stress management | nutrition | health | fat loss | fitness
Pre & Post Bariatric Surgery
If you’re considering weight-loss surgery or have already had weight-loss surgery, your commitment to adopting a physically active lifestyle along with sustaining healthy eating habits are critical to your long-term success. Engaging in a regular exercise program is just the beginning of your journey to a healthier life. Some of the benefits of exercise include weight control, lowing cholesterol, increasing your strength and improving your balance.
As a pre-op program, developing an individualized exercise and activity program will begin your weight loss process. It will assist you in becoming better prepared for surgery and will help in your recovery process. After surgery, exercise will help you burn fat rather than muscle due to the reduction of calories. This will help you lose Fat more rapidly.
In pre operative stage when a person has decided to go for bariatric surgery, one should
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Make weight-loss a primary goal of your exercise program. Excess fat can make the weight-loss surgery operation itself more challenging. In fact, most surgeons require that their patient lose a certain amount of weight before they will operate.
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Cardiovascular exercise can help jump-start the weight loss process. It is important to begin slowly; this will allow your body to get used to exercise. If you have orthopaedic issues, such as Knee, Hip or Low back pain, you may need to find alternative cardiovascular exercise that will not cause impact to these areas, such as Bike or Cross-Trainer. Again the important thing is to gain endurance and burn calories in fat.
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Another important part of your fitness program is weight training. There are many fat-burning benefits to this type of training. Muscles have the ability to use and store energy as they work and recover. This burns calories and in turn helps with weight loss. You may perform resistance training through the use of weight training machines, resistance bands or tubing and hand held free weights. Gained muscle tissue will also help in post-operative recovery
Post-operative Stage
Exercise for bariatric surgery patients is often the first part of a patient's long-term plan to get skipped following surgery. In reality, it is almost as important as your diet
Exercise after gastric bypass surgery is critical for effective weight loss. “When we lose weight rapidly, we lose muscle. Muscle tissue gauges and controls our metabolism. Exercise is a safe and effective way of maintaining lean body mass, which maintains metabolism and will facilitate [healthy] weight loss."
A recent study reported in the journal Obesity found that of 190 patients who underwent bariatric surgery, 68 percent said that they became physically active in the year after the procedure — "active" defined as at least 200 minutes per week of walking or other moderate or vigorous exercise. The exercisers lost an average of 13.2 more pounds than inactive patients and also suffered from less depression and anxiety and had higher scores in general health.
Exercise also shortens recovery time for bariatric surgery patients and reduces the risk of postsurgical complications. In addition, physical activity improves mood and reduces stress. People who choose to put an emphasis on exercise lose more weight and have an easier time with weight maintenance.