconds (as with bleeding from trauma), in minutes (as with a peanut allergy), or over the course of hours (as with a worsening infection, such as toxic shock syndrome).
As a final note, if you frequently have such symptoms as dizziness, weakness, fatigue, and/or palpitations, talk with your doctor. While these symptoms can be associated with chronic low blood pressure, they can have other causes as well.
Exercise not only helps you lose weight (and keep it off for the long haul), but it also makes your heart stronger. Dr. Arthur Agatston, author of the bestselling The South Beach Diet Supercharged and The South Beach Heart Health Revolution, recommends a minimum of 20 minutes of interval walking (during which you alternate periods of fast walking with periods of slower recovery walking) every other day. Stuck indoors? No problem. Do your interval training program on a treadmill, a stationary bike, or an elliptical machine. Get guidelines on how to do interval training indoors
While it is important to prevent dehydration and replace electrolytes that you might lose through excessive sweating, you must also consider the amount of carbohydrates and calories that you are consuming throughout the day. Below is information on some common sports drinks. You can see the difference in the amount of carbohydrates and calories.
So for example, if you consume four 8-oz bottles of Gatorade, you have taken in 200 calories and 56 grams of carbohydrates — and those values double if you are drinking 16-oz bottles. The calories and carbohydrates can add up quickly, causing high sugar levels.
The best practice is to look at each brand’s calorie and carbohydrate counts and the number of drinks that you are consuming a day to determine if it is within your daily caloric and carbohydrate requirements. It’s also a good idea to supplement sports beverages with plain water.
At the beginning of this New Year, Bill Phillips issued a challenge, inviting men and women of all shapes and sizes to renew their health, energy and life! He even offered a $10,000 cash prize to three top finishers whose results were the most outstanding. Bill Phillips provided them with the complete transformation plan for FREE, online. This 18-week challenge is mapped out, step by step, in the 18 weekly assignments and exercises.
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Weight lifting can actually prove to be a very effective method for losing weight, provided you go about it in the right manner.
It’s common to associate building muscle with weight lifting and fat loss with cardio training. Unfortunately, by doing so, you’re really selling yourself short on potential results that could be seen if you truly understand the intricacies of working out, particularly when it comes to weight lifting for fat loss.
Weight lifting can actually prove to be a very effective method for losing weight, provided you go about it in the right manner. Here is the information you need to know about why you should choose weight lifting to help with fat loss, and how to design a program to get the results you desire.
Weight Lifting for Fat Loss
Increased Metabolic Rate
The first reason weight lifting is a good option for fat loss is because it boosts metabolic rate both over the short term as well as over the long term. In the hours after an intense weight-lifting session you will experience an increase in metabolic rate. What’s more, weight lifting will help you maintain your total amount of lean muscle mass, creating a permanent increase in metabolism.
Cardio training will only cause a short rise in metabolic rate for an hour or two after the session, taking away from the overall calorie-burning benefits compared with resistance training.
Often, overdoing cardio will actually decrease your total lean body mass, so you could see a reduction in metabolism over time working against your fat loss efforts.
Altered Body Composition
The second reason to choose weight lifting for fat loss purposes is because, while cardio may make you lose weight, weight lifting will help you lose body fat, altering your body composition.
Many individuals who just hop on the treadmill to lose the pounds don’t end up looking much different — even if they do successfully lose 10 to 20 pounds. This is because they still have the same proportion of muscle mass to body fat; they are just “smaller.”
Weight training will help change the way you look completely, giving the impression that you’ve replaced fat with muscle and are actually working at improving your body and changing your body composition.
Design a Fat-Loss Training Program
While you aren’t going to be doing a completely different type of weight-lifting workout compared to if you were attempting to build muscle, there are some important alterations that do need to be made when you are weight lifting for fat loss.
Decrease Total Volume
Because you’ re no longer taking in as many calories, it’s important that you reduce the total volume of your program. Generally, you can reduce the total volume by ½ to 2/3s and not experience any decrease in strength.
This is important to do because if you attempt to maintain the same volume while taking in fewer carbohydrates, you are not going to recover from workout to workout as you used to, and will quickly see your performance levels drop.
Maintain Weight Intensity
It’s essential that you keep the same intensity on the bar by not reducing your total weight lifted. A big error many people make is to decrease the weight while bumping up the reps, thinking this will create a greater caloric burn.
While it is true that high-rep training does tend to burn more calories while you are actually doing it, it will not maintain your lean body mass as well, thus your overall metabolic rate will slow. Additionally, if you maintain the weight on the bar throughout the diet period, it’s going to be easier to pick up where you left off after your muscle-building cycle, should you choose to pursue another one.
Utilize Circuit-Style Lifting for Cardio
The last thing you may want to consider is utilizing circuit-style weight lifting to replace any cardio you are currently doing. This style of workout will be completely different than traditional weight-training programs, but can provide a much greater boost to your metabolism than plain cardio.
If you are going to do some circuit training using lighter weight, be sure you are still incorporating enough rest between that and your heavier weight-lifting sessions. Since you are still loading the muscles with weight, it’s critical you don’t perform too many sessions back to back, otherwise CNS or muscular overtraining will become an issue.
Circuit-training cardio workouts will work better for those who are utilizing a two-day, full-body workout program rather than something where they are only lifting heavy three to four days a week.
Lift Away the Pounds
Choosing to abandon your weight-lifting program when it’s time to cut fat is one of the biggest mistakes you can make, so be sure you don’t commit this progress-damaging error.
Too tired to exercise? Sick of the same old workout? Not seeing results? Whatever your reason for lagging motivation, getting back on track is easier than you think. With the right inspiration, you can work through those barriers and rekindle your passion for exercise. These 31 tips for instant drive will help you beat boredom, plateaus, and keep injury from sidetracking your training.
If belly bulge is sapping your summer-body confidence, don’t despair. The reason for your puffy midsection may well be bloat, not fat. That’s because one of the worst culprits for this problem—as slow digestive system—is common among women over age 40. However, you can get your digestion moving and beat bloat with a few easy menu tweaks.
McDonald’s has a bad reputation—and it’s not exactly fair. A simple McDonald’s cheeseburger contains a modest 300 calories. It’s not made with the highest-quality beef or bread, and the measly leaf of lettuce on top is all crunch, no substance, but pair it with a side salad and you’ve got a reasonable burger lunch. That’s more than you can say about the cheeseburgers at almost any other burger joint, fast-food or sit-down. See, cheeseburgers are problematic to begin with—the cheese alone usually adds at least 150 calories to the meal, and that’s before you factor in potentially oversized beef patties and gobs of gooey, fatty condiments. Case in point: A “Little” Cheeseburger from Five Guys contains more calories than two regular cheeseburgers from McDonalds.
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