Injury recovery - not losing like I'd like to

amybg1

in March I suffered a fall and as such suffered a bone contusion to my tibial plateau, an MCL sprain as well as patellar tendonitis. My doctor diagnosed the bone contusion first but only diagnosed the sprain 6 weeks later due to his being stubborn and wanting me to wait a few weeks before coming back to him. I've been doing physio since the second week of April, the sprain is slower healing because there is less blood supply to ligaments (naturally) and the tendonitis doesn't pain me every day though I must limit my walking - if I go too long on my feet it will start to hurt.

Due tot he bone contusion I must eat a diet higher in protein, I tend towards about 1 protein shake a day on top of everything else right now. As well, due tot he fact I'm visually impaired and must walk and bus places when I must go out such as for swimming, physio, etc all that walking has slowed down the healing process some and I can't drive obviously so tehre's no way around it.

I lift weights twice a week as well as swim 1-2 times a week and am watching what I eat more strictly than I would otherwise, however I seem to have plateau'd due to my injuries and was wondering if anyone had any suggestions when it comes to losing weight with lower-limb injuries? The weight loss would also reduce strain on my affected leg and help along the healing and am doing as much as I can to help things along but feel I need suggestions and what have you

amybg1

Yes I make sure I eat enough since that's also part of my recovery, sometimes I'm a little over my daily allowance. I eat a balanced diet with plenty of fibre, protein, grains...All those essentials, eat 4-6 small meals spaced out about 2-3 hours apart

amybg1

Between 1500-1800 typically, I know seems a tad high for a woman but I do have some muscle on me and my body requires more calories naturally else I get hunger pains and all that fun stuff

reneeileen

I've heard about a lot of injured friends doing chair exercises. You might look into chair exercise programs online and find one to integrate into your workout schedule.

NoAdditives

Can you open your food diary?

amybg1

Diary's open for all to see, obviously no one's perfect but had a bad week last week...Note that I'm also living with my siblings and parents and so eat a little differently than I would on my own (not enough money to move out...)

amybg1

Yeah I've been doing a bit of both on the days where I don't have a workout I'll typically try to eat a little less

amybg1

Unfortunately so

foxbat2828

See if your gym has an ergometric hand crank. It's a good way to get in some cardio using just your upper body. You may need to play around with it to see where you get the burn, etc. and how much resistance you need to get your heart going. This is particularly a good tool if you have problems with knee or leg problems that limit you being able to run or use an elliptical/cycle.

I also ran into the plateau problem after my bypass surgery because I couldn't get in some decent exercise; however, I was still sticking to my dieting. The problem that I later discovered, I'm one of those folks who does the eat-back-the-calories, is that based on my desired weight loss goal, MFP had me with my initial calorie intake at less than my BMR. In the past, it wasn't a problem because I would exercise and that would allow me the extra calories in a day to make sure I was getting past my BMR. When I wasn't exercising because of my bypass surgery recovery, I was eating below my BMR and stalled out about a month after surgery. I'm back to exercising again on a regular basis and eating beyond my BMR, and it appears that my plateau has broken.

amybg1

I used to be in the high 180's but now around 211...how much more would I have to eat? And no, no hand crank at the gym

amybg1

Sounds good, I currently have my goals set to 40/30/30 which puts my protein at a little over 100g and I really hope I don't gain...Gonna take a while to get back down to where I was previously - and no I don't look at the scale that often since it varies so much. As far as maintenance I'm unsure as to where it is nowadays in terms of cal requirement since my activity levels change so much and the types also change depending on the time of year. For example, from October to March it's more of a curling-specific routine though I'll work on some aspects for paddling; from may until say...mid-September it would be more paddling specific

wftiger

You can try lowering your carbs until you can exercise more. When I plateaued that is what got me out of it. I looked a few days in your diary and you are up around 170-200 so you could conceivably cut in half and still have a nice intake of carbs and will likely see much greater loss.

Just my two cents. Good luck with whatever works for you.

amybg1

Honestly not sure what will work, I had it down pat but since I've been injured I recognized my protein intake had to go up and then it kinda screwed everything over somehow so...Almost back to square one