Nice Job Kym,

Hello All: I wanted to let you know some of the meet results from Oklahoma City. Our team, "Texas Diamonds", took 1st overall. Most of our team members set new World Records. I took two first place titles and set a new American and World Record for the deadlift (Sub-Masters 1). I can't remember what the kilo was, but as soon as the results are posted you can check them out at http://www.nasa-sports.com/. The record was set on the third lift, but I did complete a forth...unfortunately, I had one white light and two reds so it didn't count. That is okay. I have a long way to go on correcting my form (use my back more than my legs....VERY inefficient!) and I have only been lifting seriously for three weeks. We will see where it goes from here. Hope you are all doing well! Kym

Hi Mz Nae: Don't be too sure that you are too old for weight lifting! You've gotten familiar with the possibilities for track besides running, but you've got some learning to do about weight lifting. The very famous Duke Diet and Fitness Center has *senior citizen women* lifting weights for the first time in their lives, to prevent or mitigate problems with osteoporosis (did you know that lifting weights can help with maintaining bone density?), and to help them with stability, etc. They, too, thought it was about something entirely different, with people having to lift a huge amount of weight to get a benefit but that is not true. In fact, it is considered so critical for health and fitness that all people, athletes and lay people alike, should do some sort of resistance training in order to maintain health and fitness, and for those having weight loss surgery, it is absolutely imperative that you do resistance training (aka weight lifting). Weight lifting raises your metabolism so you burn more fat, and helps to prevent muscle loss from massive weight loss through calorie restriction and/or malabsorption. If you have joined a gym, I would strongly recommend having a personal trainer do a couple of sessions with you to show you how weight lifting can help you! You'd be amazed at what is and isn't *weight lifting*! Welcome to the forum, anyway, and let us know if we can help in any way. With kindest regards, Donna E.

Like Earl said, there are limits to what exercise and weight lifting or all of the nonsurgical options combined can do to help with loose/excess skin, but you can improve the contours of your body, which will need a lot of work as you lose weight, and to some extent, this will help with filling in spaces in some parts where you can build some muscle to fill out areas that have become deflated and where there are muscles that can be expanded and refined to give a better shape. Think of it this way: you have your skin, and you have everything under it. For the most part, what is under it is up to you to change, depending upon how hard you are willing to work on it. Most people are aware of loose skin issues that will arise with massive weight loss, and anticipate that they will want or need to do something about it as they go through the weight loss process or afterward, but few people really think about the fact that the entire body contours themselves will be dramatically changed as the weight comes off, and if you leave the body to take its own form along the way by not doing resistance exercises and cardio and stretching, etc., more likely than not, they will not be pleased with the form that their body takes. It's the predictable melted person look; the fat disappears, without resistance exercises and adequate protein much of the muscle is broken down as well due to severe calorie restriction and/or malabsorption. I did not want my body to develop haphazardly on its own as I lost weight; I wanted to direct the recontouring as the weight loss progressed. I think that a lot of people don't anticipate and think this part through because frankly, they have gotten into the habit of *not* looking at their bodies much (I didn't when I was obese), because they didn't like the way it looked and felt helpless to change it, etc., and have become very divorced from this kind of scrutiny. Only when clothing becomes problematic when dropping into smaller sizes and it becomes difficult to cloth the body with lots of loose skin, or when abdominoplasty or other plastic surgery becomes medically necessary do they become sensitive to the problem, and even then, do not realize just how much control they have over the newly formed body as weight loss progresses and after weight loss is completed. However, I was a bodybuilder in my early twenties (many moons ago) before I started getting sick, and I knew that at least in my 20's, I had the ability to manipulate my physique to some extent to get shape, form, contouring that I sought. Successfully fighting and getting control over multiple chronic illnesses and having the ability to finally conquer the obesity as well gave me an idea that I had as much control over my body as I chose to exercise, and shortly after my surgery I started working on it. Even when I was confronted with major obstacles that negatively impacted my health and how I looked, I took a scientific approach (rather than an emotional one) to getting things under control and improving my situation. I had very rare severe longterm complications after my surgery that continued to plague me 9 months after my surgery. There was very little food that I could tolerate at all, and I lost way more weight than I wanted to lose and was quite sick for a while. All the work that I had done along the way to put on muscle and get in shape was falling apart, as my muscle wasted away on me everywhere. I lost a huge amount of skeletal muscle, and suddenly I had bat wings, a completely deflated sagging butt, sagging thighs, tummy, breasts, even on my back I had sagging skin that I had managed to avoid through weight lifting earlier. At about one year, I had improved such that I was able to put on some weight again, and I started working with a trainer to regain lost muscle and give my body shape again. As a 44 year old woman at the time, I can tell you that this was not an easy thing to do! Doable? Yes. Hard work? You betcha! After about 6 months, I was able to recover the lost muscle, and filled out my thighs, arms, buttocks, back, and even to some extent improved my breasts as well, giving them some fullness and lift with muscle development all over the chest (pectoral muscles). Filling out the deltoids and trapezius muscles along the shoulders and upper back gave a terrific lift to the loose skin front and back, as well as filling out and giving a tighter look all the way down my back with the muscles along the spine. Glutes (butt muscles) and quadriceps are most readily developed because they are such large muscles anyway, if you're willing to do the work, and I mean work, to develop them. Now if you rely on muscles to mitigate the loose skin issues in areas where you are able to do that, this is great, as long as you maintain them (hint hint), because just as you can grow them, you can also lose them through lack of exercise, poor diet, etc. Now the flip side of that is that plastic surgery can only do so much to give you contours, so don't assume that because you have decided to go under the knife, that you will get results comparable to the results you can get by working out. In fact, the best outcome for you would be to do both, if you have loose skin that is not improved with putting on muscle or muscles that have become so stretched or torn from obesity that they need some surgical help to align and tighten them up again. If you are wanting to address loose skin, loose skin can be moved, removed surgically, you can get breast implants and yes, even butt implants, if you want them, but in general, if you want a really shapely physique, you will have to deliver part of this yourself by maintaining a commitment to fitness. It will also aid you in recovering much more quickly from surgery, including plastic surgery, if you are very fit and have good circulation otherwise. Bottom line: the best plan is to combine resistance exercises with plastic surgery, to the extent that plastic surgery is needed to give you the optimal condition after massive weight loss. I'm walking proof of what anyone can do with weight lifting if they want to, in terms of the body's muscles and form, and the skin can be addressed in terms of what remains to be done, in your estimation, with what can't be helped with exercise. With kindest regards, Donna E.

