Wednesday fitness fun fact
Gaining Muscle - If you are new to exercise such as weight or resistance training, you do not actually gain muscle tissue size in the first 2-3 weeks. When going from an untrained state (so being sedentary or very little experience with weight training), it generally takes 8-12 weeks to experience musclar hypertrophy or growth. This of course does not mean that you are not getting stronger. While muscular growth generally results in greater strength, you can gain strength while not gaining muscle size. You can even gain strength while losing muscle tissue if you are under caloric restriction and simultaneusouly starting a resistance training program. So, muscle gain is probably not a reason you are not experiencing movement on the scale.
Caloric Restriction and Muscle Gain - I see that you had the Realize Band procedure performed in May of this year. After WLS and/or while on a very low calorie diet, where caloric intake is significantly restricted, it is nearly impossible to actually gain muscle size regardless of the type of exercise you are performing or the grams of protein you are consuming. Caloric restriction causes you to breakdown and mobilize stored fat and stored protein (muscle) to meet your energy needs. Sure, it should be a goal to minimize the loss of muscle tissue but you are not going to retain all of you muscle tissue while calorically restricted. This is another reason that gains in muscle size are not really an option right now. As you caloric intake rises the further post-op you become, the more muscle building potential you will have.
Inflammatory Response - With intense exercise such as resistance training, you often get pretty sore. Some of this soreness is due to the inflammation caused by small tears in muscle as a result of resistance training. Where there is inflammation there is also fluid; this may add a couple of pounds but this is water, it is completely normal and necessary for healing. As you become more well trained, you will not experience this level of soreness and/or inflammation in the future.
Body Composition - It is extremely important for those who are engaging in regular physical activity to pay attention to body comnposition versus, body weight alone. You may see changes in body composition such as decreases in body fat percentage while not seeing any movement of the scale. This is a good thing but you may not know what is happening unless you are of course measuring your body composition. If you are not seeing your body weight decrease, this can be psychologically difficult to handle. If however, you can see changes in body composition, this may provide some needed reinforcement that you are still losing body fat even if the scale is not moving. Click here to see a post I made about measuring body composition.
Health - Last but not least, health should remain your ultimate goal. The impact of exercise on weight loss is often over emphasized but exercise has a dramatic impact on disease, general health and wellbeing. Caloric restriction through weight loss surgery is the driving force behind weight loss but exercise is one of your primary tools to ensure long term success.
Jeremy Gentles, CSCS
ObesityHelp Health and Fitness Professional
