Disabled and seated exercises Help please

Femmigirlz

Hi. I’m disabled and suffer daily chronic pain. I have several fractures in my feet. I have 3 autoimmune diseases and I’m 340 pounds and I’m 5’3 in height. I cannot stand for more than 30 seconds. I’m trying to do seated wheelchair and couch exercises to lose weight. I cannot get up and down due to needing double knee replacements. The knee caps slide and pop. I also cannot do exercises that make my large umbilical hernia hurt. I have intestines sticking through my stomach lining. They cannot do surgery as I almost died last surgery. I have major breathing issues. I have to lose weight before I have more surgeries.

I use a walker to get around in my home and a power wheelchair outside of the home. I tried water aerobics years ago but even the gym heated pool is way to cold for me due to my autoimmune disease.

I’m determined to move more and for now I need to start out small and work my way up. I did leg lifts ( although I cannot lift left leg up but I keep trying) and I did arm lifts and curls. I did calf and foot stretches. I did this for about 20 min the other day and today still feeling sore. I don’t mind the soreness but sometimes it sets my Lupus and Fibromyalgia and Rheumatoid Arthritis into a flare. Then I’m downs for the count for several days.

Please don’t judge. I’m
Trying my best. I have chair exercises I try to follow on utube.

I need help to determine how many calories approximately I burn doing arm lifts, leg lifts, stretching and strengthening exercises. When I look on the site here under exercises it doesn’t help much. Maybe I’m not doing enough to even log right now?

Geez, sorry long of a post. Now I’m depressed after reading what I wrote but I need to start somewhere, right?

Most of the time I just don’t want to be on this earth my chronic pain is so bad. I know losing weight and getting stronger will help.

Anyone want to motivate me daily would be incredible. It’s do or die time.

snowflake954

My goodness dear--you've got challenges. I've been here for 8 years and during that time several wheelchair users have posted and have been successful losing. I'd suggest that you try a search and perhaps can find some of them.

I'd also suggest that exercise is important, but it's your food intake that will determine if you lose. Get your daily calorie goal, and log everything. See how that goes. Keep your exercise very light to start. You can always ramp up. There's a woman without legs, in a wheel chair that did an awesome transformation. You can do it with lots of patience and determination. Good luck.

PS: I'll bump her thread up after yours so you can find it. It's called "Down 105 lbs" by @faustinog

makinlifehappen

I would focus on your eating plan more than your exercize. It looks like you have a fair amount of weight to lose just as I do. Eating correctly will dramatically improve your weight, and can assist with some of the pain from inflammation as well.

As far as calculating the total calories burned from doing exercises it is difficult, but MFP does have a section where you can add exercise by cardio and input the minutes. I am not sure how accurate it is though. When I wear my fitbit to the gym for 60-90 minutes it puts me anywhere from 400 cal burned to 1100 depending on my heart rate is my guess.

When I manually input the same length of exercize it just puts me at 400 ish.

We all start somewhere. I got out of the Military in 2015 in shape. And by 2018 I had gone from the 180's as a 5 foot nine male, to 286 at my heaviest.
My wife and I eventually start meal planning all of our meals (not the kids meals) and I went down to 220 until April 2019 when she died. I was back up to 260 in no time and there I stayed until the last few months.

I didn't have any motivation to even begin worrying about my health until I found a workout routine that I wanted to do (consistency) and an eating plan that I was able to do (dirty Keto).

Now I feel like I should have started sooner.

Cheesy567

@Femmigirlz wow, I read your post and see a lot of determination. You try so many things, and keep trying to find what works. You reach out for help and haven’t given up. You’ll make it. Keep going, one day at a time.

There’s a saying you’ll see around the MFP forums, “weight is lost in the kitchen.” For everybody, medical challenges or not, the secret to long-term weight loss success is with focusing on diet.

Exercise is for other areas of health, and might bring benefits on a different timeline. It doesn’t have to be tied to weight loss. Weight-loss can start first and make the more robust exercises easier later. Doing what exercise is easy now, starting where you are, might be key to preventing injury. Working with a professional like a PT or OT might be an option if you haven’t.

