My resting heart rate has been dropping

[RosemaryN]

I got my charge HR on 10 Jan 2016.  For the first few weeks my rhr was 58-60.  It has gradually and steadily been dropping over the last 2 months and today is 43.  I have been exercising x5/week, having done nothing at all before this year, and have dropped 15 pounds.  I'd like to believe this change in my heart rate is a good thing, but am concerned at the scale and speed of the drop.  Has anyone else experienced this?  Could it be the device itself changing the way in which it calculates heart rate? Thanks in anticipation.

[dOOL]

I have also noticed the same trend since I got mine a few weeks ago.  I would like to think it's just an adjustment to the amount of conditioning I've been doing: running 5 to 6 times a week and losing 10 pounds.  But I too, would like to know if anyone has a more scientific reasoning for this.  Thanks.

[BevinVA]

I've had the Blaze about 2 weeks now and haven't seen my resting heart rate go below 93.  It always says I'm in the fat burning zone when I'm resting.  Yeah, right.

[JohnRi]

While 43 is low for a typical person, a typical person cannot exercise 5x a week.  In theory the more you exercise, the more you do cardio work, the stronger your heart gets.  The stronger your heart gets, the less it has to beat to push your blood through your body, so your resting heart rate drops. Any number under 60, usually means someone is athletic and in good shape.

My gut says you are just fine.  Some athletes have rates in the 30's.  However if you are concerned, check with your doctor to make sure there isn't a medical issue, but I'm 99% sure it's just because you are in better shape.

My resting heart rate dropped 10 bpm from quitting drinking caffeine.  My is around 58 now.  BUT I'm on a beta blocker to drop my heart rate.

And speaking of beta blockers, Bevin, you should see a doctor and get put on a 10 mg of Atenolol.  It's a beta blocker, but at the low dose I'm on, it drops your resting heart rate, and drops your BP about 10 mmHg. 

My resting heart rate used to be 105 range.  Atenolol dropped it into the 70's  Diet and exercise dropped it into the 50's.

Bevin, my heart has always run hot, what I didn't know was that was damaging my heart.  Combined with high blood pressure, I had an enlarged first chamber, and several valves are leaking.  It's all mild/stage 1, but high pulse rate was the first warning sign.

Go see your doctor Bevin, get a physical, and get on a med if your doctor thinks you need to.

Letting your heart beat like that every minute, of every day, that's going to take YEARS off your life.

With my doctor's permission, I tried to ween myself off the Attenolol.  He suggested cutting my pills in half for a week.  I saw my heart rate go up into the 70's (Which was ok), and my bp rose from under 120/80 to around 130/90 (not ok).  So I went back on the full dose.  I'll try again after I lose another 20 lbs.  I've lost 46 lbs so far.

That's the advantage of having a heart rate monitor, people can detect health issues before they get bad.

Keep steping!!!

[dOOL]

@JohnRiThank you for this response.  Confirms what I was thinking and more. 

[BevinVA]

Thanks, JohnRI, I have had a full work up at a cardiologist and wore a monitor for two weeks.  They could not find a cause for my high heart rate. They call it supraventricular tachycardia and they didn't seem to think it was anything to worry about.  No follow up needed.  I can be sitting at my desk and it will rise to 140 for no reason.  Climbing the stairs to get to work it will go to 156.  They put me on metoprolol and that has dropped it somewhat.  I have a desk job, but I get up every hour to walk the halls and have everything printed on the printer down the hall instead of the one on my desk.  Still, I'm lucky to get 4000 steps a day and am too exhausted to do anything when I get home.  I don't mind dying early, I just want it to come fast and not be a long drawn out process.

[JohnRi]

Bevin, man that sucks. I remember 6 months ago, when my BP was 160/105, my weight was 281 lbs, and my resting heart rate 105, when I got home from my long day sitting in front of my computer, I was EXHAUSTED.  I couldn't wait until I got on the couch...

Now my BP is under 120/80, resting heart rate under 60, I've lost 51 lbs, and I can't stand sitting on the couch.  I walk 3-6 miles after work each day.  13,000-20,000 steps a day.

I feel 20 years younger, and most of the time time I have endless energy now.  I usually don't feel tired or sleepy until I hit that couch around 9:00 PM.  Often asleep on that couch by 9:30!

Man good luck.  I remember what it felt like, I hope you get better.

[BevinVA]

JohnRI, you have done very well!  35 pounds is a lot to lose.  In that same amount of time I have gained 20, putting me in the overweight category for the first time in my life.  Like you were, I can hardly stay up long enought to fix my grandson dinner and then I'm exhausted on the couch until I have to get up to go to bed.  I don't know how to turn it around and didn't get any advice from the two heart specialists that I saw.  I've had a Fitbit since 2011 and I can walk all day on vacation but not when I have to work all day.  Just don't have any more energy to give.

