Staying Fit While Recovering From Surgery

jesskreg

I am having foot surgery on 2/20. I'm wondering how I can maintain my current weight and continue on to reach my goal. I'm afraid I'll be tempted to snack more out of boredom, and I know I won't be able to do much cardio. I've been researching arm exercises and standing ab work outs. Anyone have any suggestions or thoughts? Thanks!

Duck_Puddle

I had surgery in early November. My advice is to forget about what you think your body needs and feed it. I had pre-prepped what I thought was 2 weeks of food. It was gone in 3 days. I then proceeded to continue eating like my stomach was a sieve. I ate all the food-then went back for seconds. Despite eating like a cow with tapeworm for several weeks, I gained just a couple pounds (and I was WELL over maintenance every. Single. Day). I was banned from exercise of any kind (some yammering about swelling or something - I think they just wanted me to suffer lol).

Anyway, forget counting calories, forget stressing about every little thing. Your body is doing serious repair work after surgery and it needs fuel to do that. I was ravenously hungry continually for a month. I ate, I healed, I'm good to go. Yeah I gained a couple pounds. In the grand scheme of things, that's chump change, and I fed my body enough for it to do its thing and get me well.

I will also note that I ate like a cow with tapeworm, but I didn't eat any more crap than usual. I fed my body so it could heal-but fed it 4 yogurts instead of 1-not 3 big macs and a bag of doritos. Calories are calories in terms of weight loss, but nutrition is vital for recovery.

Good luck and heal fast!

sher80bear

I had back surgery in October and only gained a few pounds. I ate like crazy after the surgery because I was hungry. The pain medication I was on made me hungry plus my body needed the extra energy to heal up. My doctor gave me very specific instructions about NOT working out. I wasn't even allowed to lift anything heavier than a milk jug

Foot surgery has different restrictions than back surgery. I would talk to your surgeon about what restrictions to expect. Maybe the doctor could suggest some at home exercises. You could probably use an exercise ball for ab and arm workouts.

Also, you will need more food to help heal up but the key is to eat healthy food and not junk food. Don't worry about calories or exercise right after surgery, just eat healthy and let your body heal.