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Originally Posted by LeafUF
Would you rather be overweight, out of shape and not have these ailments? Or, if you were overweight would these problems be worse for you? Thats the thing I wonder about. I mean I have two of those problems myself. I have had asthma since before I was a year old and a few years ago started having high blood pressure. And for a while those problems were much worse for me as I had kind of let myself go a little bit. The blood pressure was probably from a combination of terrible diet, stressful job and very little activity.
My asthma is completely under control now with a once a day med and my bp meds have been cut by 75%. So, did losing about 20 pounds and maybe even more fat improve my health?
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It's a interesting question. I strongly suspect that being overweight would be worse for my reflux, but possibly better for my hypertension. In the end, I maintain the body I have primarily for reasons of vanity and secondarily for reasons of performance. No way I could perform half the movements I value if I was as little as ten pounds heavier.
Here's another interesting thing: there is no doubt that various health markers improve when we lose weight. Ex: my BP seems extraordinarily sensitive to weight change. But it is less clear that improving numbers actually mean anything in terms of mortality.
I have a neighbor who goes to the same doctor I do. The doctor was so concerned about his weight and cholesterol numbers that he put him on a medically-supervised meal replacement diet.
Guy lost like 75 pounds in a very few months. His cholesterol plummeted. He's very happy. But there is research to suggest that losing all that weight may be more dangerous for him than his high cholesterol numbers ever were.