Weight loss after surgery

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Jubee13
Jubee13 Posts: 132 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
I will be having surgery in two weeks. It will be about a week before I'll be able to walk, and 4-6 weeks before I can do high impact exercise. I'm in a great weight loss groove and am an avid exerciser (running and HITT/circuit workouts). I'm afraid this will get me off track, and I'll gain. Has anyone had surgery while trying to lose? Were you able to count calories and stay at a deficit? Any advice is greatly appreciated!

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  • RAinWA
    RAinWA Posts: 1,980 Member
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    You might consider switching your calories to maintenance or a little above to help with healing rather than continuing to lose. Your body will need the energy.

    I have had several surgeries recently and maintained through all of them except for the big water weight gain right afterwards. I've stayed off the scale for the first week to 10 days after surgery each time.
  • CynthiasChoice
    CynthiasChoice Posts: 1,047 Member
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    First, always listen to nurses! Weight loss will need to wait a bit.

    Second, if you'll be on pain meds and antibiotics, try to synchronize them so you're taking them together and at the time you would normally be eating a meal. If you generally eat meals with someone, ask them to remind you to take your meds at meal time. You have to eat with most meds, and there's nothing worse than having to eat six - eight times a day just to protect your stomach from damage.

    Third, doctors and even nurses are sometimes negligent in telling you that narcotic pain meds will block you up. Be prepared with the Colase or Miralax and keep your fiber intake up.

    Fourth, Vitamins, fish oil, and eating Vitamin C foods might help you heal faster. Probiotics are a good idea after a course of antibiotics too. There's some research that indicates that a healthy microbiome has a positive influence on metabolism.
  • CynthiasChoice
    CynthiasChoice Posts: 1,047 Member
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    Also, you could ask your doctor if swimming or water exercise would be safe for you after the wound heals.
  • StephanieJane2
    StephanieJane2 Posts: 191 Member
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    Good luck, i put on 30lbs whilst waitin g and having spinal surgery, im just begi ng to lose it and now im going to have hip replacement ,
    So fed up with not being able to exercise
  • Machka9
    Machka9 Posts: 24,842 Member
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    I had surgery on Thursday 18 May.

    I intended to eat at a net calorie intake of 1300 calories starting on Monday 22 May which was the day I decided to return to work.

    Monday and Tuesday, I couldn't do it. I was just to hungry and shaky, and so I ate to satisfy my hunger.

    Wednesday, I really tried to eat less, but struggled with a lot of nausea all day. The nausea started about 10 am and just got worse and worse. I tried several things to ease it (ginger, zantac, etc.) but the only thing that eased it was eating a bit more than I usually do.

    Same with both Thursday and Friday ... waves of nausea until I ate.


    Now I'm not eating a huge amount, just a bit more than usual ... and yet I've somehow managed to gain 3 kg since the morning of Thursday 18 May, prior to my surgery. I'm also hugely bloated and uncomfortable. I can only guess it's water retention. I can't imagine that I've managed to eat 21,000 calories over maintenance in the last week.

    It is only 9 days post-surgery, so I'm hoping that I'm still in the recovery phase and that maybe one day next week, my weight will start dropping, and the nausea will go away, and the bloating will disappear.

    Fortunately, I have been able to walk and so I've been building up my walking ... and today I did a short, slow bicycle ride with mixed results. But it was good to be out again. :)
  • Jubee13
    Jubee13 Posts: 132 Member
    edited May 2017
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    SafioraLinnea wrote: »
    Coming from a nurse and someone who experienced surgery (on my leg) in the middle of weight loss.

    Please discuss your calorie needs and activity level with your doctor/surgeon but it is strongly recommended that anyone undergoing surgery eat at maintenance or a bit higher during recovery. Your body requires the extra calories and nutrients to heal! And if you are encouraged not to exercise before the okay from the doctor, then please do follow those instructions. They aren't a recommendation because the doctor wants you to be unhappy. They are recommended to prevent harm.

