Exercise & Beta Blockers

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pambridges3
pambridges3 Posts: 5 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
I am taking a beta blocker & have been on it for years. When exercising my heart rate hardly ever gets over 120. I continue to exercise with hopes that this will indeed help my weight loss. Just wondering if anyone else out there has a success story of losing weight with diet & exercise while taking beta blockers.

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  • gonefishin1282
    gonefishin1282 Posts: 44 Member
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    I would love to hear some advice here as well for my wife....this is hands down her biggest struggle with weight loss
  • Ang108
    Ang108 Posts: 1,711 Member
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    I would love to hear some advice here as well for my wife....this is hands down her biggest struggle with weight loss

    I would not worry about it, because weight loss is determined by a calorie deficit. Good health is among other things dependent on how we eat and the exercise we do. But weight loss alone is determined by how much we eat.
    I am on Metoprolol and still have lost 50 pounds since last April...:o).
  • Vune
    Vune Posts: 672 Member
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    While beta blockers are a big obstacle for exercise, I've had luck with a mere calorie deficit. I've been on propranolol for about a year due to migraines. I don't have a heart rate monitor, but I can tell whenever i exert myself that something is dragging me down. Probably the propranolol.
  • macybean
    macybean Posts: 258 Member
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    You still get the benefits of cardio workouts, but a heart rate monitor is going to be useless for judging your intensity. I have lost 22 pounds to date, maintained for a while, and am now trying to lose a few more (those last "vanity" pounds). The only difference is that I feel I need a little more warm up, you feel more sluggish when you start. This seems to have improved over time (been doing cardio forever, put on beta blockers 2 1/2 years ago).

    Good luck…and keep working out. You're still getting all the benefits of working out, despite your lower heart rate.
  • Azdak
    Azdak Posts: 8,281 Member
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    Yes, the benefits (and calorie burn) from exercise come from the workload of the exercise, not the heart rate.

    If you were doing "x" workload on the treadmill pre beta blocker and you do the same workload now, the training benefits and calorie burn will be the same, even though heart rate is 20-40 beats lower.
  • pambridges3
    pambridges3 Posts: 5 Member
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    Thanks everyone for the encouraging words. Great to hear you all are losing weight. I'll keep up my walking and low impact aerobic workouts! Best wishes to all of you.
  • CynthiaT60
    CynthiaT60 Posts: 1,280 Member
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    Bumping this because I just got a beta blocker prescribed for a heart rhythm problem (which is of itself not dangerous, they say). I'm used to using a HRM for exercise and I'm wondering whether anyone has any new information about or experience with how to use it while using the beta blockers. I probably won't see the cardiologist for several weeks. I suppose I could just keep on doing what I've been doing and ignore the heart rate, but if there's a workaround I'd use that.

    Thanks.
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,868 Member
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    Thanks everyone for the encouraging words. Great to hear you all are losing weight. I'll keep up my walking and low impact aerobic workouts! Best wishes to all of you.

    I would also add that walking and low impact aerobics isn't likely to result in a very high heart rate anyway. For a brisk walk I might get my HR up to around 115...maybe 120 if I'm really cranking it out. A decent clip on an elliptical is going to get me somewhere between 120 - 125...130 would really be moving. A good steady 15-20 mph clip on my bike usually puts me around 130 - 135 or so...to really get in the 135 - 145 + range I really have to be cranking it out...usually climbing or something in a spin class or doing hills on my bike or going all out sprints on my bike.
  • SingingSingleTracker
    SingingSingleTracker Posts: 1,866 Member
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    I am taking a beta blocker & have been on it for years. When exercising my heart rate hardly ever gets over 120. I continue to exercise with hopes that this will indeed help my weight loss. Just wondering if anyone else out there has a success story of losing weight with diet & exercise while taking beta blockers.

    You could use a power meter (used for cycling) to measure your workload via Watts as they are used and more important for the training zones than heart rate is. Many exercise bikes at gyms (or home) have computer consoles that measure your power output in watts.
  • mjudd1990
    mjudd1990 Posts: 219 Member
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    Beta blockers can cause exacerbations of asthma as well as mask your body's response to hypoglycemia. Other than that, a beta blocker is going to limit max heart rate and contractility so you will still be able to exercise but not quite as intensely as if you were not taking the meds.
  • QuietBloom
    QuietBloom Posts: 5,413 Member
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    Yeah, beta-blockers will keep your heart rate low. Exercising to lose weight is mainly about creating more of a calorie deficit. You can create the deficit with diet alone. Certainly cardio is good for over-all heath, but so is staying on your prescribed medications. Perhaps you might want to focus mostly on weight resistance for exercise rather than on getting your heart rate up for extended periods of time.

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