Doing sports after the surgery

If I was given a dollar for every time I started (and then gave up on) gym, I would be a millionaire by now 😂 I mean it. Since I was an adult and started living on my own, I was on and off a gym. I tried countless times. And the story was always the same. I started all motivated and hyped, I was very consistent the first few weeks, then not that much, and at the end of the second month I was only watching my money disappear regularly every month from my bank account, but I never set foot again in that crazy establishment.

Do you know why? I was fat. And the gym is not a friendly place for fat people, have you noticed? It should be, but it cannot be further from the truth. It was the same every time. I convinced myself that it was ok to go there and show off my Michellins, why would I be going there if I were slim, right? I could withstand the stares of those gym rats for a while and then… you feel it, they watch you, they judge you, they count your reps, how long you are on the treadmill. You don’t want this. It is so uncomfortable that you give up. And you keep being fat. Sad truth. 

It was a really hard decision after the surgery. Will I go back or not? I knew I should be doing some exercise but just thinking about the gym was causing me panic attacks. I was trying to be invisible, hide myself with my extra weight, and exercise somewhere where people could NOT see me… that was way beyond my comfort zone. I am all for stepping out, but this one became a huge no for me. 

I am not trying to find excuses why not exercising at all. I just decided that it would be better to focus on some kind of movement that wouldn’t involve showing myself off in tight gym clothes and letting everybody stare at me and judge me. 

The solution was obvious and it was exactly something that bariatric patients are encouraged to do at the beginning. Walking! As easy as this. You may say that it is not exercise at all. But I can tell you it is. If you are overweight, you have just had a major abdominal surgery and as a consequence, you barely eat, trust me, even walking around your block can be pretty demanding stuff to do. I knew that if I didn’t do anything to move my body, no surgeries would help me. I had to do something. 

It was a good part of the year, mid-April, so the spring was starting and the weather was not so bad, so it actually encouraged me to go out and have a walk. I lived that time near the park, so it was pretty clear where I would be every afternoon. I did my best to walk but I won’t deny that the first weeks were killer ones. I was so weak, I still had almost all the weight glued on my body, I was not eating almost anything, only surviving on liquid things, my vitamins and reserves were more and more depleted every day, so even a short walk was causing me quite a lot of problems. I was out of breath, sweaty, weak, dizzy, you name it. Million times nothing killed an elephant. When I came home every day, I felt like dying.

But I kept going. Every single day. Bit by bit, step by step. There were days when I didn’t feel like it at all. I knew this was very important, so I kept doing it. It was not comfortable, it was not easy, sometimes I was preparing myself for the morning but I crawled out late in the afternoon it is a pretty stupid idea.

If I had to do this again, I would go in the morning when I still had some energy, and also to be able to check it off from my to-do list and get rid of it 😀putting it off makes things only worse. You pre-suffer as I call it. It feels like an unpleasant thing to do that you keep putting off endlessly but it won’t go away. So you keep thinking about it all day, ruminating, but you know that there is no escape. Eventually, you will have to go. There is something about it when they say: eat the frog first. 

Things started to become a little easier with time, I was losing some weight, slowly but steadily, so I was not carrying with me that much extra weight as in the very beginning. And I started to feel it. It was not a huge jump, something like an instant realization, but from today’s perspective, it meant something.

But then we moved and the access to the park was gone forever, so I had to think up an alternative to my walks. 

I remembered that I used to like going on a bike, so I had this amazing idea to buy myself a static bike to have at home (and not have to go to the gym). I had the space, so it seemed like a brilliant idea. Ok, maybe it was, maybe not, but my butt had a lot to say about this (stupid) idea. AUU!!! The beginning was not a very pleasant encounter. Yes, my butt was in agony. It hasn’t seen a bike in almost two decades, so you can imagine. No, you can’t, it was worse 😂

So, the bike was at home, and my butt hurt, so I was not a very keen user of this torture device. Yes, there were days when I had clothes hanging on it 😢 no, it was not the best outcome. So I decided that maybe a yoga mat might be a good option. There are millions of videos on YouTube, so I might find some that are reasonable for me. And voila! This worked much better for me. Good idea 👍

I have to say here that I took things very slowly and really gently. Come on! I haven’t done any exercise routine for ages. So… you must remember that: if you overdo it at the beginning, you lose all the motivation and you abandon your good idea very quickly. I didn’t want this to happen to me. I started stretching – omg, I had no idea all my muscles were in THIS bad shape. But I have to praise myself, after a month I could see a very reasonable change for the better. It worked!

The next step was the resistance bands. I bought a cheap set from Amazon, no fancy stuff, and again YouTube was my ally. Note to myself: if you want to learn anything, YouTube gets your six. You can find there anything you can even think of. And it was the same with exercising with resistance bands. No, I am not doing calisthenics, nothing like that, but it provides a reasonable challenge for my muscles to get them in better shape. What is more, the bands come in different strengths, so I could progress with time. There are so many different videos to exercise with, you never get bored.

The last thing I started to explore was Pilates. Remember, I have the yoga mat. So I am giving it full use. To tell the truth, I bought a new one recently, a thicker one, that feels softer for my spine. As unbelievable as it sounds, bones from my spine showed up and when you roll on your back, you need some nice support, otherwise you will end up with bruises. Never happened to me before, though. 

I am no Profi Pilates freak, I am pretty far from that. But I like this type of exercise. Omg! Have I just said that? Um… yes, I LIKE doing Pilates 😝(blushing now). I would never thought I would be able to say something like this. But it is true. It is quite gentle, no jumping and stuff, but it is challenging. It may look easy and inoffensive, but, well, try and you will see 😀

What I had to accept, and what was very important for my progress, was the fact that exercising would now be an integral part of my life. I still don’t go to the gym, I don’t lift heavy weights and I don’t plan to do that. I have my torture bike 😂, my resistance bands, and a yoga mat for my Pilates. I am not spending hundreds of euros every month to be able to move myself. These three things are more than enough to keep me going. And I can always go for a walk. I switch these exercises but I make sure I do every day something. That is vital. 

Once you start doing something, don’t quit, don’t stop. If you do, you know where it is heading. Let’s call it south, right? And it is exactly what you don’t want. Make a routine. Find a fixed time in your day when you will put on your gym clothes – who cares if your tummy is poking out a little, and start. Be consistent and do it all the time even on holiday, visiting your family, wherever. Do at least something every day.

I never thought I would be looking forward to it. It clears my head, I feel better, I lost a lot of weight doing it. I became stronger and more mobile. It feels good. So I don’t plan to stop. I think I would miss it 🫣