    Something to keep in mind: this surgery is being done for a reason. If you are concerned about health recommendations following surgery the best person to talk to is your surgeon or doctor or their medical staff. You risk delaying the healing your body needs and risk needing further surgery, long term pain, or permanent damage to yourself if you aren't willing to follow through with after care.

    I promise, even if you gain a bit during recovery, the benefits of following medical advice will outweigh the temporary setback in weight loss and physical fitness.

    Thank you for your reply. This is so helpful! My plan was to actually try my best to eat as little as I could since I wouldn't be active. I will definitely shift my thinking into doing what I need to do for my body to heal. I appreciate your input!
  • SafioraLinnea
    SafioraLinnea Posts: 628 Member
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    Jubee13 wrote: »

    Thank you for your reply. This is so helpful! My plan was to actually try my best to eat as little as I could since I wouldn't be active. I will definitely shift my thinking into doing what I need to do for my body to heal. I appreciate your input!

    Thank you for taking my comments as intended: kind advice. I reread it this afternoon and was concerned I came off rudely and was coming back to clarify. I truly want you to be successful in both your recovery from surgery as well as your health and fitness goals. It's just necessary to prioritize recovery first.

    My own recovery was much slower than anticipated with wound healing issues and if I could tell myself what I told you before I had my surgery, I would have saved myself a lot of trouble. I too thought it best to eat at a deficit to prevent gain, but I discovered since then that the body struggles more to heal injury (and surgery is injury) in a calorie deficit.
  • KateTii
    KateTii Posts: 886 Member
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    I had wisdom teeth removed and recovery was much easier when I wasn't stressing over calories and just ate what I could, when wanted to. At the worst, I put my progress back a week. It was better than being extra miserable and extra hungry.
  • Lynnmi07
    Lynnmi07 Posts: 131 Member
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    I definitely recommend eating at maintenance while recovering. Your body needs the energy and nutrients to heal. 4-6 weeks isn't to long in the grand scheme of things vs getting an infection or non healing wound and being out of the game much longer.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 32,070 Member
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    I had surgery while losing, and stayed at a calorie deficit. Two conclusions:
    1. I should've gone to maintenance, or at at least close, instead of keeping the deficit. I got fatigued, and even felt a little weak. I don't know that my healing was impaired; that seemed to go fine, but I think some other things lower on my body's priority list suffered.
    2. I held onto water weight, presumably related to healing, for 2-3 weeks after surgery. So, if it looks like you gain weight after surgery, don't panic. If you go to maintenance (as I'm urging, along with others), you'll see a little scale gain from water weight (just from extra carbs or sodium in the extra food, even if it's a healthy way of eating), plus you'll have extra average digestive-system contents, plus you may have some water weight related to surgical healing. None of this is fat gain, but it will still show up on the scales for a while. Please don't let it worry you - you will rapidly return to normal weight behavior when you return to your normal healthy routine post-surgery.
  • Linzon
    Linzon Posts: 294 Member
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    I had ACL replacement surgery a year ago and have another knee surgery coming up next week to deal with complications. I didn't track for a couple months after and ate to satisfy my hunger - recovering was difficult enough without stressing about food! I experienced muscle waste on that leg while waiting for my surgery and then a bit after so it was important for my recovery that I ate at a surplus to build that muscle back up.

    In the end I gained a couple of pounds while not tracking and it went away easily enough once I started tracking again. Think of it as good practice for maintenance!

    Good luck and I hope your healing goes smoothly!
  • Machka9
    Machka9 Posts: 24,842 Member
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    AnnPT77 wrote: »
    [*] I held onto water weight, presumably related to healing, for 2-3 weeks after surgery.

    That's encouraging. In the 10 days since my surgery I've put on nearly 10 lbs. Granted, I'm eating at maintenance or slightly higher some days, but I didn't think I was eating that much more!! I could see a pound or maybe 2 ... but not 10!

    And I was figuring that if it were water weight, I should have lost it by now, so your 2-3 week time limit is encouraging in the sense that it means I need to be patient.

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