[JohnRi]

Back in October when I first started walking.  I was able to walk .25 miles.  Yep 1/4 of a mile was it.  My back was aching.  Two days later I got 1/2 a mile.  I was dying.  That was I got for a week...  Then I got 3/4 of a mile....    It was SLOW... 

I remember in November when I hit 1 1/2 miles...  I was jumping up and down like Rocky....

I didn't get to 3 miles until 12/26...  About a month later I hit four miles...  Then 5 miles...  And now today I can walk 6 miles.

Then about a month ago, I went from walking every other day to every day.  IT WAS SO HARD at first...  My distances feel to 3 mile a day...  But slowely I built it back up to 4 miles, and then 5 miles...  I'm still trying to get back to 6 miles...

It's hard to start.  But if you can do it for a couple of weeks every other day, it becomes a habit.  Then you just have to work on distance, and time.

But those first two weeks were brutal...  And that's before I got a fitbit...

[USAF-Larry]

Great story, @JohnRi. That is my story as well, from barely able to walk with a cane to walking slowly on a treadmill supporting myself with the handrails, to now walking 4 miles a day with no assistance.  It reminds me of the old saying that, "A journey of a thosand miles begins with a single step."

[BevinVA]

You guys are an inspiration.  I wish I had someone to walk with me and keep me company as well as accountable.  JohnRi, did you lose the weight just by walking or are you doing anything else?

[JohnRi]

Unfortunately, unless you exercise like 4-8 hours a day, exercise alone is not going to create weight loss.

Like many, I've chosen to change my diet permantently.  These lifestyle changes will lead me to weight loss, but more importantly I won't gain it all back.

I started slow, little things at first.  Double cheeseburgers became singles.  1/2 lbs burgers became 1/4.  My footlong sub became a 6 inch sub.  I eat the apples at Subway instead of the chips.  Baked potatos instead of french fries.  If I ate fries, I ate only have the order. 

Then I started lowering my meat content at meals at home, and increasing the vegetables.  Now my meat course will be around 110 grams at dinner, the rest will be mostly vegetables with a little pasta or rice.

I started logging everything I ate in the Fitbit App.  I try make sure I am lower than my goal, or meet my goal for calories eaten each day.

As my calorie count at lunch and dinner dropped, I added a morning, afternoon, and usually evening snacks of around 100 calories.

Slowly I dropped my calories from 2400, to 2200, to 2000, to now I maintain a daily 1800 calorie diet for the last 6 or 7 weeks.  1800 calories is not a lot of food for someone six foot tall.  But I'm almost never hungry now, except after I exercise!

My calories deficit started at 250 calories a day, since I was usually under, I lowered it to 500...  When I was usually under, I lowered it to 750...  Now I'm running 1000 daily calorie deficit.  And I'm lower if I exercise, over if I don't.

As my body burns fewer and fewer calories each day as I drop the weight, I had to switch to daily exercise to maintain the weight loss.

It's hard work.  But I know every day, I'm lighter, leaner, stronger than the day before. 

I got a fitbit Aria to monitor my fat %.  When I got it about a month ago, I was around 35% fat.  Now it's around 32%. 

Bottomline, it's a LOT of hard work, but worth it.  And it was Incredibily hard to start.  But I kept at it.

When I first started walking I was huffing and puffing.  Heart rate over 160 BPM.  Now my breathing is barely elevated, and I have to walk really hard and fast to get above 110 BPM.

I use to walk 2 miles, and burn close to 1000 calories in 60 minutes...  Now I can walk over 90 minutes, 5 miles, and I won't burn a 1000 calories.  As I get more and more fit, it's getting harder and harder. 

I'm probably about to start biking.  I tried running, but my 49 year old body doesn't like running.  At least not at 235 lbs.  Once I slimmed under 200, I'll try running again.  And I'll see if I can avoid the injuries at a lower weight. 

But to be honest, I love walking most days.  This week for some reason, I've lacked something, and I had poor walks.  But yesterday's walk was good.

That's the problem, there will be days, weeks, were things come up to hold you back.  Injuries hampered me for about a month.  I keep injuring my toes from walking so many miles each week.  I've lost one toe nail, and probably going to lose a second.  Runner's toe. 

But I'm 2 lbs away from my halfway mark on my first weight loss goal, to get me just barely into the Normal weight range.  As I get close to the six month mark of my weight loss, halfway to my goal, back to 2007 weight, blood pressure normal, resting heart rate down, I kind of wish I could skip the next six months...  But then again, I've also enjoyed the trip to better health.

