Protein pills?  The efficacy and bioavailability of these post WLS have to be giving you a considerably under dosed total...You'd have to take dozens of them per day to initiate any type of protein synthesis response.  What type and mg are they?  Again, as for the muscular fatigue in the legs while running, I suggest building up your slow twitch muscle fibers first....try a leg workout twice per week outside of your cardio.  Focus on unilateral exercises, such as single leg leg curls and leg extensions, high volume squats and lunges.  Be sure to add in work for your abductors and adductors as well as calves and soleus.  These will allow a greater strength curve over time and will help build ALL of the muscles in the leg.  Remember, when you begin to fatigue, the most underdeveloped portion of the leg will go first (think of shin splints for example), so you want to make sure you're adhering to a program that hits the entire muscle properly, not just one specific portion (like people who focus on quads and don't do much for hamstrings...or people that do a bunch of standing and seated calf raises and neglect the soleus, or front portion of the lower leg).  You MUST work antagonistic muscle groups together!  Best of luck!  Keep us posted!

You must focus on training specifically for endurance to help with your leg strength.  Simply put, for the purposes of this conversation, we have two main types of muscle fibers, slow twitch and fast twitch.  Fast twitch are your 'fight or flight' muscles that allow explosive movements.  These grow larger and at a more rapid rate than slow twitch.  Slow twitch muscle fibers are those that allow a longer time under tension and are typically found in the abs, legs and calves.  These can sustain a heavier volume of work inherently by the way they are trained (walking, standing upright, etc), otherwise we'd be falling all over ourselves 24/7!  That being said, you should focus on training your slow twitch muscle fibers accordingly to help maintain proper posture during exercise while keeping the amount of work volume high.  Supplementation and nutrition peri-workout is also key for this.  You can check out glutamine, chondroitin, MSM, glucosamine for the 'pain'.  I would also make sure I had sufficient carbohydrates in my system (the RIGHT ones at the RIGHT times) to further help fuel the workout.  Lastly, understand that you can absolutely train a specific muscle fiber properly.  It goes well beyond the standard weight lifting practices of "3 sets of 10", you have to train according to your goals.  So remember, high volume training and secondary isolation exercises for quads and hams are key to eliciting further Type II muscle fibers.  Feel free to message me for more info! Thanks and best of luck!

I have had knee issues in the past but found out that building up my quads helped me with the knee issues. You are not saying what part of the legs are giving you issue or what kind of pain. There are many exercises out there to help build up the muscles for running. squats are good, lunges leg lifts with weights around the ankle just some ideas

Four weeks after my tummy tuck surgery in Manila, I started going back to the gym. I didn't do some strenuous workouts, just light cardio initially. My good doctor Dr Rino Lorenzo, advised me to begin very slowly before i even build up to my former intensity. I didn't want to compromise my recovery and I wanted to avoid ANY complications so I followed his advice fully. I always listened to my body and seek my doctor's advise when I wanted to upgrade my workout. It was effective for me that way. It really worked out great for me. I love my result!

Isnt it great to find an exercise you love doing?  I am like that with tae bo, skating, running, and tabata.

I wish my gym offered crossfit. There are some ladies on my floor that pay big bucks to some gym/location that does cross fit and they are very very fit people.  They are thin, but muscled. They are so TONED. You just look at them and think "Fierce!"