Post-Hysterectomy diet

colleendodd80

Hello all,

I had a total abdominal hysterectomy and removal of fallopian tubes 18 days ago due to a large fibroid and am looking for some advice on calorie counting etc.

Prior to surgery I weighed 11st 9lbs, however some of this was the fibroid and my uterus, which grew to the size of a 24 week foetus. Since surgery I haven't been able to get a definitive weight because I am experiencing swelling in my abdomen, which worsens as I move around and eat throughout the day and fluctuates.

Because of my limited mobility and wounds (Bikini cut with c200 stitches inside and out) I am unable to exercise whatsoever and am currently only moving around the house slowly and infrequently, but I am desperate to not 'pile on the pounds.'

I am unsure what kind of calorie target I should be aiming for that will maintain a healthy amount of calories for my recovery, but prevent me from gaining weight while I am restricted from moving so much!

Please can anyone help?

yirara

I would suggest you eat at maintenance. There will be weight gain for all sorts of reasons, but most will be water weight post surgery: from healing, from moving less, are you on steroids or other meds that cause water retention? Plus general anesthesia has various points of messing with digestion and you might be constipated for a bit. Which of course also has weight. Thus try to stay calm. Set MPF to maintain weight and eat this amount. And get better soon.

Lietchi

Have you set up your profile on MFP, entering your personal stats and goals?
Just enter your age, gender, height, current weight (a few lbs of water retention won't impact your calorie goal that much) choose sedentary as your activity level and weight maintenance as your goal.

It might not be fully accurate (you may or may not be statistically average, you may be less active than sedentary, but your body also needs extra calories to heal) but it should be close enough for a month or so, as you heal and are able to move around a bit more.
You can always measure yourself to make sure you aren't gaining fat (hips for example, anything but the abdomen obviously 🙂).

You might benefit from using a weight trending app like Libra or Happy Scale to follow your weight trend and filter out the daily water weight fluctuations (always weighing under similar circumstances, for example in the morning after a bathroom visit and before breakfast, only wearing your underwear).

colleendodd80

Thank you both so much for your replies and apologies for the delay in responding; I have been a little unwell. I have followed your advice and set my profile to maintain and my activity at the lowest level.

I weighed myself and have lot 8lb since the op, which I am stunned at because my swelling is enormous and I am not even hitting 800 steps most days!

Seffell

MFP assumes you do about 3000 steps in the sedentary state. That's around 100 calories (obviously depends but 100 is a good round estimate). So just eat at whatever MFP gives you as maintenance minus 100. Until you properly heal I wouldn't go on a deficit. I'm myself recovering from a laparoscopy for endometriosis stage 4.