One of my coworkers is an amateur body builder. He's one of 2 people at work who know that I will be taking the surgical route. He and I got into an interesting discussion on how body builders bulk and cut before a competition. He mentioned that since I would be getting surgery, it would be interesting to see if getting some muscle before surgery would counter the muscle loss usually sustained after surgery.

I'm doing this for my own health, but I had to.admit, this was a pretty interesting concept. Work out as hard as my body will allow and then the surgery do the cutting? It would help fill out a lot of loose skin, that's for sure.

Thoughts?

I didn't start ANY type of exercise till post-op but YES, it has helped (some) fill out saggy skin. I've added some muscle in the past few months and I notice my arms don't flap as much and my chest is tighter too. My legs are a bitt less flabby as well and I can actually see definition rather than just sag. Granted I am doing more aerobic exercise than resistance / body building.

Hey, if you do it then GO FOR IT. It certainly can't hurt at all.

Dont forget to love your skin! Long milkbaths and glycerin and compression garments to help "hold it all in place" wil help too.

I think it's a good idea!

What I wonder is, is there any downside to working my abdominal muscles before surgery? Maybe I'm just looking for an excuse to slack during my exercise class, but shouldn't weaker and thinner abdominal muscles mean less needs to be cut through and damaged? Or is it better to have good healthy muscle to encourage growth and healing?

More abdominal muscle is better - more for the surgeon to work with during suturing and it will hold suture better and is less likely to result in an incisional hernia.

Never heard a surgeon complain about someone being in too good of a shape....but they sure hate out of shape people.

In my personal opinion, I think it's good to do it before the surgery. I kept lifting a lot before my surgery and up through the first week of the liquid pre-op diet. Then I hit the wall from carb depletion and stopped working out for the last week of the liquid diet. Your muscles want glycogen to repair themselves after being broken down in the workout and with the no carb or extremely low carb pre-surgery liquid diet, you MAY do your muscles more harm than good once all of the stored carbs are gone from your liver during that last week or so of the pre-op diet. That's just my guess. It would be interesting to hear other people's thoughts on this. But lifting all the way up through the beginning of the liquid diet sounds like a good idea to me. Muscles have memory, and I think I got my strength back a lot sooner after my surgery due to this muscle memory. However, muscle size was really slow to come back. Also, after doing more research on this, I wish my Dr would have recommended also taking L-glutamine and branch chain amino acids during my weight loss. These supplements are known to preserve more muscle (along with the protein) during rapid weight loss. So that might be a good idea as well. BCAAs and Glutamine are relatively inexpensive and there are some already in many of the whey protein supplements. "Inline", it sounds like it may be worth looking into these supplements if you are a lifter. We work hard for our gains in the gym, might as well do all that we can to preserve those muscles you earned. Good luck and keep us updated!

So after several consultant with my Nutritionist and personal trainer roomie, I have decided to start off with medium intensity circuit training and cardio. Keep in mind, I'm not sleeved and I haven't exercised seriously in 10 years.

Our plan is to spend a month getting me to a point where I can do high intensity circuit training and 30+ minutes of cardio. So 3 days (mon, wed, fri) of circuit training and cardio and 2 days (tue, thur) of pure cardio.

From there, we replace 2 of the circuit training days with weight training days to build muscle. The other day will still be for circuit training to build strength.

I've already been doing this since Monday. At 300+ lbs, its definitely not easy to keep up the pace, but giving up is not an option.

Thoughts?

Any kind of exercise I'm sure is a good thing. Seems a little complicated to keep up with, so I'm sure writting all of that down and scheduling it helps. Long cardio (45+ mins) CAN deplete muscle some as your body wants to use it up for energy, so you may want to make sure to get some protein in right after the workout. Good luck with the exercise and the surgery!

I started doing elliptical and light weight lifting a month before surgery. I was able to do 30 minutes at a pretty high intensity. I know this helped with my recovery. Having a higher level of endurance can only translate into quicker recovery.

Day of surgery (I was outpatient), I was discharged at 11:30, went to hotel and took a 4 hour nap. Got up, took my wife out to dinner and walked all over downtown Las Vegas (Baby!). Next day, went to M&M, MGM, Venetian ... walked over 5 miles. Next day, same thing. Before flying home, I met with my surgeon and he was amazed at my recovery. He also believed my fitness played a large part.

I think what you are doing will pay large dividends in the long run, for sure. I don't think there is any way to completely avoid muscle loss, but building some up before hand will at least give you some reserve. Post-op, when you are able to get your Protein in and get back to the gym, you won't have nearly as far to go.

Good luck and keep us posted on how everything goes.

Inline, sounds like a great plan - I'll echo what the others say, make sure you get some protein before your workout, and getting your endurance up and having muscle before the surgery should be good for recovery. I'm 4 days into my 2 week pre-op diet, and I was so glad that I felt energized enough to work out yesterday in my class. 600 cal just seems so low; my SparkPeople.com fitness tracker won't let me put in a calorie goal less than 1000.

