when should you start weight lifting?

Good morning everyone :)

I have been getting in a lot more exercise the last few weeks, but I'm not sure I am doing it right. I am doing 1 hour cardio workouts (Zumba and water aerobics) 3-4 days a week, and doing treadmill and weight machines 2-3 days a week. I started wondering about something I had heard long ago, its prolly not true but I heard that doing weights can make parts of your body, such as legs and arms, larger if you start before you have lost all the fat in these areas.  So I guess my question to you guys as fellow WLS patients did you start working out with weight machines right away or wait till you were closer to your goal? I do not want to keep these huge arms that I still have : (


Have a good day!

 

Start once you have been cleared by your doctor.  Mine said 6 weeks after surgery.
I made the mistake of waiting to do the resistance/weight training and I lost a lot of my strength and muscle tone.  I am having to build it back up now.

You don't have to do weight to bulk up, it takes some serious training if you are worried about or considering a body builder type of muscle building routine.  You can do light weight with a higher repition and work on toning your muscles.

Muscle will burn calories just hanging around, so the more lean muscle mass you have the better calorie burn you are going to have.

One problem you may have is that the extra skin may not be going to go away.  None of the exercises are going to make that happen.  Either it will snap back or it won't.  Based on genetics, how stretched it was, how long it has been stretched etc.

I would encourage you to keep up with the weight training, get a session or two with a trainer, make sure you are doing them correctly, have them help set you up with a plan that will encourage supporting your muscles so that you don't have to rebuild and you can maintain the muscle you have now.

Good luck

Scott

Hi Scott,

Thank you for the reply it seems like great advise. I am a lil worried about the skin issue, but so far its not to bad.  I had no clue muscle would help burn fat so that works for me!

Good luck in all that you do!

My surgeon said 6 weeks also.  8 felt more appropriate for me but I still ended up with an incisonal hernia that I attribute to too much too soon in the gym. 

When you build muscle it does take up more space but it wouldn't be so much that you really noticed at first.  Building muscle allows you to burn more calories at rest so that when you are sitting around doing nothing you will burn more than you would with less muscle.

HI Scott,

Wow,  both of you are Scotts giggles :)  Messing with my blondness made me do a double take lol.

Thank you for your reply, you both seem to agree about  the muscle burning fat better so I guess Im headed in the right direction!

Good luck in all that you do!

Im five months out now and I go to the gym 4 days a week.I do 30 minutes of cardio and I use free trainer.com and it tells you what to do daily when you go.It ask you questions about you and how often you want to work out and what type of body ton you want.Im weighting in at 169 and im wearing a size 12 I noticed its toning me and helping me drop inches.Good luck to you.

Hiya Mrs. neighbor :)

Wow, you are doing great g/f!  Seems like yest we were talking about wonderland and now your well into that territory... I'm so happy for you!

I am going to head over to that web page now and see if I can get my info for a good workout.

Thank you for the reply and web site.

Good luck in your journey!