Sandi and Wendy exercising- no matter where, no matter when, NO EXCUSES! - Tampa 2014

I speak at Weight Loss Surgery Support Groups all over the place.  I frequently review the Success Habits of Weight Loss Surgery Patients as part of my presentation.  I do this for many reasons with the prime one being that folks will open up and start speaking when a subject they can relate to is up for discussion.  This means most everyone in the group will say something or ask a question about:

• Personal accountability
• Nutrition
• Portion control
• Hydration
• Exercise
• Vitamins and Supplements

When folks are having a discussion and questions are asked, and answered, everyone in the room, or on the call benefits.  We all learn this way.

I just spoke to a group of about 20 at a hospital in Santa Barbara.  The group was interacting, we were sharing thoughts and ideas, discussing the differences between surgeries, and discussing the differences between 3 weeks, 3 months and 3 years post-op.  All of this was great conversation.

Then we got to exercise.  It often gets quiet again in the room when exercise is the topic.  People are uncomfortable talking about what they do NOT do, and others do not want to intimidate with what they ARE doing.  This group was not that much different.  All raised their hands when I asked if they had adopted regular exercise as part of their lifestyle.  The next question created the discomfort in the room - What does regular exercise look like to you?  A few brave newbies answered, and each of them was being diligent in going to the gym or adopting “movement on purpose” that worked within their medical restrictions.  I then asked the group to share the benefits of exercise.  Of course, the first answer was that it burned calories.  I shared my calorie burn from that morning with the group with the intention of generating curiosity for those who didn’t know or didn’t use the calories in versus calories out equation.  At this point, a 20 year old young man who has been a phenomenal success having lost 230 pounds in 12 months after gastric bypass surgery piped up that he didn’t exercise and would rather restrict his calories than go to the gym

WOW!!!  What do you say to this, especially when he was arguing his point.  It was obvious that there was some emotional charge to the entire gym thing.  Perhaps he spent his first 19 years hearing the same thing we all heard - Eat LESS and exercise MORE and you’ll lose weight.  Whatever it was, the RD who ran the support group and I, tried to bring the conversation back to the major points about exercise, and help this young man understand that he could not reduce calories below a certain level, or he would put his body into starvation and hurt himself.

So here are the exercise myths I usually try to “debunk”:

• Muscle weighs more than fat - it doesn’t, it is just denser.  Look at a 1-pound steak and a 1-pound block of butter, does one weigh more than the other does?  I didn’t think so;
• You can exercise off any excess calories you eat - Oh, I hate my fitness pal and those other apps that seem to indicate the possibility.  Folks, we had surgery because we weighed too much.  We are trying to lose weight, not maintain it.  When we are in maintenance mode it is very different, but if you want to lose 1 pound you need to expend 3500 more calories than you intake.  What does this mean in real life?  It means that changing NOTHING about the way you eat at all, if you weigh 200 pounds, you will need to walk 80 minutes, 7 days a week at 3 miles per hour to lose 1 pound.  That is over and above your normal everyday activities.  Are you going to do that?  Is that realistic?  NO, I didn’t think so.  You are NOT going to exercise off that 500-calorie margarita or that bag of chips.  After you indulge in a “not so good” choice, exercise is great, because it will get your metabolism started and you will begin to work on those calories you ate, but we all know it takes more than that.

Those are my two favorite myths.  That is not to say that exercise does not help you burn calories.  Exercise is for developing fitness.  Fitness is the enhancement of the physiological functioning and efficiency of the human body, which includes burning calories efficiently for energy, cell regeneration, etc.

How many years have you been obese?  When was the last time you moved your body on purpose for developing fitness?  As our obesity affected us over time, slowing our metabolic function down, many of us became very inefficient at utilizing the fuel - i.e.  food, we put into our bodies.  My doctor likes to point out that most obese women will gain weight if they consume over 1200 calories in a day.  He’s right.  Why?  Because our metabolism - our physiological functioning and efficiency has been diminished by the layers of adipose tissue (fat) in our bodies.

Does this mean that the day after surgery we should join a gym and go and work out 7 days a week two or three times a day?  No, not at all.  No gym is required to move your body on purpose.  Furthermore, if you hate exercise you can join all the gyms in the world, but nobody is going to make you go.  Don’t waste your money.

This is how I, an obese woman at 424 pounds in 2004 got my “on purpose movement” going after I had weight loss surgery. 