I've been using myfitnesspal to keep track of calorie intake, Protein, carbs, fat, and exercise. I'm intaking about 1400 calories (~15g fat, 160g+ protein, and ~35g carb). Also doing about 80 oz of Water a day. It seems I'm burning 5-800 calories at the gym.

In terms of weight loss, I'm doing phenomenal - about a pound a day. Though I have no idea how much muscle I'm gaining (if any). Of course, time will tell if what I'm doing is paying off or not, but I feel like I'm on the right track.

I've been reading your comments too (quoting/multiquoting on a phone is stupid though) and it seems like I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing. I doubt I'm gonna walk 5 miles through Vegas after surgery though. I do love me some blackjack in AC though...

5 miles through Vegas in July ... yeah, it wasn't easy and most was inside the casinos, but when you start experiencing the gas pain, you want to get rid of it as fast as possible.

Quick update.

Currently still carrying on with circuit training, but I've eliminated leg exercises completely. If I do leg exercises, I find that I can't do elliptical after. I've also upped the weight several times on most of the machines. Eventually, when I build up some more strength, I will move over to free weights.

On the elliptical, I can generally pound out 3 miles in 40 mins on resistance 3. I try to stay at about 70% of max heart rate. In fact, its getting harder to get my heart rate up which is why I upped the resistance in the first place. I was hopping on and had trouble breaking HR of 135 25 minutes in.

As far as the weight loss goes, I was 311 on the day that I started and I'm currently at 293. I thought I would lose weight quicker, but I must be building muscle too (I must be insane, but I swear I can feel muscle).

Diet is as follows:

Breakfast: 2 eggs over medium, 2 wheat toast, 1 tbsp salsa

Snack: fresh fruit

Lunch: a la carte salad from cafeteria at work - romaine lettuce, chicken, carrots, kidney Beans, onion, parmesean cheese, and fat free Italian dressing

Snack: 1/3 cup raw almonds

Pre workout - Powerbar

Post workout (M,W,F) - muscle milk

Dinner: Chicken, Broccoli, Salsa

Myfitnesspal usually puts my caloric intake at 1750-1900 calories a day and I usually burn between 750-800 a day at the gym.

Workout schedule:

Mon, Wed, Fri- 2x Circuit (23 mins per circuit), 15-20 mins elliptical

Tues, Thur - 45 minutes elliptical

For weight machines, I'm up to about 75 pounds for most machines and I can do those continuously for the entire minute. I started off at 30 pounds. I try going up one weight every week especially if I don't hit the point of failure.

Looking for criticism (constructive or otherwise), comments, concerns etc.

Inline, If you're insane, I must be too, because I felt the muscle a long time before I could see the muscle.

To me, your routine looks pretty good. I just have one question, caution. And, remember, I'm a girl, so my goal is different than yours. Adding one weight a week seems a little ambitious. I personally think I get better results by keeping my weights low and doing more repetitions. For instance, I do biceps curls with 25 pounds of weights on the machine. The first few (15 or so) are fairly easy, but I do 45 reps per machine. By the time I get to 45 reps, I'm feeling the (good) burn in my biceps. I had NO muscle tone and started my exercise journey with 2 pound, then 5 pound, weights. I'd do 10-20 reps to start with and really hurt. Now I'm up to the 25 (which is 12.5 pounds per arm, right?) and doing 45 reps. I see definition in my arms and my batwings are starting to reabsorb some. I CAN lift more, but I'm choosing not to because my goal is to end up toned, not bulked up.

What I'm suggesting, then, is that you add more reps rather than more weights. You probably have more muscle strength than I do just because you're male, so your starting weights will be well above mine, but the concept is the same, IMO.

The only other thing I'd do to tweak your diet is to eliminate the bread from your Breakfast routine, or at least only eat 1 slice rather than two. Those carbs aren't going to anything positive because it looks like you're working out around dinner time.

I think you're doing great!

Hey Lissa, thanks for the tip!

I'm limited by the amount of reps I can do.in one minute. Keeping proper form and enough speed, I can usually do 25-30 reps in a minute. Circuit training revolves around rotating exercises every minute with no pause and break. For example, I do a minute of bicep curls, minute of cardio, minute of lateral presses, minute of cardio etc. The entire "circuit" takes me 23 minutes and I do 2 of those.

So I can't really increase reps, but I can increase weight which is what I've been doing. And considering I do 2 circuits, I do about 50-60 reps total. 25-30 of them are continuous.

As far as diet is concerned, I know I should cut out the bread completely, but if I do, I feel starved until lunch. The bread kinda helps to curb the hunger. Maybe I can eliminate one slice and see how that goes.