Broken Ankle Calorie Intake

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fastfoodietofitcutie
fastfoodietofitcutie Posts: 524 Member
in Health and Weight Loss

A few weeks ago I broke my ankle, fractured my Tibia and tore ligaments. I had surgery and am now completely non weight bearing for at least 6 weeks. I am significantly overweight and can’t use crutches. Can barely stand with a walker. I just started physical therapy so hoping it will get better. I’m so depressed and cry every day. Anyway, I need to lose as much weight as possible to help with recovery. I was losing weight eating 1,900 a day so what should I cut back to in order to lose weight? I can’t weigh myself so will just have to go by feeling I guess.

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  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 37,129 Member

    I'd strongly encourage you to speak with your doctor - whoever's treating the fracture - before moving forward.

    After not doing so on one occasion, and seeing some less than ideal consequences, I will always eat at or very near maintenance calories during the acute phase of healing from anything that's more than very trivial. However, a person's health history and current body weight, among other factors, could affect whether that's the best approach for them or not.

    I can understand why you'd like to be lighter to put less stress on your healing lower limb bones and soft tissue. But it's also true that healing requires both calories and nutrition in order to go smoothly. I'd suggest asking your doctor what's reasonable in your personal, individual circumstances.

  • yirara
    yirara Posts: 10,631 Member

    As someone who had a complex fracture themselves I can also only recommend talking to your doctor and not try to lose weight. Healing, and especially creating new bone takes a lot of calories. You might even lose weight while eating at maintenance just due to healing. Thus I really urge you to talk to your doctor, and get in enough nutrition. Maybe this is a great opportunity to make some changes and eat really nutritious, fresh food if you don't do so already.

  • cmriverside
    cmriverside Posts: 34,808 Member
    edited July 3

    ^^What they said.

    I know you want to lose weight.

    You also want to get back on your feet ASAP. They are counter to each other in this case.

    I recently broke my femur. I won't go into my post-break recovery too much but it took about four months until I could walk for exercise. Up until that time all my walking was either very short necessary distances or I used a support; either a walker, crutches, a cane, or trekking poles. I used a scooter at the grocery and I had a disabled placard for the up-close parking.

    There's no way I could have lost weight while I was immobile unless I'd gone to a pool which wasn't a possibility. I couldn't cut back on calories and still heal that bone, and I really couldn't cut back lower than maintenance because I was terrified of the injury and its consequences and I was also bored out of my mind and eating was a distraction.

    I called it "therapy crunchy food" and I know that didn't help. Luckily I only gained about ten pounds…and I had previously been at my maintenance weight. So now I'm losing it - again. 😆

    Just heal. You wouldn't lose much in six weeks anyway. Start back up when you can move around again.

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