Heart beating faster = increasing metabolism?

My heart seems to be beating much faster than when i was at a much lower weight - sometimes I can even hear it, and when I check my pulse it sounds alive; before it sounded so sad and slow (does that make sense?)

Anyway, I wanted to know if this is a sign of my metabolism speeding up? Also, it's not racing or anything, so I don't think it's anything to be worried about! But when I check my pulse I can definitely feel a strong rhythm and a definite pulse!

The faster your resting heart rate, the more out of shape you are. Your heart has to work harder to pump blood through your body. The more you exercise and the fitter you get, the lower your resting heart rate becomes because your heart gets more efficient.

:( I don't understand how I could be more out of shape now at 116lbs, running multiple times a week, weight training 3-4x a week and doing yoga than I was at 98lbs barely able to walk my butt up a flight of stairs.

This is discouraging.

Dont be discouraged, you are not out of shape.

When you are underweight your metabolism slows and so do vital functions such as your heart rate. You also lose your period etc becuase you arent putting in enough energy for these functions to work properly.

Now that you have gained weight and are getting healthy, your heart rate will increase becuase it has more energy to function. Its a really really good sign!!!!

Sorry, didn't realize you had been underweight before. I was thinking of how the resting heart rate of someone who doesn't exercise tends to be higher than that of someone who does. Didn't mean to confuse or discourage.

This is a good question for your doctor. Do you take your blood pressure reading regularly? Many things can cause a change in heart rate. Maybe this is one of the reasons they say to check with a doctor before engaging in a rigorous exercise program (which most of us don't do, of course).

You are obviously a bit concerned about this, so ask your doc just to be safe and set your mind at ease.  (Not to be an alarmist or anything, but don't put yourself in danger as I did, which resulted in my having a stroke at a relatively young age... ) You could be perfectly fine--everyone's different.

Good luck!

I think that this is a very good question. I, too am curious to finding out the answer because I have been through something quite similar (though a little different). It happend when I was going through IP treatment while at my lowest weight. I experienced a dramatic change in heart rate while going through the whole refeeding process. It started during one of the first couple days of my stay. I started getting a weird headache earlier on during the day, but didn't think much about it as I was feeling fine before that. Then that night, while watching TV, I began to feel very strange. My head felt like it was on fire, but my cheeks and the rest of my body were of normal temperature. Soon after, my heart rate raced right up to about 160. The nurses said my temperature showed up normal, and that the machine was probably just "broken". From that day on my heart rate had been out of whack. I remember experiencing similar things like hearing my heart beat as I rested at night. Sometimes I could even see it beating through my top (scary, right?). It pounded very strongly. When I brought this up, they reassured me my heart would be fine through the night and that it was just an increase in cardio workload. Anyway, sorry for the long and partly off-topic rambled on post, I hope you or someone else can figure out the answer to this. Good luck!