Fitness & Wellness

If you’ve fallen off the workout wagon, getting started again can be scary, but it’s even worse if you’re starting to workout again after surgery. The type of surgery you had also makes a difference. The first thing you must do is make sure you have your health care professionals okay to begin working out. Even if you feel good, there are many factors to consider. Your doctor is your best source of information for when to begin your program of exercise.

You’ve got the okay, now what?

Muscles atrophy from lack of use. Smaller muscle groups may take as little as 72 hours to start the process. Larger ones take longer. You’ll probably have at least a little atrophy and the older you are, the more you can expect. When you do go back to the gym, it’s time to take it slowly. You might want to rush right back where you left off before the surgery, but your body probably won’t be ready.

Realize that you may need to make some adjustments in form.

Depending on the location or type of surgery, you may have to modify the form you use for each exercise. If there’s injury to one side of the body, such as a torn ligament in one arm or leg, cross education may help build that side while it heals. There is research showing that exercising the uninjured side can actually help build up the side that’s injured or at least slow atrophy.

Work with a personal trainer or physical therapist.

Physical therapists may be the first place to start, particularly if you’ve been in a cast or had surgery that impedes the workout a great deal. However, once they give the okay, the next step to getting back to prime is to work with a personal trainer. The trainer will work closely with our health care professional and create a program that will get you back on path, but at a pace that’s right for you.

– See if you can take walks to help stay in shape while you’re on the mend. It helps slow the muscle atrophy, but is a gentle exercise.

– Don’t ignore pain. Pain is our body’s way of messaging us that something is wrong. More than ever, after surgery you need to listen to the message.

– Make sure you eat healthy. You’ll need all the nutrients you can get to help put you on the road to recover, but don’t want to gain excess weight that will take a time to

lose once you’re back on your feet.

– Stay hydrated. Flushing the toxins out of your system and keeping your body hydrated is important. Make sure you drink plenty of water.

Don’t let one slip or even several days or weeks of neglect stop you from looking and feeling your best. It’s time to get back on the fitness wagon. Even if you fell off the wagon, then sold it for money for Oreos, it’s never too late to start over and get back into the routine of working out. One thing about exercise, it’s not a task, like doing laundry, where if you let it go for a few days, you can catch up again in one night. It takes time to get back on track, so you may have to take it slowly at first.

Sure, you messed up, but don’t let that stop you.

When you were learning to walk, you fell, stumbled and didn’t do it well at all. You never let that stop you. Slipping up and falling off the wagon is part of learning a new lifestyle. Some people get it immediately and once they start, it’s part of their life forever. Most people start and stop several times until they find the right motivation or learn to make it a habit in their life.

Were you in front of an open refrigerator all night?

Healthy eating is one of the biggest problems people face. They often feel that if they cheat on their diet or healthy eating habits, it’s all over but the shouting. That’s not true. In fact, there are cheat days built into healthy eating. Sometimes, eating a bit of the food you’re craving helps you stick with a healthy eating plan. In fact, eating more than normal on occasion may even help you shed weight by letting your body feel as though food is plentiful. Chalk up that eating marathon to a bad day and get back on track.

Are you feeling too tired to go to the gym.

When you’re tired, what you may actually need is a little exercise to get your blood circulating. However, if you’ve been working out furiously and not taken any time away from the gym, you may have overworked your body. Examine your workout habits and see if you really need rest. That’s not falling off the wagon but giving your body time to mend. Your personal trainer can help you identify the problem.

– Decide to workout for just ten minutes. If your exercise program has been put to the side, use the ten minute theory. Put on some music, run in place, do a few squats. If you feel like doing more time, go ahead. Otherwise, try ten minutes a few more times throughout the day.

– Take it one day at a time. Rather than say you’re going to eat healthy from now on, say you’re going to eat healthy tonight…and do it. Little by little get back to old healthier eating habits.

– Work with a personal trainer. If your exercise wagon crashed and burned, a trainer can help you create a new one.

– Switch your routine around to have more fun. Add fun activities like bouldering, bike riding and even Kangoo jumps to the workout.

Comfort foods are often high calorie foods that tickle your taste buds and lower levels of stress. While you do have to beware of comfort foods, they really do provide stress relief, but not just from the pleasure of eating them. It’s from the neural activity it causes. One study on mice showed that rats under duress responded to sugar water, their comfort food, and displayed signs of reduced stress. When the liquid bypassed their taste buds and went directly to the stomach, there was no relief. That says comfort foods work only when they linger on the palate for a few moments and set off the taste buds.

Find a substitute for the food you crave.

All foods have certain characteristics. Sure, all comfort foods hit the taste buds, but sometimes it’s more than that. Sometimes, you need to hear the crunch and feel your jaw working. Crispy crunchy snacks are often your weakness in this case. Tooth grinders and clenchers often find these types of crunchy snacks best. Try a crisp apple instead of pretzels or chips. Salty foods are also important food cravings and again, chips might be your answer. Substitute with air popped popcorn. In the experiment on mice, a sugar substitute worked to replace the sugar water.

Find a physical outlet.

Whether you’re angry or sad, exercising helps. Stress of all types produce stress hormones that leave you feeling terrible. In order to get rid of that feeling, working out, not eating, is the answer. You need to do something active, to mimic the fight or flight response, which is what nature meant to happen. Run up and down stairs, take a brisk walk or do anything that gets your body moving. It works to eliminate that feeling of frustration, anger, sadness or just general depression and the blahs.

Identify what causes the urge to eat the comfort food.

You have to know what the problem is in order to solve it. Taking the time to chart your cravings and the events that led up to them is important. If you find you want comfort food every time you visit a friend, is there something lacking or wrong with your relationship? Does your work make you want to grab a big bowl of mashed potatoes or is it frustration with your budget? Work on solving the problem or learning to deal with it. The first step is always admitting one exists, not hiding out in a big helping of food.

– Learn portion control. You don’t have to give up comfort food, just limit the intake. Combine it with fresh veggies or other healthy snack. I have a client that loves mashed potatoes. Now, instead of eating a bowl full, she puts a small amount in a dish and uses it as a dip for celery. She gets the taste, but in a far smaller amount.

– Use fruit to quench that craving for something sugary. Make sure it’s one of the sweet fruits, such as bananas or grapes.

– If you love ice cream, make your own low calorie, healthy alternative. Slice a banana and freeze it on a tray, then mash or blend it until smooth. It tastes cool, creamy and a lot like ice cream.

– Fried foods are often at the top of the list. Baked alternatives are a good choice. Try some baked sweet potato fries. Experiment with various healthy foods until you get the same sensation of your comfort food.