Hiya Val, Well you SHOULD be pleased with the incredible gains that you have made and will continue to make! Isn't it neat when we finally get the kids trained to expect that workouts are a way of life for us post-ops? When I am heading to the gym after work or from home, nobody raises an eyebrow about it, because that is now *life as usual*. They can *see* why I do it from the results that I have achieved over time and that I continue to achieve. They can *see* the benefits that it has, not only to my life, but to the quality of life of the entire household! I am fitter, happier, have more energy, more creative, more enthusiastic, you name any part of my life, and my workouts and overall lifestyle choices have had a tremendously positive impact. In my job, the WLS and my resulting fitness have resulted in my getting two promotions, one year apart! So yeah, family accepting the workout schedule is pretty much a no-brainer, especially after you get down the road with the workouts and they can see the results, too. I describe the skin on my belly as being wrinkled, though there is a slight sag to it, as well, though on a good day when my abs are as tight as they can be from working out, I can almost eliminate all but the wrinkling, but I can't sustain that over time. The skin over my abdomen hangs like garlands on a Christmas tree, to give you an idea. A plastic surgeon has also told me that my abdominal muscles down the center have been torn apart from the years of obesity and possibly child-bearing as well, and that they need to be *corsetted* back to restore alignment and provide the best support. The muscles could also use a stitch or two to bring them back to pre-obese tightness, and all of this the plastic surgeon viewed as *fine tuning* for me. I am a size 6 petite or 7 junior now, clothing-wise, and I have quite a bit of excess skin there (don't know exactly how much weight-wise), and I think I would probably drop another pant size if I had the abdominoplasty done. I used to have tons of skin tags on my neck and face and abdomen before WLS, though not now. Where do those things go? I don't remember actually removing them, but I don't see them now. Have you noticed improvement in fullness in the breasts from your chest workouts? I actually have, and since I stopped losing weight, I also have gotten a little of the fullness back independently of the muscle--not enough for me to be satisfied with what is left, to be sure, but every little bit helps till I can do something with them. The agony is pretty much a given on the legs while I'm restoring myself to my routines and regaining lost muscle tissue, so I accept that, even if I'm not crazy about it! It is a common saying that the things we dislike doing the most are probably the things that we need to do the most, and that tends to drive my focus in my workouts. I do get to where I look forward to leg days after a while, which generally tells me that I've made some good progress, or else I would be dreading it! Speaking of leg day, today is leg day! I crashed early last night after two nights of 4 hrs of sleep. I just can't sleep late in the morning, so if I stay up late, I will be sleep-deprived. I woke up at 1:30, looked at the alarm clock, did the math, and thought, "Oh no, I can't do a leg workout with 4 hours of sleep, no way!" So I managed to coax myself back to sleep and slept till 5:30, which gave me a solid 8 hours and I woke up feeling good and ready to tackle the day! And speaking of leg workouts, I'm meeting my training partner at 9am, so I need to get my butt in gear! Hugs, Donna Earley