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I am on Carvedilol and I just had a baby 5 months ago and am trying to lose the rest of my baby weight. I am exercising a lot and have a good diet and cannot drop a pound. Has anyone else on this med had trouble losing weight or even gained weight while on this med??
Hi SheilaO,
Congratulations on being a new mommy and welcome here!!!
Beta blockers are so important for helping your heart not overwork, over excite.....but they are the dickens to get used to. The most common and immediate effect (I never call it 'side effect' because it is absolutely direct impact : ) is heavy fatigue. Over time, people learn to move through life a little slower because they have to now. If you suffered heart damage first, then now are dealing with the additional but necessary fatigue of a beta blocker, losing weight is challenging.
Having said ALL that (smile), I did lose weight...too much really...in spite of beta blocker drag. Heart girls on meds just don't get to eat like the rest of the world. I consume child size portions. I forced the body to move more and longer, not harder. It's a marathon, not a sprint for heart girls : ). I look at what is considered ok for normal population and double it. For example: walking 20 minutes a day 3 x week (for healthy people)...I double and triple that, because my heart is too damaged to metabolize easily on beta blocker. At restaurants, everyone else eats a full dinner. I eat half a baked potato, a few ounces of steamed veggies. Once in a great while, I'll eat a few ounces of meat and feel stronger right away for the next day.
Pizza, popcorn and cakes, pastries, soft drinks....I call those the 'puffy foods'. These foods + beta blockers make a girl puffy 4 times faster than the general population. Even in very small quantities unless you are able to be extremely active. Because there is high fructose corn syrup in just about every prepared food/beverage (even baby food) around now, I had the best success when I steered away from soft drinks and prepacked meals (high sodium).
Need to figure out long term strategies. You already know what portions and what foods you can eat to maintain healthy-for-you weight at your age. So you will need to plan for cutting back even more on portion sizes as you enter each new decade. Metabolism slows down a certain percentage every 7 years beginning around age 28.
You are young enough that you can melt that baby weight away in a few months. Give yourself some slack time for napping while you adjust to the beta blocker impact...one day you'll wake up and know it's TIME to begin.
So glad you came here.......lots of women know exactly what you are talking about here.
Welcome,
Jaynie
Just had to tell you, I'm still trying to lose my baby weight from 29 years ago! Jaynie is right of course, less in more out is the key, but don't beat yourself up, it takes your body several months to adjust after babies even without beta blockers and unlike all those celebrity mums, us mere mortals don't snap back within weeks! ;-)
Lidia xx
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