• For the first three months I did nothing more than I had done before surgery, which was nothing other than going to work and coming home
• For the next three months I actually began going into the supermarket with my husband instead of sitting and waiting in the car - on purpose movement was walking around the market
• For the next three months I expanded my universe to include the Big Box stores like Sam’s and Costco - on purpose movement was walking more steps
• For the next three months I added window shopping at the mall to this - on purpose movement was walking even more steps

A year had passed, I had lost 100 pounds+ and I was walking a lot more than I had been the year before.  What next?  I decided I wanted to try swimming since my knee could not tolerate long walks, the weight was continuing to drop and I wanted to facilitate this process.  I paid an exorbitant amount of money to join a racquet club with an indoor pool that was family oriented so I would not be as embarrassed to change to go into the pool.  Here’s how it went with swimming:

• First time in the pool I did one lap;
• Next time in the pool I did 2-3 laps
• I worked this up over time to be swimming laps for 15 minutes at a time 3 days a week
• I then dragged my teenage granddaughter and we both got swimming lessons so I could improve my stroke, and she joined their swim team so I had to bring her 3 times a week so this would keep me engaged in the process
• Over the next year that 3 times per week for 15 minutes grew to 30 minutes, then 45, and I found myself swimming for an hour at a time three days a week and under all of the layers of fat and loose skin, there were some muscles happening.
• Those 3 days per week grew to swimming 6 and 7 days a week anywhere from 30 minutes minimum to an hour maximum and the weight kept coming off.

Was this then the end of my story- go to the expensive gym, swim 6-7 days a week, get fit, boost my metabolism, lose weight?  It very well could have been, and if that’s where you are at it’s fine.  I wanted more...  I wanted to work with a trainer to strengthen some of those muscles that were not working in the pool, or just learn to use them a different way.  In order to do that I had to warm up for a few minutes on the treadmill first.  Here’s how the treadmill went:

• I got on it, stared at it for 5 minutes and the kind gentleman next to me showed me how to set it on manual quick start.  I walked ever so slowly for 5 minutes and then worked with my trainer not sure I would be able to do this repeatedly
• I got to do it again the very same week since my training appointments were twice weekly
• After several weeks of 5 minutes warming up I decided that it should be 15 minutes and I should be working in my aerobic zone…this was REALLY hard
• You know what came next - that ‘s right the 15 minutes grew to half an hour and I was still alive, though barely at the beginning
• After six months of this, I had to add so much incline on the treadmill to get my heart rate into the aerobic zone that it made my knee hurt.  Now what?

I talked to my trainer, and spoke with other folks at the gym in the same age range as I was.  I also spoke with my orthopedist.  All together, we decided that I needed to try the elliptical machine since that would not stress my bad knee.  Here’s how it went on the elliptical:

• I got on it and this time was able to figure out the manual quick start all on my own.  It was weird.  I think I lasted about 2 minutes.
• Since perseverance is my middle name, I did it again and succeeded for 5 minutes this time.  When I got off, I was sure I was going to die.
• I didn’t die so I got back up on the elliptical again, and again, and again, finally working my way up to 30 minutes and then working my heart rate up to 160 ish
• Did I mention that I did weight/strength training after my elliptical excursions?  I did, and the harder I worked on the elliptical, the higher my heart rate, the more intensely I was able to work on specific muscle groups and I started creating muscle definition which I loved to see and feel

Exercise gives you the confidence to dress up as a pirate, and let others take your picture

All of this went on over a period of several years.  In early 2013, I left the extremely expensive gym and joined a regular gym for 1/8 of the monthly rate.  If you wonder why I waited so long it’s because I told myself if I switched gyms I would break my habit of going every morning since it was different.  I was full of baloney.  It was strange and new, I didn’t know anybody and I had to find out where everything was and how everything worked.  I no longer weighed over 300 pounds and couldn’t care less if folks thought my thighs looked like a Shar Pei on steroids…they do, but I love them anyway.

I have a new trainer, I am kicking butt, or actually, he is kicking my butt and I am developing more muscle tone and definition and my fitness level continues to improve.

This is me, living my life with regular physical exercise incorporated as part of my lifestyle.  It took a very long time for me to start liking it, but I do. I don’t participate in water aerobics or any other classes or groups at the gym;  they don’t interest me at the moment.  Maybe someday...Or not, doesn’t matter.

I know I have more energy to do anything I choose by moving on purpose every single day.  That is my body telling me it is running efficiently and burning calories all day and all night long at a higher rate than when I was hauling around 424 pounds.

You don’t have to go to the gym.  You can walk the mall, or walk your dog, or ride a bicycle, or march in place during TV commercials, or walk up and down the stairs in your house, at your office, or park the car in the back of the lot instead of driving around for 10 minutes looking for the spot closest to the door.  You can use canned food to do bicep curls.  You can swing on a swing, horseback ride, scuba dive, snorkel, clean house; jump on a trampoline, jump rope.

Find something you can do that you enjoy, and repeat to move your body on purpose. 

It’s part of finding your health.