I have three autoimmune diseases (one that can cause paralysis and respiratory failure if I exercise too hard) and several musculoskeletal issues, too. I started at 330 pounds and have gradually lost 88 pounds as of this morning, more to go. My exercise varies, and the progress is slow and disrupted. I work with a physical therapist to guide me and try to prevent injuries from taking it too fast. Diet has really been key for me, I learned a lot on the HalfSize Me Podcast and find MFP to be an invaluable tool. Part of what I’ve learned is to set goals based on effort, not necessarily outcomes, when you can’t control what your body will do. You can control your efforts, and that’s about it. So do that. You seem really motivated. You can do this!

kchapmanma

I too have a problem standing or walking for longer than 30 seconds (in my case because I have a health condition that has my blood pressure drop through the floor when I stand up). I also have diabetes and severe neuropathy - so I really sympathize with how tough it can be to effectively exercise when you have health hurdles. The good news is that you can lose weight by focusing on what you eat more than getting exercise, as others here have suggested. I've lost around 75 pounds in the last year mainly just by watching what I eat. I'm at 220 right now, and want to lose another 40 or 50 pounds, so I'm around my half way point.

Because exercise is a good thing for our health overall, I have also been trying to get more exercise too (and can only due seated exercises). I started with a "under the desk" peddler, which lets you sit in a chair and peddle like you're on a bike. Some folks use it with their hands too, instead of their feet. I found that doable, and liked it enough that for Christmas, I went ahead and got myself a recumbent exercise bike. The "under the desk" peddler is relatively cheap (you can get them for like $50). I started with it to see if it would work and if I'd like it enough before spending hundreds on the recumbent bike. If you become interested in a recumbent bike, they're often used by physical therapists to help us folks who can't just jump on an exercise bike, too. If you talk to your doctor, they might be able to refer you to a physical therapist that could let you test one out to see if you'd like it enough to spend the money on one (since they're not cheap).

For other types of exercise, I've also worked out to YouTube videos that are designed for people with disabilities. They typically either do strength training exercises while you're seated or also seated yoga.

I find exercising does make me feel better. It makes me more limber and it's also a good stress relief. However, the number of calories I can typically burn doing one of these things is usually pretty low (often somewhere between 50 to 200 calories). If I was relying on the exercise alone to lose weight, that would translate into maybe losing a pound a month. That's why I recommend losing weight by watching what you eat first.

I hope you find some of this helpful - and I wish you the best with everything!

awnurmarc

"I need help to determine how many calories approximately I burn doing arm lifts, leg lifts, stretching and strengthening exercises."

No. You do not. You need to be in a calorie deficit that gives you weight loss without any other activity. Then you need to do other stuff for other reasons.

1. You need to do strength exercises to get stronger because weakness is nonfuntional and muscle loss is catastrophic.
2. You need to do "aerobic" exercise to increase your endurance.

strength training:
The easiest thing will be handweights (dumbbells). Single arm shoulder presses (because pressing two weights above you head at the same time has drawbacks), seated triceps extensions, and (last and least) bicep curls come to mind.
But you want to challenge more of you muscle mass. Perhaps an elastic band you could attach to your door and pull from a seat (standing version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNn81C7haqU ).
For legs, you're already trying. I'll see if I can come up with ideas. If you get a band for rows you could also try to use it in leg exercises.

The all important point here is to record what you do (weight x repetitions x sets), do it regularly, and do more (reps or weight or volume) as you are able. You will see then how you are getting stronger.

Endurance training
Three possibilities come to mind
1. Battle ropes. you could basically do HIIT training using your arms. Increase rounds as you are able.
2. Pedaling, They make bicycle pedals you can use from any chair. I had a junky one from Aldi but I assume their are quality versions. If you can use those you could do both sprints and low intensity longer duration sessions. Again, always record what you do (your time at least) so you can increase it.
3. You said you get around your house with a walker. Can you see if you can every other day use it for a certain distance and get a little bit longer each week. I don't want you to inflict pain on yourself, but you might find that you gain capacity if you start slow. I mean simply going from one room to another and back. And then two days later doing that twice with a rest in between. And then seeing if you can do it without a rest.

In all these things you need to start small and gradually build up. But do continue to pursue it.

Good luck. I pray you find health and in turn help others.

age_is_just_a_number

I’m sorry to hear about your challenges and inspired by your desire to do what you can.
Start slowly. Resistance exercises with bands or loops are perfect for both upper and lower body seated exercises.
Weight loss results comes from a caloric deficit.
Take care

AnnPT77

Others have give you advice about the exercise, and suggested that the calorie estimating question is less important. I agree that managing food intake can make a larger contribution to weight loss than can exercise, when one is limited in exercise modes/vigor especially. I also agree that over-estimating exercise (or trying to account for every calorie of routine movement as exercise) can be a pitfall.

