CASE STUDY: Weight loss & High Blood Pressure
STEPHEN: 53 year old businessman, married with two daughters
Stephen’s situation:
A recent visit to the GP shocked Stephen into taking action regarding his health. His weight is now in the ‘obese’ category (BMI = 32), and he has slightly high blood pressure. He is now very worried as his brother has high blood pressure and also has diabetes.
Stephen’s lifestyle
Stephen runs his own haulage company. He often has a pub lunch for business reasons and relies on fast food and snacks to get him through the day. He knows he is overweight (he weighs 93 kg and is 5’ 7” tall) and has a poor diet but feels powerless to do anything about it.
Stephen gets very little exercise. He drives to work, works in an office, and is under a lot of stress to keep the business running. He would like to go to the gym but he is embarrassed about his weight and says he is too busy to go.
Nutritional Analysis
I asked Stephen to keep a Food Diary for 3 days so I could analyse his average food intake. His daily calorie intake was approximately 400 calories higher than it should be for someone of his weight and activity level, so he was constantly gaining weight.
His salt intake was also high, at an average of 8 g/day, which, coupled with his lack of exercise, caused the high blood pressure.
Several aspects of Stephen’s lifestyle and diet are causing concern. He has an increased risk of heart disease, diabetes, some types of cancer and sexual dysfunction, but changes in his diet and lifestyle can lower this risk.
Stephen’s action plan
Our highest priority was to get Stephen’s weight down and reduce his salt intake. We needed to increase his exercise and calorie consumption to reduce his weight. He was reluctant to go to the gym, so we devised a way for Stephen to build 30 minutes of exercise into his daily routine; this included:
walking around the car park during breaks at work
walking with the family at weekends
joining in more housework activities in the evenings
using 5kg dumbbells to do arm curls while watching TV.
To reduce his calorie consumption, he:
took fruit and veggie sticks to work to have as snacks instead of his usual crips and Twix bars.
reduced portion size of meals at home
took leftover home-cooked food to work to reheat for lunch
chose the healthier salad option when out for lunch
By making these simple adjustments, Stephen reduced his average calorie intake by almost 550 calories / day. He also significantly cut his salt intake to 5 g / day by reducing his consumption of snacks and other processed foods.
The combination of reduced calorie intake and increased activity led to an average weight loss of just over 1 kg per week during our 10-week programme.
What the client said
“after only 10 weeks, I already feel a difference; my clothes fit better, and I enjoy doing the extra activity.”
“my blood pressure is back to normal now, and my GP is really happy with me”
“I realise I should have done something about my weight much earlier, but I thought it would be too difficult; thank you for making it easy for me”