Embrace the suck.
Tomorrow I will be 5 weeks post-op from my breast implant removal surgery. I had them removed because I believe they were causing me to have autoimmune issues from Breast Implant Illness (BII). Since my surgery I have seen small improvements… brain fog is better, my eyes and skin are brighter, inflammation has decreased in my face and body, joint pain has reduced, chronically peeling skin on my hands and feet have stopped peeling, and even things I didn’t realize could be related to my implants is starting to go away… such as numbness in my arms if I sit for too long or lay on my back. Some things I’m still struggling with are fatigue and I’ve had a lot of body image issues recently that I haven’t had for years… or ever had to be honest.
Overall I’m happy with these improvements, but now will come the real test… I’m going to start working out again.
I was technically cleared to workout last week, but I decided to wait another week to let me body heal more. I still don’t have complete range of motion in my arms, and my left incision is still very irritated and red. (I believe this is from the sutures… they’re not completely dissolved yet. I’ve had this happen before… my body doesn’t absorb sutures very well.) I’m not gonna lie… this surgery has kicked my butt! Typically I recover very well from surgeries, but this one… it’s taken me this whole time to recover. This probably due to the fact that I had 2 surgeries and I moved in 2 months time – THAT is a lot of stress to my body. I’m still struggling with fatigue, but I’m at a point where I want to add in more activity to see if it will actually help with the fatigue, but I know this first week or two is going to SUCK.
I stopped working out almost 6 months ago. Yes, I have been the personal trainer who doesn’t workout. lol…. But, I couldn’t do it anymore. Whenever I would try to I did not feel well. My muscles felt like 2 pieces of sandpaper rubbing together when I would lift weights… almost “crunchy” feeling, and doing any intense activity for more than 15 minutes would take me out of commission for days. I didn’t have DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness) which is typical from working out… especially for someone who isn’t very conditioned, but I would have EXTREME muscle fatigue for days… it was hard to do activities of daily living… not due to soreness, but due to muscle fatigue. I would have to rest 2-3 days following a 30 minute body weight workout. I would also be ravenous, and could never get “full”. It was extremely frustrating because I know I can’t out-exercise a poor diet… which my diet was extremely healthy, but working out would cause me to eat too much. It’s hard to explain, but I could tell working out wasn’t good for me at that time… which was later confirmed because my muscle enzymes were high (my muscles were breaking down)… high enough I had to have a muscle biopsy surgery to rule out an autoimmune muscle disease. I do not have that disease, but I have lost 8 pounds of skeletal muscle in 14 months (and in turn gained 12 pounds of fat. Ugh.) So, I’m nervous about working out… what if it’s the same? What if I went through all of this and nothing changed? That will be heartbreaking, but I’m not going to stress about it… I will deal with it if that is what happens.
What I am going to do is take action. Here is my plan for the next 5 weeks:
Intermittent fast 3 days/week. I don’t want to count Calories or macros… I’m just not mentally in a good place for that. I had been intermittent fasting for a while a year or so ago, and it felt good… until it didn’t. So, I’m going to try it and see how I feel. Other than that my diet won’t really change because I already eat extremely clean, and I typically don’t eat too much these days.
I’m going to lift weights for 30 mins 2-3x/week. This first week I will probably start with 2 workouts, then up it to 3 next week as long as I’m recovering well from each workout.
I’m going to sit in my infrared sauna for 30-60 min 5x/week. It is time for me to detox! As I am (hopefully) losing fat I want to move stored toxins from my fat cells out of my body. Infrared saunas have been shown to eliminate toxins such as heavy metals from fat cells.
I am going add 30 min very low intensity steady state cardio 2-3x/week in the beginning, and hopefully switch to 2 HIIT sessions/week once I’ve gained a little bit of my fitness back… because right I am VERY unconditioned… hopefully that muscle memory will kick in! 🙂
Eventually I want to add yoga back in. I can’t right now because of my chest muscles, but I plan on doing a few rehab sessions for my pecs (chest muscles) and delts (shoulder muscles), and then I can hopefully start getting my yoga on! 😉
So, that’s my plan. I don’t really have a goal weight in mind, but I would like to add some of my muscle back, while losing the fat that I’ve gained. I’m not going to focus on the scale… I cannot control the outcome… all I can control is my actions. So, my goals are action focused, not results focused.
Even though working out has become something that is a natural part of my life over the last 20 years, I am kinda dreading it while also looking forward to it… if that makes sense. 😉 lol What I mean is I know in the beginning it is going to suck, but if I stick with it, it will become something that makes me feel great. Getting into shape sucks, but being in shape is awesome… but, the only way to get there is by embracing the suck… which is exactly what I intend to do. At the very least hopefully taking action to improve my body composition will help with the body image issues I’ve been struggling with. I always feel better when I’m able to take action to make a situation better… not that I NEED to make my body better, but I just don’t like feeling like a lazy slug all the time. lol
I’ll document my journey back to fitness, and post updates here. I took my “before” pictures today, and I plan on taking my next set of progress pics 4-5 weeks from now. I’ll post them when I take them.
If anyone wants to join me on this journey back to health and fitness comment or message me! I’d love to hear about your progress as well!
To your health,
Stacie
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