Exercise, Nutrition, WLS, and Cooking Q & A - 2/19/2014

Do you have questions about Exercise, Nutrition, WLS, or Cooking? Let me see if I can help you out!

Let's Hear 'em!

Actually I do!

Been suffering from low blood pressure since surgery.  I'm usually in the (105-110/63-65) range...that I would consider my normal.  Sometimes it drops and I can tell by the symptoms of dizziness/weakness (85/55 on average).  I want to start walking on my treadmill for exercise but this concerns me that if it drops from exertion I'll faint.  Haven't actually fainted yet but I've had a couple of "sit down hard" on the ground episodes.  

I'm still having trouble getting all my liquids in.  I'm up around 40+oz now consistently and was able to drink a bottle of water (rather than flavoured water or tea) for the first time yesterday without it coming back up. My eating is still all over the place...anywhere from 400-1000 calories.  I get in more calories if I'm not worried about protein.  Trying to eat protein still causes me a lot of prolonged nausea which makes it really hard to eat later.  Even with the anti-nausea meds I'm on.  

I found a veggie based protein drink powder yesterday and will try it today.  I also got a couple of their bars.  I'm hoping this will help.

Do you think I should just forgo the walking until I can do so without fear of falling on a moving apparatus?  I have been going to the mall and walking (4 times in 2 weeks) but it's quite a distance to drive to and there is still too much snow/ice outside for me to feel comfortable going to far as we live rural and if I get into trouble my only helpers will be a ****er spaniel and the wolves or coyotes.  

So what do you think?

BTW...my doc says what's the rush you're losing weight.  I'm more concerned about the fact that I'm losing strength.  In the scheme of things they are right I can get this all back with no lasting effects but I hate feeling like I can't lift a can of soup.  I'm used to being "strong like bull!" lol

Doctors scare me. I mean did he really in a roundabout way suggest you shouldn't worry about exercise? and then imply that your muscle mass wasn't important to the weight loss process? It doesn't sound like he was too concerned about the low BP either. Wow!

So here's the thing exercise raises your BP however there is more to it than than particularly for people like us who are losing weight rapidly. When we lose weight rapidly the amount of overall pressure inside our body decreases significantly but the amount of space to pressurize does not change. So the amount of blood pressure and other fluids in your body is maybe the same but since the fat is shrinking and the skin is not you end up with needing more to supply the pressure. For the first year I got dizzy a lot, pretty much anytime I got out of bed or up from a chair. So its probably not your BP that is causing a lot of this it is probably a combination. So there are a couple of things you need to do.

#1 DRINK MORE WATER (or flavored liquid or low carb sports drinks would be good here too). You are for sure not getting enough water and my guess is right now you are dehydrated (which also causes the dizziness you are describing). The more water you get (and shoot for overhydrating here) and the more hydrated you are the more pressure you are providing inside your body.

#2 EAT SOME SALT salt will help you retain water (yes you will see the scale slow down a bit, but be comforted in that yes it is in fac****er weight and you can easily shed it). The water you retain now will help keep your hydrostatic pressure inside your body up which will also help your blood pressure. Also sports drinks mentioned above are loaded with salts that help with this as well. So look for PowerAdeZero and/or Gatorade G2 (has some sugar in it but not bad)

#3 EXERCISE. Go ahead and walk, if you are using a treadmill you will have the hand rails to grab before you pass out if you really worried about it. For the time being as soon as you are done get to a chair and sit down. It is unlikely you would pass out while you are walking as that actually increases BP while you are walking. It is more likely to happen as soon as you are done.

#4 PUMP YOUR MUSCLES. Especially the big ones, your arms and legs get them filled up with blood. March in place when you feel light headed and swing your arms around, make fists and curl them up to your shoulders back and forth, twirl your arms around. This will help to constrict your blood vessels and should increase BP as well.

#5 LIFT WEIGHTS. As soon as you are cleared for full exercises (wait at least 8 weeks post-op) start lifting weights. You could do some hand weights now if you are sitting. But making your muscles swell will do the same thing as #5.

If you are taking any kind of blood thinners or pain relievers you may want to stop. Those often contribute to a lower BP than normal as well.

I've been swimming and jogging/walking (Couch 2 5K). My jogging/walking is always 30 minutes, and I swim for 30 minutes to 1 hour depending on a couple of things. Some days I do both on the same day, sometimes one or the other. I also occasionally do Zumba (once a week or so), but I don't feel like I get as good a workout with that (if I don't know what I'm doing, I watch instead of move). I haven't really been able to get back into my strength training, though. I don't know if it is that my losses are greater with what I'm doing, or because while I was restricted after surgery, I lost so much strength that it became anti-motivational and even hurt when I first tried (not in a good way). Is what I'm doing sufficient for now, or should I really push myself to be including strength also? 

