Better, Stronger, Faster...

[MegaMer]

Hi Nerd Fitness friends,

I'm having surgery in six weeks and I want to spend those weeks building strength with diet and exercise so that I recover smoothly, quickly, and without complications. I want to get myself in the best possible shape so that my body is a super healing machine, ready to build tissue, avoid infection, and withstand all of the trauma of a surgery. This is a huge motivator for me, I have never had surgery before and I really want to feel healthy and prepared.

I'm working on a plan for myself, but I could use some help, advice and camaraderie. I'm cutting out wheat and sugar from my diet and focusing on eating mainly meat and vegetables, with fruit, eggs, and small amounts of beans and whole grains, and a little bit of dairy and plenty of water. I'm lucky to live in a place with a lot of readily available locally grown and pasture raised meats from small farmers, and I have a garden full of kale and greens, so eating better is easy and tasty.

The exercise side is more tricky for me. I'm not a naturally exercisey person. I'm in physical therapy for a rotator cuff injury that isn't healing well along with some related arthrosis of the AC joint. My recovery has been very long, the injury happened on Halloween.

Right now I'm struggling to even go for walks. I've been pushing myself and have been so far able to do 2-3 moderate 30 minute walks per week, along with my simple physical therapy exercises. I need to do much much more to get into shape. I'm responding well to the way my PT has gradually increased the assigned exercises and repetitions, and I like knowing there is a plan and routine, so I'm looking to build a routine that whips me into fighting shape quickly, while taking my injury into account.

I'm 40 years old, weigh about 20 lbs more than I want to, and I am easily winded, and just generally out of shape.

[vintageenvy]

That's one of the best reasons for getting healthy I've heard! I think especially since you're going into surgery and currently in PT, you should probably ask your therapist what exercises are not only most effective, but safest for you. I think diet will be able to get you most of the way to where you want to be before your surgery, the exercise should probably just be the icing on the cake, just to avoid injuring your rotator more if nothing else.

The Paleo/Primal board is always a good source of inspiration if you're looking for some good food inspiration. There are also a ton of great Paleo blogs out there with recipes so good you won't notice that they're good for you! My favorite is PaleOMG, but there are all sorts out there!

[MegaMer]

Thanks for the nice welcome, and for the food blog recommendation. It looks really good, and I do love food blogs!

I like your hobbit adventurer badge! I'm a hobbit too, for sure.

[katscratch]

Welcome! I second paleo blogs for recipe ideas, even if you do eat grains and legumes - I found http://www.theclothesmakethegirl.com/ really similar to my tastes (Lebanese food is my fave in the world)

I noticed after changing my diet that my tendency to get winded with exertion pretty much disappeared. At first I was just walking around my block with my dog and doing bodyweight exercises, so for me at least diet seemed to make a bigger difference to how i *felt* than exercise. I think it's fantastic that you are already walking regularly, I think that gives you a great base for after surgery, and it's awesome that you're making progress with your PT!