Tag Archives: health

Image

How exercising before weight loss surgery boosts your chance for success

I am one week out of surgery. If it wasn’t for the exercises, I would of had a much harder time. I had plenty of strength right after surgery. I am strong in places I didn’t realized would be. The exercises before surgery help me so much with getting up and doing other things in these early stages of recovery.

This is a patient, who was a regular exerciser when younger, had a major back injury from a work related accident struggled put that on hold for a long time. Living with pain for many years had taken its toll on him not only physically, but mentally too.

When he committed to having surgery, he committed to regular exercise. He purchased exercise bands so he could exercise at home. He started walking short walks, listening to his body and not pushing through pain. He added small stretching breaks to his day to keep his body feeling as good as possible each day.

Motivation was also an issue. The gym used to be motivating but now it was a stark reminder of how far he had come from his younger more fit self. It made him feel worse and that led to put off going. He knew he needed to move more but was afraid of making things worse and struggling with motivating to get started. Doing a little at a time, at home where he felt comfortable helped him get out of the overwhelming state of thinking about how far he was from his goal. Instead he focused on what he could do to feel his best each day. He also committed to regular exercise visits every few weeks to ensure he was staying on track.

This is the struggle for most people who are trying to lose a large amount of weight. You know you need to exercise but your body is limited. You cannot just jump back into what you used to do or what everyone else is doing. You are in a unique situation and need exercises that are meant for the state of your body and your mind right now. This is why we need exercise programs that are specifically for people who are preparing for weight loss surgery.

The problem is, the area of prehabilitation before weight loss surgery has very few studies and most bariatric surgery programs do not include professional clinical exercise guidance as part of the preparation.

The current research shows that exercising before weight loss surgery provides the benefits that make surgery and recovery easier for your body and improves your chances of success with weight loss surgery. The key is, only exercise can provide all these benefits.

One of the most important benefits unique to exercise is the improvements in muscle strength and the prevention of muscle and metabolism loss with weight loss. Muscle loss is one of the down sides of weight loss surgery. Rapid weight loss has been shown to lead to loss of muscle mass, which is one of the largest parts of your metabolism. In one study, people who didn’t exercise after surgery, 22% of their weight loss was muscle. No wonder it is so difficult to keep weight off! But studies show those who exercise greatly slow or even prevent this loss during weight loss.

The common thought is that people who are carrying extra weight tend to have more muscle mass, and this is true but they tend to have lower muscle strength. This is like having a really cool sportscar in your driveway but not being able to use it. Strength and muscle mass don’t go hand in hand because strength is the function of muscles. That depends on how you use them. Exercise, specifically strength training, tells your muscles how to function well and be strong. Only exercise can do this for you. Since functioning better in daily life is one of the main reasons for weight loss surgery, exercise is an essential part of success.

Studies support other benefits of exercising before weight loss surgery is:

better blood pressure control
better blood sugar control
decrease of inflammation
improvement of cardiovascular function (Ie; less shortness of breath, lower risk of heart attack, more energy)

If you want to lose weight to be healthy, isn’t it nice to know you can be healthier while losing weight!

Fitness is a measure of your function in daily life. The image above shows that people represented by the grey line, who didn’t exercise before or after surgery don’t improve their fitness levels after weight loss surgery. Having weight loss surgery is too much work to miss out on this key benefit of weight loss!

As shown in the top two lines in the chart, people who exercise improve fitness and thus are probably enjoying the most success from weight loss surgery. Notice though, the people who do best are the ones represented in the blue line. They are the ones who exercise before and after weight loss surgery.

Exercising before weight loss surgery is one of the best ways to prepare for surgery and up your odds of success after weight loss surgery. Exercising prepares your body by giving it the strength and stamina it needs for surgery and recovery. You are also preparing your mind for making exercise part of your lifestyle, so you stay strong and function better with every pound lost. If you feel stuck, unable to exercise, know that the problem is not your mind or your body. You simply need exercise that is specifically for you, someone who is preparing for weight loss surgery. When exercise addresses the unique needs of someone preparing for weight loss surgery, those physical and emotional struggles with exercise are much less.

Hopefully in the future more research will provide the incentive for more bariatric programs to make exercise a part of their program. UMass Memorial Weight Center is unique in their commitment to including clinical exercise support and guidance as part of the preparation for surgery and success after surgery. If you are preparing for weight loss surgery, make the commitment to include exercise as part of that preparation, seek guidance and support from professionals who understand your unique needs, and give yourself the best chance for success before and after surgery.

Keep Moving, Be Well,

Janet

Leave a comment

by keepitmovingweekly2 | June 29, 2021 · 2:03 pm

Image

More screen time? How to use exercise to stay well.

blog (1)

The one thing every one of us has in common right now is that our lifestyle has changed. For some, it is filled with more time demands and less time for self care. For others, the social distancing has been a great opportunity to do more self care, catch up on home projects and enjoy moving in the outdoors with family. We will use this next blog series to take a look at what changes you want to keep and which ones you need to adjust to allow you to keep moving and be well for the duration of this outbreak, and beyond.

