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You will lose muscle and strength post op, especially in the upper body. There is no way to prevent that with massive calorie deficits, even if you get to a point of eating over the recommended minimum Protein intake. Also you will not be lifting heavy for a long time nor do you want to in order not to rip, tear' or otherwise damage yourself. Try and eat as much Protein as you can during the "losing" phase and eat as few carbs as you can. Whatever carbs you do eat should be in the form of good carbs. Try and not cheat. Your future results will thank you.

When your weight converges on goal weight, slowly add good carbs and work towards lifting heavier and consistently. You do not want to eat a whole lot of carbs during the losing phase as that will slow your weight loss way down for most folks. Eventually, you will want to start eating 50% protein, 30% carb and 20% fat while you are still reducing body fat, even if at goal weight. Once you body fat reaches your goal (say, 10-12%), change the macros to 40% protein, 40% carb and 20% fat, still eating as clean as you can the entire time. Balancing out protein and carbs is ideal as protein needs carbs in order for optimal protein synthesis to occur. You can also play with carbohydrate timing. For example, I eat most of my carbs for first meal and meal after working out. The insulin response is going to be at optimal levels at these two times to maximize protein synthesis. Eat mostly protein and veggies the rest of the day, every 2-3 hours.

Depending in your ideal weight, you will want to eat 1-1.5 G protein per # of body weight and 300-500 calories under your point of calorie in and calorie out homeostasis. For me, that is about 220 G protein and 1800 calories respectively. Always drink a lot of Water the whole time. You will not only lose weight faster, but you will also cut faster because your hormones will balance out by themselves as the various toxins are flushed from your body. I am a strong believer in the application of nutritional and sports science ahead of the actual lifting. The actual lifting will result in disappointment if one does not get the nutrition and timing right.

As for the actual lifting, I currently do a standard split routine in the context of p90 x and am finishing up this program at the end of this month (may repeat or go onto another program like p90x/insanity hybrid or p90x2). It is a really good program. I also like doing workouts from "you are your own gym" because there are so many benefits behind functional training that you some times do not get from traditional split isometric routines (chest/back,legs/back, biceps/shoulders/back, etc). For this reason, I also enjoy cross fit. Oh how I love cross fit, but you do have to be careful about preventing injury and overtraining.

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Fiddleman we must have read the same medical research. For swimmers, its dead on - although it would need to be modified as you have done so because we do need more carbs for the swim than the weights. Still need it though for upper body strength.

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Go into it slow and you will be fine. The change to a super high Protein diet is helpful as well and not an option after surgery. I have lost over 140 lbs and gained over 20 lbs in muscle.

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Anyone lift seriously after surgery . I have been lifting more weight than I ever had in my life but I am also the heaviest I have ever been. Having surgery in next few months . I am so concerned about being weak and losing a lot if muscle when I lose weight

Hey McCarthy,

Would love to hear how you got on with your weightlifting after surgery?

I have also been seriously lifting for over the past year, hitting some decent numbers.

I think the general advice is to wait at least 6 weeks before going back lifting - what approach did you take? Did you roll back the numbers right to the bar & work up? how slow or fast was it?

What restricts you, is it purely fatigue?

I am not being open about my surgery so not sure how I am going to explain my rapidly decreasing numbers! Going from a 100kg squat to 20kg! :o

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It appears I am having little success trying to revive this old thread!

@@Dub you seem to be the guy that knows a lot about everything - any advice on this? :)

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It appears I am having little success trying to revive this old thread!

@@Dub you seem to be the guy that knows a lot about everything - any advice on this? :)

I have yet to resume lifting post-sleeve.

Allowing abdominal hernia repair to heal and dicey with right shoulder.

I want to badly, though.

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That's a pity!!

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Hey, I just saw this. Sorry, I don't visit much. It's a good topic, so I hope this thread can be helpful and if I can help with anything I'll be glad to. 4 year sleeve veteran here that lifts a lot.

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Hey, I just saw this. Sorry, I don't visit much. It's a good topic, so I hope this thread can be helpful and if I can help with anything I'll be glad to. 4 year sleeve veteran here that lifts a lot.

Did weightlifting help with batwings?

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Hey, I just saw this. Sorry, I don't visit much. It's a good topic, so I hope this thread can be helpful and if I can help with anything I'll be glad to. 4 year sleeve veteran here that lifts a lot.

Did weightlifting help with batwings?

Hello Georgeo! I didn't really have a problem with bat wings, but I think like many other small extra skin problem areas, resistance training can help. Tricep work and even some bicep work can help SOME in that area. Maybe some dips, tricep push down and even bicep curls that help isolate some of the arm muscles. Also, pullups, which mostly work lats, but work arms indirectly may be beneficial.

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    • Alisa_S

      On day 4 of the 2 week liquid pre-op diet. Surgery scheduled for June 11th.
      Soooo I am coming to a realization
      of something and I'm not sure what to do about it. For years the only thing I've enjoyed is eating. We rarely do anything or go anywhere and if we do it always includes food. Family comes over? Big family dinner! Go camping? Food! Take a short ride or trip? Food! Holiday? Food! Go out of town for a Dr appointment? Food! When we go to a new town we don't look for any attractions, we look for restaurants we haven't been to. Heck, I look forward to getting off work because that means it's almost supper time. Now that I'm drinking these pre-op shakes for breakfast, lunch, and supper I have nothing to look forward to.  And once I have surgery on June 11th it'll be more of the same shakes. Even after pureed stage, soft food stage, and finally regular food stage, it's going to be a drastic change for the rest of my life. I'm giving up the one thing that really brings me joy. Eating. How do you cope with that? What do you do to fill that void? Wow. Now I'm sad.
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      1. LeighaTR

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    • Alisa_S

      On day 4 of the 2 week liquid pre-op diet. Surgery scheduled for June 11th.
      Soooo I am coming to a realization
      of something and I'm not sure what to do about it. For years the only thing I've enjoyed is eating. We rarely do anything or go anywhere and if we do it always includes food. Family comes over? Big family dinner! Go camping? Food! Take a short ride or trip? Food! Holiday? Food! Go out of town for a Dr appointment? Food! When we go to a new town we don't look for any attractions, we look for restaurants we haven't been to. Heck, I look forward to getting off work because that means it's almost supper time. Now that I'm drinking these pre-op shakes for breakfast, lunch, and supper I have nothing to look forward to.  And once I have surgery on June 11th it'll be more of the same shakes. Even after pureed stage, soft food stage, and finally regular food stage, it's going to be a drastic change for the rest of my life. I'm giving up the one thing that really brings me joy. Eating. How do you cope with that? What do you do to fill that void? Wow. Now I'm sad.
      · 1 reply
      1. summerseeker

        Life as a big person had limited my life to what I knew I could manage to do each day. That was eat. I hadn't anything else to look forward to. So my eating choices were the best I could dream up. I planned the cooking in managable lots in my head and filled my day with and around it.

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        I still cook for family feasts, I love cooking. I still do holidays but I have changed from the All inclusive drinking and eating everything everyday kind to Self catering accommodation. This gives me the choice of cooking or eating out as I choose. I rarely drink anymore as I usually travel alone now and I feel I need to keep aware of my surroundings.

        I don't know at what point my life expanded, was it when I lost 100 pounds? Was it when I left my walking stick at home ? Was it when I said yes to an outing instead of finding an excuse to stay home ? i look back at my last five years and wonder how loosing weight has made such a difference. Be ready to amaze yourself.

        BTW, the liquid diet sucks, one more day and you are over the worst. You can do it.

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