Hey!

sillyscarborough wrote: »

I am a 58 year old woman who just had a complete knee replacement almost 4& a1/2 months ago.
I have just returned here and I am determined to get moving and healthier.
I started today with a 45 minute walk.

jodymatt wrote: »

I’m in the same! 48 and 4.5 months post surgery. I’m feeling terribly out of shape and struggling with getting a good balance without over doing it. I’ve been doing the bike, rowing machine and walking. My energy levels tank by late afternoon and I find myself overeating. I know it can take a while to fully heal but I’m determined to get into a healthier groove. Goodluck! It is much harder than I ever anticipated!

Hello, and welcome to you both! It's great that you're here, and working on being more active. Go, you!

I don't know either of you, so this next comment may be off base. If so, I apologize. It's pretty common to see people start here with great enthusiasm and adopt a very challenging exercise program. That's laudable, but it can potentially backfire.

@jodymatt, when you say "energy levels tank . . . and I find myself overeating", that's one of the ways that it can manifest.

I believe pretty strongly that the sweet spot for exercise, particularly when trying to lose weight at the same time (and particularly when rehabbing, not age 20 anymore, . . . ) is to find a relatively enjoyable (or at least tolerable/practical) routine that's a manageable challenge to current capabilities. The "challenge" part creates fitness progress. The "manageable" part creates sustainability (such as ability to make activity a routine habit long term), avoids (re-)injury, and that sort of thing. As one gets fitter, that same routine will become easy - eventually too easy! - at which point it's time to increase frequency, duration, intensity, or change activity type to keep that manageable challenge always in the picture.

By "manageable", I mean a routine that fits into daily life in a practical way, leaving enough time and energy for other important things (job, family, home chores, non-exercise hobbies, social life, etc.). The exercise session might cause a few minutes of "whew" right after, but ideally will be energizing for the rest of our day(s), not so exhausting that we drag through the day (moving less so burning fewer calories), or experience bad appetite spikes from the exercise.

It's really tempting, especially in a rehab situation, to want to resume former levels of activity quickly. But in any situation, I think the "gradual build" scenario is more injury and burnout preventing. Maybe that's just me.

For context, I'm a 68 y/o woman who was very sedentary until my later 40s, then became routinely active after very physically depleting treatment (surgery, chemo, radiation). Over the course of a small number of years, starting from a yoga class a couple of times a week, I gradually increased my activity level until I was training pretty hard 6 days most weeks, and even competing as an athlete for the first time in my life (not always unsuccessfully, in age group terms). I stayed overweight/obese for another dozen years despite the high activity level - it's easy to eat those few hundred extra calories when not paying close attention, IME! At age 59, I started calorie counting, joined MFP, lost around 50 pounds, and have maintained a healthy weight since. I didn't materially increase exercise to lose weight, because I was already quite active; I just changed my eating habits (also in manageable ways !).

Over the course of the years from 40s to 68, I've had to recover from various surgeries, injuries, illnesses. I don't know about you, but I'm not as resilient now as I was in my 20s, so the "gradual (re-)build" scenario works really well for me. YMMV.

No matter what course you choose, I'm cheering for you to succeed: IME, both improved fitness and reaching a healthy weight have had major positive effects on my quality of life. Best wishes!