How can I be 50 pounds overweight, yet my blood tests are excellent?

I am a 40-year-old white female, basically with a normal medical history other than an myocardial infarction (due to a weight loss medication which was prescribed caused) but my catheterization was 100% clean with no blockage with an ejection fraction of 65%. My labs this week, 1 year status post myocardial infarction are: Cholesterol 144, triglycerides 66, FBS 95. I work out 4 times a week and my blood pressure is 110/64. How is it possible to look so good on "paper", but yet I weigh 222 pounds, 5'6? You would think my weight would go hand-in-hand with my labs... Just curious.

I realize that the myocardial infarction seems "pretty significant", but my cardiologist told me not to "sweat it, because basically, my heart had a freak vasospasm with very very minimal damage". Just an FYI

It takes ten years of smoking a pack of cigarettes a day before it shows up on paper - notheless, I doubt anyone would argue that inhaling the smoke, tars, and nicotines of 60,000 cigarettes is a good thing.

Our bodies have an amazing ability to adapt especially when we are relatively young. Once we start to age that compensation is less pronounced. So the question you have to ask yourself, is how many morbidly obese 80 year olds do you see wondering the streets? Yeah, they either lost weight or they passed before they got to be 80 - of something.

Your lab work is not the end-all be-all of health. Neither are other studies like a head to foot CT exam. On the other hand obesity is not even in the top five of cardiac risk factors. It does however strain the heart to profuse more tissue than normal. Obesity does predispose you to hypertension and to diabetes. I suspect if we have this discussion in twenty years, both of those conditions (DM and HTN) would be affecting you - and they ARE among the top five risk factors for cardiac disease.

Finally while I support your efforts to loose weight, I certainly do not support weight loss at any cost, including dangerous medications or procedures that put you at unnecessary risk.

I hope this helps. Good luck.