Confused About The Importance Of A High Metabolic Rate And Pulse

I know one of the key principles purported here for maintaining good health is having a high metabolic rate but I've heard fat/obese people tend to have higher metabolisms and higher pulse rates. Their pulse rates are higher because When at rest, excess fat may cause their heart to work overtime because their extra body weigh restricts the flow of blood through their arteries and veins. And also healthy people who exercise often tend to have lower heart rates because a strong healthy heart beats more slowly because it delivers a greater volume of blood with each beat.

What's the explanation for that?

 

Very overweight people sometimes have lower rates too, I have ehard plenty of very large clearly unhealthy people claim they were not worried about being 100+ overweight because they had a "low heartrate" proving their insides were running fine.

Endurance athletes have what is called "adaptive stress metabolism" which is the heart rate lowering because it is assuming frequent intervals of large amounts of stress hormones being released during training and conditioning. Dr PEat talks about this and says this is actually pretty bad because it means the body is becoming adapted to using stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline which are implicated in aging, disease, and degenerative processes in general. I don't think the lowerred heart rate is as simple as a "strong" heart, it is mainly the metabolism slowing down. A lot of athletes and dieters with low heart rates encounter health problems and I believe it is due to having sucha lowerred metabolism that the body can't perform maintennence funcitons and it is always in a state of stress. We have a lot of forum member here who came from jogging, soccer, low carb dieting etc and have changed for the better. I do think it is possibel to get a "stronger" ehart that pumps blood somewhat more efficiently but that has been rpoven to be attainable through high intensity weight training or interval training and not endurance training. The volume of blood pumped and heart rate are two different things and can be measured to demonstrate all of this.

 

When people say things like "a healthy heart beats slow because it can deliver a greater volume of blood" they lack a basic understanding of physiology. They do not understand or rather they ignore the effects of various hormones such as thyroid on heart function-behavior and see the heart as something with a mind of its own trying to minimize it's effort for some reason. If a heart is beating fast or slow should we use logic like "it's beating slow because it doesn't need to beat fast" or should we look at the factors influencing the heart beat and what those factors (such as hormones) mean for the health of the organism. As for metabolism I think Peat does a fantastic job describing the benefits of increased metabolism (though it is relatively spread throughout his work).

 

I believe you said your heart has become much stronger since before Peating right?

 

Absolutely. Finasteride makes me a special case, I had constant chest pain and was worried about my heart. Low testosterone is linked to poor heart health, I dont know if it's the direct cause or a sign that the underlying metabolic system is too weak to perform functions like producing T and keeping the heart beating strong. After a few months of Peating my heart started feeling better and then eventually I wasn't concerned about it anymore because the pain/pressure wasn't there all the time.

Runners have flabby thin hearts, according to Peat.

 

Same but without the finasteride. Y'all lucky lol

 

It's true, I really really am

 

Endotoxin, Free Radicals And Inflammation- KMUD, July, 2009