Exercise, Nutrition, WLS, and Cooking Q&A - 1/16/2014

Outstanding response. Very inspirational. I am bookmarking this and am going to link to it every time someone says the can't do something. High Five!!

Thank you! If I'd have known that, I would have spent more time on it :) It was a quick, it's-late-and-I'm-in-a-hurry-but-I-HAVE-to-say-something-here response. Maybe I will write up something to this effect when I've had more time to reflect on it and post it for all the pre-ops and recent post-ops.

Keith,

Thx a bunch for helping out. I am in 5th week and stalled. My stomach feels bloated all the time. I am eating small and slow, Pls advice.

I have not started workout as i had scatia and leg pain which is better now so will start cardio from monday.

You are not really ready to start working out for another week or so anyway so don't worry about that just yet. You should be walking. A lot! Believe it or not it will help with the sciatica because it will strengthen your lower back muscles. It will be uncomfortable, but you will thank me in a month. Also a heating pad before your walk and an ice pack after should have you in fighting shape next week when you are cleared for exercise and for sure by week 8 when you will be ready for weights. 

As for your "stall" it is pretty normal around weeks 3 and 6 for your weight loss to stop for a couple days to a week. Remember that your body is going through a very traumatic change and it is also trying to heal. This is not really a stall. Stalls don't happen for real until you are on full foods, getting all your water in and exercising regularly. But you still need to make sure you are spot on plan. Most important is to make sure you are getting your water in and in am not talking about 64oz. I mean more like 100. You are trying to lose weight so you want to make sure you are flushing your system and staying very well hydrated. If you are not already start tracking your food and make sure you are recording everything that passes your lips, if you do stall for real down the road you can go back and figure out why. When I noticed that I was stalling about every two weeks I went back and figured out that my stalls and breaks of those stalls were related to fats. When I went ultra low fat I stalled, when my fat**** around 35g per day, the stall broke. But I was able to identify the pattern because I recorded everything. 

Are you suggesting 100 oz of jus****er or do you include all liquids in this count? Ex.soups and shakes.

It's sort of up to you. I do not count all liquids. I only count liquid that does not have significant nutrition in it that is mostly water. So water, water with Mio, green tea, iced tea. I do not count shakes, soups, or coffee. I do count my water based pre-work out and recovery drinks. Water is meant to hydrate and flush. Soups and shakes do not do that. You probably do get some hydration from them but at the end of the day the more water you consume the better off you are. I also try to get at least 80% of my "water" as just plain water with nothing added to it. 

Omg this is the best thread I've ever read lol

I am 3 days post op and am wondering if I should start walking on the treadmill? Outside isn't happening with these temps and snow but I'd like to try the gym. Should I just go slow and steady and stop when I'm tired? Should I aim to break a sweat? Should I do x amount of minutes? 

Thanks for all your tips! Amazing!

Yes. Absolutely start walking and go for as long as you can. You will be amazed at how fast you go from 15 mins to an hour. Do not go hard just yet. You've got a lot of healing to do but walking will help that too. You should get into the habit of setting goals. First one should be 15 mins and go as slow as you need to to accomplish that. The you will want to add some incline and speed. BTW start out at 1% incline  0% the belt is just moving your feet but at 1% you are actually using your leg muscles and it's more like walking on the road. Also when you can walk outside on the road as much as possible. It's better for you for several reasons. On the treadmill you will be shooting for 4% incline and 3+mph. It will take some time to get there and don't start pushing it until you are healed.  Once you get to 4% and 3+mph then you will start increasing your time goals. You will find you get to 60mins in about 2 weeks. Once you get there and you are at least 6 weeks post pp we can start talking about HIIT cardio and body weight exercises. 

Great info thank you!