Managing unexpected lack of exercise

TicTacToo

I'm stuck on the couch for a while after snapping a ligament in my knee. This is stressing me out for two reasons.

1. I'm used to eating back some exercise calories. I've lost 13lb and piled on some muscle since June without weighing or measuring my food (yeah, okay, okay, I hear ya) just by eating more protein and avoiding obvious calorie-dense stuff like alcohol, cake and icecream. But each week I was doing 3 intense swim training sessions and two or three slow-paced C25K sessions and two weights training classes with some time on the rowing machine, none of which I can do just now. I liked the diet and exercise groove I'd got into, and I liked that I was gaining muscle while losing fat. I'll now have to eat less calories to maintain that rate of fat loss without exercise and am not sure of the easiest way to do this because, hey, I like to eat! For context, I need to lose another 50lb to have a BMI of 25, which is about as low as I want to go with a decent set of swimming muscles.

2. The gym and pool is where I do most of my socialising, as I work from home by myself. I'm feeling kind of sad and lonely now I can't go. Also I now have several hours/week to fill that I used to spend exercising. I'm trying to avoid falling back into emotional eating when sad/lonely/bored and feel scared by how easily this could be done.

Any tips???

TicTacToo

PS Saw tips on my other post about upper body workouts and cycling, thanks... definitely willing to give that a go just as soon as I can feel my foot!

88olds

Don’t let the injury to your knee take over your head. Look on YouTube for ways to work around your injury. Avoid the movements your Dr says to avoid, Get a brace or make something to immobilize your leg as needed and go back to the gym. But unless the Dr has ordered you to stay on the couch, get back to the gym. Never knew exactly why, but my gym had a woman with a leg in a cast, propped up her leg somehow and did Schwinn Airdyne workouts with both arms and one leg. Didn’t look pretty but she was there and doing something.

Maybe consider some short term tracking your intake. You might be surprised to find some small modifications that can cut some calories without making radical changes. But like I said, don’t let your brain talk you into believing that there’s nothing to be done until your leg is fixed. There are a lot of ways to live.