I'm down two, almost three, pants sizes.  Down a shirt size, about to be down two sizes.  I but my old pants on this weekend, and all I could think, THESE USED TO FIT!  How is that possible?  They jeans were impossibly huge!  Yet I remember when they did fit, and were even tight when I first started walking.

I've got a HUGE pile of clothes on my floor that are too big to wear.  Clothes I bought last year!  Too big.  Even my first walking shorts I bought in October...  They are in the pile, way too big.

I only have a couple of t shirts that fit right now.  Even my workout shirts, which are nice wickable shirts, they will be too small soon, and need to be replaced...

I'm wearing shirts I used to wear at work from 2007 now!  I found two shirts in my closet BRAND new from back then.  Still had the tags on them.  When I wore them for the first time last month, they fit.  Now they are loose. 

A belt I bought brand new in December....  It's too big too...

I'm having a blast with all of this.  Not enjoying the Money for new clothes, but the reason behind the new clothes, now that's something to cheer about.

I turn 49 in a few weeks, and I know by the time I'm 50, I'll be in the best shape I've been since high school or earlier.  I was 195 my senior year.  And that's still 12 lbs over my first weight loss goal....

At the halfway mark, I can reflect at where I was, but I can also see where I'm going.  I can't wait to get there!

[BevinVA]

Very impressive, JohnR!

[USAF-Larry]

The biggest single improvement I made in my diet, which was made at "recommendation" of my internist, was I eliminated "white food" from my diet - that included white potatoes, white rice, white bread, white flour and its products, etc.  Not only did this immediately get my Type 2 Diabetes under control, but it stopped the weight gains associated with it.  Once the diet was under control, exercise was very important in keeping the body fit and in shape.

[BevinVA]

I gave up sugar and grains several years ago.  It's just the exercise that I'm lacking.

[emili]

@RosemaryN- I see you have already gotten a fair share of advice. Theoretically, your HR will drop with exercise and initially you will/should drop pounds pretty quick as well. The HR does a really good job of tracking HR- it at times does not capture intense activity HR (although this has never happened to me)- but is always spot on with resting. All of that is to say, you have a goldmine of data at your fingertips about your HR. If you are even a little concerned, take your data and go see your doctor. None of us here are doctors and a real doctor would never post advice or diagnosis in the forum. You may even get away with a quick phone call instead of a visit. I would encourage you to go if you are thinking about it more than just in passing.

[VenkatK]

I got my FitBit CHarge HR 3 weeks ago. My resting heart rate was around the high 60's at first. For the first wek, I was very active, travelling and walking a lot. But I have been mostly sedentary for the last 10 days, but my RHR is now ten points lower (57).  I am over 70, and I am sure that RHR is very low if I am not exercising. Is this an effect of the wearable, or should I be worried?

[Daymare]

I too have a form of tachycardia and my Surge is both a blessing and a burden.  Most of my day's are spent in the "fat burn" zone.  The calorie counters NEVER work correctly.  I printed my activities/workouts and daily panel showing my HR to my cardiologist.  While it's not an EKG it's ballpark and it's great info for them to see.  That along with BP readings twice a day from an app on my tablet that shows averages over time, worst, best, etc.  He really liked the info!  The metoprolol I take pushes my rate down a bit more than yours (I may just be taking more), and if my bp gets low I have to skip a dose.  It's a noticeable difference when I skip a dose too.  When I spoke to the cardiologist about losing weight and the activities I had planned, he told me to not go crazy and I'd lose more weight with diet that working out.  I'm down almost 15lbs in 2 months so I'd say he's right.  I eat anything I want, nothing processed though - I make it fresh.  When I do the cardio workouts I have to take it easy because I can get to 150-160 with less than 100% effort.  It’s VERY frustrating because I want to just keep pushing!  I’d talk to your doctor more about your HR. Specifically about the stairs.  I’m not sure that should be the norm unless you’re talking several floors.  Find a doctor that takes the time to talk with you though.  I’ve found their NP’s are much more open to taking time to discuss things in more detail.  The only reason I have the cardiologist I have is because of his Nurse Practitioner is so awesome!!!  Talk to them about how your work out activates impact your HR and if you’re working hard or not.  I make a list of questions for every time I go in.  It’s sort of a joke now, but they always answer every last question.  Also, get a complete checkup with your primary.  The energy levels could be something else and unrelated to the tachycardia.  Good luck!

[Gtkozik]

Hey I myself lost lots of weigth last year. I was not active for few years and my rhr was anywhere from 90 to 100. I have been working out like a crazy over that period of time. I had a flex for a while and just recently got a charge two. My rhr now is anywhere from upper 40's (rare) to very low 60. The past two days I am averaging 62 63. It's amazing to me how much overtime my heart used to do. Thanks for sharing.

[USAF-Larry]

And, your heart thanks you for taking care of it, @Gtkozik!