Because social distancing is a key strategy for controlling the spread of COVID-19, many of us have started to meet with friends and co-workers remotely online. The last pandemic in 1918 did not have this luxury. We are fortunate to live in a time where technology can help us stay connected and do our work. The downside however is more time looking at a screen which limits the movement of our whole body for more time each day.

You might have noticed in in greater tension in your neck or hands, more back pain or headaches. When connecting in person, movement is built in. When staring at a screen to connect, not only is movement limited, but your body is pulled out of alignment. Your head weighs about 12 lb. When you are looking forward, your head gradually migrates forward too and that pulls your spine out of alignment. (not a chiropractic alignment, but a positioning of your body so your spine is lined up). Its normal to slip into a slouch. But, as we discussed last week, sitting or standing out of alignment creates more work for muscles in your body and those muscles then have to let you know they are over working. The way they do that is through pain and stiffness.

When your screen time is stressful, it also strains your body. Stress prepares your body for movement. Like revving the engine in your car when it is not moving, sitting and being stressed wastes energy. This is why you can feel like you ran a marathon after a day of working on your computer. Your body is working and draining your energy because it is ready to move.

But even if you do take walking breaks, your body is still missing something important – whole-body movement. Walking is a limited movement. Every part of your body that moves needs to move on those screen time breaks. Taking whole-body movement breaks, with movements for everything from your eyes to your feet is how exercise can help you stay well even with more screen time. Here is how:

Start by closing your eyes and bring your attention to your body and your breath to help you relax as you do the following movements
Look at the farthest distance you can, then move your eyes (without moving your head) side to side, up and down, all around. Hold on to something as you do this if you tend to lose your balance easily
While sitting or standing, take off your shoes if possible, and move the joints in your feet and ankles
Bend and straighten your knees slowly all the way
Move your hips around by moving your legs in all directions one leg at a time sitting or standing and shifting your weight around through your hip joints
Face a wall, chair or table and hold on as you move your spine slowly in all directions
Hold on with one hand to something stable and then move your other arm through your shoulder joint, elbow joint, wrists and fingers
Sit or stand holding on to something and move around through your neck, lifting your head slowly up and down and side to side

Research supports the importance of using exercise to be healthy, both in one longer bout several times a week and by moving in several short bouts sprinkled thorough each day.

This study of adults ages 64-84 found sitting time was directly connected to lower muscle mass and those who took more frequent breaks from sitting had a 45% lower risk of sarcopenia- the loss of muscle mass that is strongly connected to longevity and health.
This study found that having lower back pain was connected with sitting time. As sitting time went down, so did lower back pain.
This study found that breaking up sitting time every thirty minutes with three minute bouts of simple strength training exercises resulted in lower blood sugars after meals.

Bottom Line: To stay well in this new normal that involves more screen time, one of the most beneficial things you can do is get up every thirty minutes and move each part of your body from your eyes to your feet.

Keep moving, be well,

Janet

Leave a comment

by keepitmovingweekly2 | June 23, 2020 · 6:40 pm

Image

Strengthen your immune system; the role of stress and exercise

How to get enough exercise in the busy seasons of your life (15)

There is a lot of talk lately about how to protect yourself from germs. Certainly washing your hands and staying away from people who are sick is at the top of the list. The irony however is that all this talk about preventing illness is causing a lot of stress and anxiety, putting the body in a state that is lowering defenses against the illnesses we are concerned about. Exercise, when used correctly, is the antidote to the stress response. It puts your body back in a state where it can defend against illnesses.

When you are in a stress response, your body makes changes to protect you from immediate danger. It down-regulates the not so urgent work, such as digestion, repair and healing, and puts energy into getting ready to take care of the ‘threat’. The way we are hardwired to defend against stress is to move, in order to fight or flee the problem. All the things that happen in your body when you are stressed is to prepare you to move so you can fight or run away from the ‘threat’. Basically, when you are stressed your body puts less effort into defending against illness and more effort into preparing to move. Do you see the problem with this stress response in our modern day life?

Because most of our stressors are not helped by fighting or fleeing, and we have many constant underlying stressors, we can be in a chronic state of ‘ready to move’, rather than ready to defend against illness. We only add to that when it is stressful to get enough exercise, or we make exercise more stressful than it needs to be.

Several studies show that you only need to do moderate intensity exercise, five days a week for about 20 minutes to enjoy a 40% reduction in upper respiratory infections. (This is even after they adjusted for factors such as age, marital status, gender, body mass index (BMI), and perceived mental stress.)

