6 weeks post-op: Return to Exercise!

If you've read any of my recent posts, you know I've been concerned about returning to exercise after my first round of reconstructive surgeries. Today is my 42nd day post-op, so I'm clear for returning to my regularly scheduled program. I've been in contact with my surgeon to confirm, and reconfirm. I've been in contact with my fitness instructors as well so that they're a) aware of what I've had done and b) have time to consider any modifications I might need to incorporate. (I take yoga, tai chi, and mat pilates classes.)

My plan for this first week is as follows:

Monday - gentle yoga at home to check in with my body and see how it wants to move and how it doesn't want to move. (I use the Yoga Studio App which is amazing and opted for the 15 minute beginner relaxation class.)

Tuesday - this is a running day, so my plan is to "walk around the block" twice to see how my body is moving. This will be 1.6 miles and I'll never be more than .5 miles from the house. Then some gentle yoga stretching.

Wednesday - pilates class, yoga class.

Thursday - also a running day. My plan is to walk my normal loop in my development assuming Tuesday went well. This will be 2.2 miles. Then gentle yoga stretching.

Friday - I'll be out of town, but do have a bit of walking planned.

Saturday - Out of town still, but going to a place with my mom that will have us walking 5+ miles. Can't wait!

Sunday - Still out of town. My mom and I will play ping pong for an hour or two and she'll kick my butt. It'll be great.

If all goes well this week, next week I'll try to add some short running intervals (15 seconds out of every minute) and I'll add in pilates/yoga hybrid class and tai chi class on Friday.

I've already done my yoga for the day and I'm happy to report that it went wonderfully well! Definitely have a loss of flexibility that I'll need to work on. I had one small twinge of discomfort in my abdomen when going into a reclined twist but was able to quickly make an adjustment to alleviate it. Lots of stiffness in non-abdominal muscles due to lack of use. But, overall, no concerning pain and it felt great to move and stretch my body. I consider this a win!

It quickly became apparent that I won't need to worry too much about moving too far in any one direction because my body seems to actually be incapable of moving too far right now. The "class" started out with a few forward folds and my body just sort of said "nope, this is how far you can fold right now." No pain, just a loss of flexibility. Loss of flexibility is something I can totally work with, though, because, hey, that's how it was when I originally started yoga and exercise. I expected that I'd have a bunch of deconditioning to work through. My main fear was pain (which, to me, equals risk of damage) and whether or not I'd be able to hear/heed that pain.

Today is definitely a GREAT DAY for me. I'm curious to see how I'll feel as the day goes on and if I'll notice any increase in swelling. My surgeon warned me that I might, but that it would go away overnight and was totally normal and nothing to panic about :)

Four weeks to go until surgery #2 so I'm looking forward to making the most of these four weeks as possible so I'll be in the best shape as I can be before doing this again :D

Congrats! Sounds like a very level headed, well thought plan.

It's been almost a decade since my LBL in early 2008, but I seem to recall that I couldn't do any serious lifting or strenuous ab work for 8 weeks, but there were lots of activities I could do (in and out of the gym), after about 4 weeks. You are doing the right thing in simply listening to your body. Enjoy!

Thank you!

I've been in contact with my pilates instructor about ab work and she's being super conscientious on my behalf to make sure that she keeps me from damaging myself. She's worked with people who have had diastasis recti repairs before and is also contacting a colleague who has more experience so I'm super grateful for her caution. (She's amazing.) Pilates mat work is basically 99% abs, so.. it's the big concern for me of the things I do.

Fingers all crossed :D

Sounds like you have a great instructor. I had a trainer back then that was the same - cautious and conscientious. I'm sure everything will be fine. No phalanges crossing needed. :)

Awesome news!!

Happy for you!

Nice to be able to work at getting some of the kinks out and flex those muscles.

Congrats on getting back to it. Personally, I feel like I'm so far behind in my recovery compared to you. I had surgery 27 days ago, and I'm hobbling around, hunched over.

You give me hope that I'll be able to function normally in a few weeks.

I feel like I've had huge improvement in the last two weeks - which is how far sort out surgeries were. It definitely gets better!

It took me a lot longer, too, Deanna. Hang in there.

An update!

On Tuesday I ended up walking around the mall instead of my development since I actually slept well and then overslept and then it was too gross outside. But that was great to walk.

Today I did pilates and yoga and they both went well! Lots of modifications and I have a lot of work ahead of me to get back to where I was, but I'm on the road and that's all that matters to me at this point. No pain. Definitely tiring both from the physical work and the mental work of "listening to my body."

WOO!