My heart is crazy. And I don’t mean that in a romantic way. Rather, it is the old blood pump, the organ that more than any other should benefit from me shedding a couple more pounds. It does its best to sabotage it, or so it seems.
See, I used to weigh just over 94 kg (208 lb) for many years. A little more some days, but never much, no matter that I ate what I wanted and moved no more than I wanted to. But then in Easter 2005 I had a mysterious illness, presumably of the liver judging from the symptoms. Since then, I have been unable to digest more than just a little fat each day. I also took up walking up and down hills in May that year, and between these things I lost 13% of my weight, down to 82 kg (180 lb). Not skeletal, but quite uncomfortable, as I was hungry even after meals and had to get up in the middle of the night to eat. So I was rather relieved when I put on a few more pounds, despite eating almost only carbohydrates. (Pasta in particular, lots and lots of pasta. But I also quite a bit of fruit yogurt.) This time my weight stopped on 89 kg (196 lb).
Last spring I started walking for an hour a day or so, mainly to ward off cancer, but later also to keep my pre-diabetes at bay. This is a fun and harmless activity, in general, and gives a great opportunity to think or meditate while walking. But it also causes me to lose a few pounds of weight before my appetite jumps up to compensate. And when I reach 85 kg (187 lb) weird things happen with my heart.
The first, and perhaps not so strange, is that my resting pulse falls. It is normally 55-60, which is pretty decent for a well-trained man (which I am not – I have not run more than a few steps since I was small, due to exercise asthma). When my weight comes down, my resting pulse creeps down to 50 or even below sometimes. That is just plain creepy: For someone with only 66% lung capacity, I ought to have a pulse of 80 or so. But there are no symptoms, so I assume my body is simply trying to save energy.
The next thing that happens is that my heart rhythm starts to get irregular. My heart will randomly beat twice as hard or not at all. This is also something that happens to a lot of people (especially if they drink coffee) and is not fatal in itself. However, people with this condition are more likely to die from sudden heart stop / heart flimmer if they exercise hard. Some people die during marathons and such each year, and these are they. Not much risk of me running a marathon, admittedly.
When any of these things fail to keep me indoors, my heart will suddenly start beating much faster during light exercise, or at random times – often a while after exercise – start racing at its maximum speed. (Around 190 now, I believe it was higher in 2005 when it did the same. That was the last time I was that slim.) It goes on like this for perhaps 10 minutes, and remains much faster than usual for the rest of the day, even if I sit quietly.
This year I have only had one heart race episode, but the slow pulse and irregular beats seem to predictably occur every time I dip below 85 kg.
I have never heard of anyone else with this syndrome. I mean, I have heard of each of the three symptoms, they are not uncommon and are generally not considered dangerous in moderation. But the combination of them, ticking in one after another each time I lose weight, that is new to me. Then again, we are all unique, aren’t we?
