Maintaining Ideal Body weight is a fundamental step in managing high blood pressure without the use of anti-hypertension medication. If one is overweight by more than a few pounds, then it normally indicates that one is carrying too much body fat and represents a risk factor to health.



There is overwhelming medical evidence that suggests being overweight or obese naturally lead to high blood pressure, and increase risks of heart disease (which may lead to heart attacks) or brain attack also known as a stroke.

Excess body fat is a challenge to the heart, because due to the extra burden it has to do more work. If one is overweight by say 25 lb., then this is could be regarded as being equivalent to carrying say, a 25lb back pack around, and the extra load makes the heart work harder when one is say, walking or going up star cases.

Another consideration is that, every pound of excess body fat needs a network of five miles of the smallest blood vessels in order for the heart to pump blood through it.

Pumping blood through these much smaller blood vessels (which are extra overheads in the first place) is harder for the heart to perform than if they were very large blood vessels, as indicated by the basic laws of hydraulic physics.

So what is this Ideal Body Weight?

Well, it is the weight someone of a specific height can be deemed to have without carrying excess body fat; in essence, it is the weight of one's bones, organs, blood, skin and a safe amount of body fat. One is regarded as overweight or obese depending on how far one exceeds this measure of weight.

Since 1830's there have been several formulae put forward to determine Ideal Body Weight, usually based one's height and age. They were really based on statistical averages sampled from the population. In recent times however doctors and medical authorities use a similar conceived system called Body Mass Index (BMI) to determine an Ideal Body Weight Range. This too is dependent on one's height measurement, and provides approximate guideline for body weight.

The BMI is covered on multiple sites on the Internet. Just enter "BMI Ideal Body weight" on the search engines.

Ideal body weight can be calculated from the following formulae derived from BMI:

Body Weight in Pounds = 24 x Height in Inches x Height in Inches divided by 703

or

Body Weight in Kilograms = 24 x Height in Metres x Height in Metres

So for example, if a person is 5 feet, 11 inches (or 71 inches) tall, then:

Body Weight in Pounds = 24 x 71 x 7 1 divided by 703 = 172 lb.

If one has high blood pressure and is overweight, then it is important that effort should be made to shed the excess body fat until ideal body weight is reached. There is reliable evidence indicating that even if a few pounds of excess body fat are shed, hypertension reduces quickly and noticeably.

Ideal Body Weight prudence amount to one thing, that is one must make a conscious decision to feed one's Ideal Body Weight and not the weight one may have today, unless, of course, one is already at ideal weight.

Consuming just the right amount of food energy (measured in calories) that one's Ideal Body Weight requires and ensuring the total daily calories consumed consists of less than 25% fat are good dietary starting points.