Nonetheless, I think your question is answerable, within reason.

Femmigirlz wrote: »

(reply-er has snipped intro that amply demonstrates OP's determination and strength of character, and then some)

I need help to determine how many calories approximately I burn doing arm lifts, leg lifts, stretching and strengthening exercises. When I look on the site here under exercises it doesn’t help much. Maybe I’m not doing enough to even log right now?

IMO, if you choose to log exercise of the type you describe, it would be reasonable to use the MFP exercise database entry "Mild stretching", in the Cardiovascular Exercise session.

I get that that's not exactly what you're doing, but the underpinnings of this estimating method is something called METS that is a research-based way of comparing the calorie cost of different exercises. This would be a conservative (less likely to be overestimated) estimate you could use, and see a tangible entry representing your effort. The METS value under the covers is IMO reasonable for what you're doing. Some of what you're doing might even count as strength training, or even mild calisthenics, but the METS values for those are not as much higher as some people might assume. Calling it all "Stretching" would be simple to do, recognize some calorie burn in a conservative way.

Geez, sorry long of a post. Now I’m depressed after reading what I wrote but I need to start somewhere, right?

Most of the time I just don’t want to be on this earth my chronic pain is so bad. I know losing weight and getting stronger will help.

Anyone want to motivate me daily would be incredible. It’s do or die time.

I think you should pat yourself on the back (itself a stretching exercise 😉), not be depressed. You're fighting hard here, uphill, to get stronger and fitter so you can have the needed surgeries to even further improve your situation. That's truly admirable and inspiring.

(Here, I go into curmudgeon mode . . . . )

We see quite a few able-bodied people showing up here saying "I hate alllllll exercise so I can't lose weight" or "it's raining and I don't like marching in place so I ate over my goal" and things like that that frankly kind of make me eye-roll.

( . . . end curmudgeon mode . . . )

You, in contrast, are bringing both intellect and personally challenging physical effort into the picture, and you deserve mega-credit for that. Yes, based on my (less difficult!) personal experience as an older person with a few much more minor physical challenges who used to be obese, losing weight and getting stronger will help.

Go, you: I predict success, if you can stick with it, with that kind of effort and attitude in play!

Elphaba1313

I don't necessarily have any advice re activity, but wanted to say I have all 3 of these that you have: Lupus and Fibromyalgia and Rheumatoid Arthritis

It sucks and I totally understand your issues around movement.

One thing I do during a flare is not worry about the exercise, if I can, great, but if I can't, that's ok, but I focus on my calorie intake (flares for me don't trigger hunger, I'm not sure what it does for others).

Diet is the most important thing for weight loss. And while being lighter can't cure an autoimmune disease (because I know I don't need to tell you that nothing will cure them!) it does impact on how much you can move. I still tend to go up and down weight wise (currently around 80 kilos, which is 10 kilos less than my highest but about 20 more than I should be - I'm short) and I know that when I am heavier, the strain on my joints is obviously more, and so movement is harder.

I know this seems rambling, but I wanted you to know that someone understands at least a tiny portion of what you are going through. Just try and focus on your diet the most, as that is what will get your weight down. Move as much as you can, when you can, but don't use not being able to exercise as an excuse to sit on the couch and eat chocolate all day (ask me how I know!! - I'm prone to a pity party)

Your post absolutely screams of determination and strength. Your health issues are so much more than mine are, and yet there is no sign of a pity party! Just this amazing "I'm going to do this" positivity. You have today inspired me a little to get my act together a bit more - so thank you!

Be kind to yourself.

Elpha

NYPhotographer2021

Hugs to you! And listen to the others that say weight loss starts in the kitchen. If you are unable to do cardio right now, then just concentrate on your intake. All the strength exercising you are doing is great, but it doesn't really help with weight loss, just strengthening your muscles. So don't stress about those. Just do what you are able to keep up with your muscle mass and look to where you can modify your diet. I've lost 38 pounds since the end of August just by diet alone. Because of back problems, I was scared to do anything that might injure my back. I tried walking before and ended up in the hospital because my back seized up. Didn't even know I had any back problems until the walking inflamed it. And I used to run when I was younger! Doc thinks it is from an accident I had, ruptured a disc in my lower back. The weight I put on aggravated it even more. I'm hoping once I get down to a healthier weight, I can resume exercising. But for now, just concentrating on my diet. You can do it. I see how much you want it! I'm in your corner! Don't give up!