It's been three months since my hip surgery, and about two months since restrictions on activities of daily living were for the most part lifted. Only recently have I been able to start adding in more exercise activity; besides the post-op immobility, my running and exercise prior to surgery were limited due to hip pain.
So, I'm gaining weight. Of course. I expected a little weight gain, but that doesn't mean I like it! I'm a firm believer in my mom's advice: "Never gain the first pound". It's harder to lose weight than to prevent gain!
Now, I actually know exactly how much weight I gained since surgery, because they weighed me before surgery to calculate anesthesia doses, and I was weighed this week at the doctor's office. I have gained five pounds and I'm currently at the highest weight I've ever been, as far as I know (based on looks since I don't weigh myself often, as I don't own a scale). I was definitely aware of this weight creep, so I'd already decided to do my best to mitigate it before I had the weigh-in.
I noticed that almost every evening I was eating something sweet before bed, so I figured that would be the easiest thing to cut out. To make sure I stopped, I just ruled all desserts and candy off-limits for the month of August. It was bit arbitrary, but it cut out a bad dietary habit and can't hurt. I know it would be smarter to also loosely count calories, but for starters, this was an easy preventative measure. I think when I can be a tad more active and am allowed to do more activities (and for a longer time), I should be able to lose any weight I gained, but for now I'm content to maintain where I am.
I love good food, so it's not easy to make huge changes to my diet, and I don't love skipping dessert when we go out to dinner. But I'd rather make a very small sacrifice now than have to face a large weight loss later.
Now, with August over, I realize that I was pretty much just holding steady for the month - no extreme weight gain as far as I can tell, but certainly no loss. I don't think my deprivation made a huge difference (and BTW, no I was not suddenly brimming with energy or cured of acne or anything). It wasn't a bad for me to get some practice saying no, however.
Over the next few months I'll try to drop the extra weight, but I'm not stressing over it too much. Priority number one is to get healed and healthy, then I can worry about weight.
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I've gained every time I have been sidelined. What I've learned is not to stress about it b/c it just comes off once activity levels ramp back up.
ReplyDeleteBoy can I relate! I've gained about 5 pounds myself and it's not good. I actually did really good (no dessert/ eating better) for almost 3 weeks but then totally lost it when I had another setback. Apparently I'm an emotional eater who also just loves good food. Hoping I can slowly start a little more cardio because biking and swimming are just not burning the same amount of calories!
ReplyDeleteFWIW, I don't think it's a bad thing to gain 5 pounds during convalescence (I have, every time I've had a major injury). You need to err on the side of giving your body too many resources, rather than depriving it.
ReplyDeleteIn my experience (which does NOT include surgery recovery), the weight gained while recovering from an injury comes off very quickly once one returns to activity.
Thank goodness you're allowed to run not. 5lb isn't a lot in the scheme of things but no woman ever likes to gain. Now you're on the come-back trail it should slow down.
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