So the most important thing is that you are moving, so that's a good thing. What you are doing now will eventually lead to more. The only thing I will say is that you need to push yourself a little bit each day/week. That's the only way to improve. If you keep doing the same things without improving speed or distance eventually your body will get nothing out of it that it isn't already used to. Yes your losses are greater with what you are doing as compared to just sitting around. I am not a huge fan of Zumba but if you are doing Zumba are there other things you might be willing to try that are maybe more effective and less confusing (like circuit training?). The loss of strength issue is really more in your head than your body. Yes you can't lift as much as you could before (for now), yes it hurts a little bit because your muscle have been dormant a lot late, but that will pass, and yes you have some work to do to get back to where you were. In a few weeks there will be no pain, you will feel better and see a difference in the mirror. What you are doing is probably sufficient but I always think you should push yourself and sometimes you should just do it. I was maxed out at 10mph on the treadmill for like 2 months as my sprint speed. I had myself convinced that I could not get to 12mph (the max by the way). I had a terrible mental block. Then one day I was feeling particularly energized and my class instructor called for a 30 second sprint and I just hit the 12 button, just like that. I got up there, I did it, it was very hard, but I did it. The mental block is gone. I can run at 12 whenever I want. This morning we were doing a 90 second sprint and we needed to be at a 10 to do 1/4 mile in 90 seconds after that we got to walk. I did the last 30 secs at 12 and got to walk a little extra because of it. Don't let a little bit of pain and lack of motivation stop you from achieving your goals. You will only regret it and resent yourself later. That doesn't mean you need to go hog wild every time you exercise. Once a week do a couple extra reps or hold that plank for 15 seconds more, just something to say I am better today than I was yesterday. That will motivate you even more, especially when you do things you don't think you can do.

The post after yours made me think about this for you. Consider taking a BCAA supplement. I like the Scivation Xtend brand right now but any will do. BCAA help to preserve and recover muscles. Might be a good thing to help you with the soreness and the muscle fatigue.

I'm thinking of taking a BCAA to assist with my workouts.  1) What is your opinion on BCAA? 

If I do start taking a BCAA I was looking at Catalyst from Advocare.  It's about $30 for 90 capsules.  Ingredients are 1,200mg of L-Glutamine, 450mg of L-Leucine, 225mg of L-Isoleucine and L-Valine; 100mg of L-Arginine and 50 mg of Betaine and Taurine.

http://www.advocare.com/products/trim/T2010.aspx

I always comparison shop so I tried to find a BCAA that was comparable in ingredients that is less expensive but they are all missing some ingredients.  One of the ones I looked at was Top Secret BCAA Hyperblend but it didn't have L-Glutamine in it.  2) Is there a brand that you can recommend? 

http://www.bodybuilding.com/store/top-secret-nutrition/bcaa- hyperblend.html

I take them everyday. I take Scivation Xtend. Its a drink instead of a capsule. I hate taking pills and already have to take so many. Its zero carbs, low cal, tastes pretty good and its a great muscle preserver. I don't know the ingredients off the top of my head but the list you provided sounds pretty standard. BCAA's range in price but I think you will find them very comparable. I have a jar of straight up BCAA (which are essentially everything that starts with L- in your list) from BodyTech (the VitaminShoppe brand) it was pretty cheap and its just a flavorless powder. I think it was like $15 for a pretty good sized jar. Now that I think about it, it does also have Glutamine in it as well. I put it in some water with some Mio and its the same thing I pay $27 for in the Scivation. The generic BCAA are a bit grittier than the powder I use.

All that being said if you don't mind taking a pill then the pill is a nice easy way to go. I would maybe try to find out which one is smaller but my guess is that they are probably all the same. Also its probably not just one pill its probably more like 2 to 5, so keep that in mind as well. I like the drink because I mix mine with 20 ounces of water and that get's me 20% to my goal of 100 oz every day.

BCAA and Creatine are two of the few supplements that are pretty much all created equally.

Thanks for the response!!  The Scivation Xtend has every ingredient I was looking for and actually more of it.  Other questions:  1) Is there a best time to take it?  Before workout, after workout? 2) Should I only take it on the days I'm working out or should I take it on my rest days as well?  I know you don't believe in "rest days" but I do.  LOL 

I take it after my workout. You could actually take it several times a day, it won't hurt you. I buy the lemon lime flavor and lately I have been mixing it with a couple squirts of Mio too. It tastes good by itself but with the Mio I can change up the flavor so for some reason lately the combination of cherry with lemon lime which sounds really gross is very good.

You should take it every day, BCAA are basically muscle building blocks so you can literally take them all the times. I am writing an open letter to bariatric surgeons proposing some changes to their protocols and prescribing BCAA from pre-op through to full foods at a minimum is on that list. There is a hospital here in Florida that prescribes the Xtend to their chemo patients to preserve muscle mass during treatment and they are see very little to no muscle loss. So I would say before bed, when you get up and right after a workout if you really want feel strong.

And I do take rest days, just not many of them. At least one a week though.