To use exercise correctly in order to help your immune system stay strong:

Listen to your body. Do the amount, type and intensity that is just right for your body. When exercise is exhaustive, it can actually lower immune system function. If exercise makes you feel better mentally and physically, (and not just because it is ‘over with’) you know you have found the right level.
Be consistent. Something done regularly is much better than a large amount of exercise done once in a while. That’s because the way exercise strengthens your immune system lasts for about a day and improves as fitness levels improve.
Make it stress reducing. You would not go for a pedicure or out for an expensive dinner with the mindset you just need to ‘get through it’, would you? Treat your exercise time like you would any other self-care activity. When you set it up to be a treat, and your stress level is most likely to dissolve as you restore a relaxed state where your immune system can do its job.

Regular exercise is an important strategy for each of us, especially now. How you exercise makes all the difference in how well it reduces stress so your immune system can help you stay healthy and well.

Keep Moving, Be Well,

Janet

1 Comment

by keepitmovingweekly2 | March 10, 2020 · 6:59 pm

Image

Spring Training Check In: What direction are you heading?

In November, we started Spring Training. Staying active and consistently exercising through the winter is challenging. It becomes more motivating when you realize you are doing it for a purpose, like to enjoy the activities you like to do on that first beautiful Spring day.

With are only five weeks until the first official day of Spring, it’s time to check in. Which direction are you heading in? Are you on the path to a Spring that starts with soreness and limitations or are you on the path to a Spring that allows you to do the activities you need and want to do with ease?

If your motivation has taken you off the path to an easy and enjoyable time in Spring, lets renew your energy for Spring Training.

Close your eyes and fast forward to the first beautiful day in Spring. Ask yourself the following:

What do I want to be able to do in Spring?
How do I want to feel?
What do I need to do that activity – more strength, stamina, mobility?
What is one thing I can do starting today that will tell my body to build more of that over the next five weeks?

The great news is, exercise does not need to take a lot of time, it only needs to be done consistently and your body will adapt. Starting your day with one set of an exercise that you know will improve your strength. Taking five to ten minutes before dinner to dance or walk. Before going to bed each night doing that one stretch that you know feels so good. These are so small you might think they are not worth it, but think again. It’s the natural laws of nature that they will work. Just like snow is designed to melt at a certain temperature, your body is designed to adapt to what you give it. Let it know you are in Spring Training and it will keep you on a path to a more enjoyable season ahead.

Keep Moving, Be Well, Think Spring!

Janet

Leave a comment

by keepitmovingweekly2 | February 11, 2020 · 8:58 pm

Image

How can exercise keep your immune system strong?

How to get enough exercise in the busy seasons of your life (9)

Cold and flu season are in full swing. With news stories of worldwide of flu rates, you are probably trying to do the extras to stay healthy this season. Here is how exercise can help keep your immune system strong.

How does exercise help your immune system protect you from illness?

Some of these theories according to Medline Plus are:

Exercise may help flush bacteria out of the lungs and airways. This may reduce your chance of getting a cold, flu, or other illness.
Exercise causes change in antibodies and white blood cells (WBC). WBCs are the body’s immune system cells that fight disease. These antibodies or WBCs circulate more rapidly, so they could detect illnesses earlier than they might have before. However, no one knows whether these changes help prevent infections.
The brief rise in body temperature during and right after exercise may prevent bacteria from growing. This temperature rise may help the body fight infection better. (This is similar to what happens when you have a fever.)
Exercise slows down the release of stress hormones. Some stress increases the chance of illness. Lower stress hormones may protect against illness.

How much is enough exercise to help keep your immune system strong?

This study found that just twenty minutes of moderate intensity cardiovascular exercise was enough to have significant improvements in immune system function by having an anti-inflammatory effect on the body. Some studies show that exercising over an hour or exercising to exhaustion can actually lower the immune systems ability to fight off those germs you are encountering every day. Moderate intensity is the amount that feels comfortable, not uncomfortable, for your breathing.

How does exercise help you recover well from illness?

Even if you do end up with a cold or flu, exercise is an important part of ensuring your body gets back to its usual functioning level as soon as possible. When you are recovering from an illness, bed rest is needed. During bed rest your body can lose up to 12% of its strength per week. Your connective tissue, bone and cardiovascular system all lose function during that time too. Getting back to a regular exercise routine helps you regain what you have lost so your body can make a full recovery and your immune system can bounce back quicker. When you restart exercise, start at less than 50% of what you were doing before you got sick. Most importantly, listen to your body! If it increases fatigue, cut it back even more. If it gives you energy and makes you feel better you know you found the right ‘starting dose’ of exercise to help your recover. Increase by about 10% per week, and continue to listen to your body.

Bottom Line: A simple lunchtime walk or family dance party before dinner could be all you need to use exercise as part of the ways you stay well this season. Exercise does not need to be complicated or fatiguing, just consistent so those everyday germs don’t stand a chance in your healthy and well body.

Keep moving, Be well!

Janet