Advice needed: Weight loss after reversal surgery

Okay, I am 6 months post-op from my reversal. The bowels move great as long as I don't take the iron pills I need to get my iron levels back up again. If I take these iron pills, my movements slow down to the point I have to strain to make them go. I even have a bloated feeling to the point my abdominal binder feels tighter as the day goes on.

Anyway, what I need advice on at the moment is I need to do something to start losing this weight. I am eating a 1200 calorie diet, but with the weather the way it has been (wet and cold) and I have managed somehow to come down with a cough that sounds more like a bark. When I do cough, I have managed to pull a muscle (at first I thought I started a hernia).

I am trying to get back out walking if the weather would just behave. I was going to try today even in the fog today, but it started to rain. I have a stationary bike as well as a stepper to use. Now, I never did sit-ups in my skinny days (not saying I didn't try, but I never could do them).

So, I am wondering what other exercises are there I could do without causing myself to end up back up in the hospital again because of doing what I am not supposed to do.

Any help gratefully appreciated :)

Take care

Cathyxx

Hi Kakie, this sounds like a good time to call your healthcare provider and ask their advice. If you're not supposed to do something, it would be a good idea not to do it. You surely do not want to end up back in the hospital and have to restart the healing process or worse! Be careful.

Hi Mrs. A, I am going to be seeing my family doctor tonight, and will be asking her again. But I get the same answer all the time from her, as well as what the surgeon has told me: no heavy lifting over 6 pounds, no bending from waist to the floor like you are trying to touch toes, and nothing that will strain the stomach muscles. I have put on 14 pounds since coming home from the hospital this time. Before all this happened last year, my eating habits, I will admit, were very bad. I hate to eat. I might have eaten one meal a day because after a while, I had heard so many times that if you eat, it will just add weight. So after a while, I started to listen. The strange thing is, I also hate to cook (you wouldn't know it to look at myself and my husband). He is not obese, but I am, and I am ashamed of it. I finally got rid of that super prolapsed stoma that sat high up on my abdomen, and I was so hoping I could now get rid of the fat. I had a dietitian come in and work with me on my meal plan and worked out a 1200 calorie diet to follow. The only thing I couldn't do was the snacks in between, as I was becoming so full at supper time I felt bloated (my plate size is a bread and butter plate), and was throwing out half of my supper. With winter coming and we will get snow and ice at some point, my walks will soon be less until spring because our road is so slippery that our neighbors' kids actually use it as a skating rink. For years, I have taken many falls, and now those falls scare me more. I have already taken 3 falls and there was no snow or ice. So I need to find something I can safely do to try and get rid of the loose skin on my arms and work on the fat on my stomach. My surgeon has told me I will get a hernia from the surgical sites at some point, and until I lose 100 pounds, he will not fix it. I am hoping to surprise him and not get this hernia he says I will get, but if it should happen, I want to be able to get it fixed and not have to suffer with more pain because I am a fat lady. So I guess I am in that rock and a hard place, as they say, not knowing what to do. I will, though, be asking my family doctor again about this and several other things that have been showing up since the surgery. Take care, Cathyxx

Stop taking the iron pills and try lean red meat and take Centrum Specialist-Energy. That was the only way I could get the iron to dissolve into the bloodstream and do what it should!

Hi Katie, I'm also 6 months after my reversal and everything went a lot better than expected. I have good bowel movements and I'm back to eating anything and everything now. I also have the same problem with weight gain. I always used to be about 80 kilos, but now I'm 89 kilos. I used to do a lot of stomach exercises, especially sit-ups, but the doctor has told me that due to the amount of surgery I've had, it will no longer be possible to do sit-ups or any other exercise that will put a heavy strain on my stomach. So my New Year resolution is to reduce weight. Last week, I bought a kayak for some exercise and within the next few days, I will be buying a mountain bike. Hopefully, with these activities and some diet changes, I will reduce weight.

Good luck with your weight loss.

Alan

Hi Katie - Depending on how anemic you are and what insurance you have, it is possible to have iron supplementation via infusion (IV) in the doctor's office. I had this done at my oncologist's office way back when. You can also eat other things besides meat that are high in iron, particularly dark green leafy vegetables and legumes. Those things should help you lose weight too. :)

Hey Alan, please be careful rowing the kayak.  Do they call it "rowing"?  You might want to use a belt just to keep your guts in place.  We use kayaks to fish for striped bass off the Jersey shore in the USA.

Enjoy!

Mike

Hi Mrs. A,
I apologize for taking so long in answering. I am afraid my energy levels are to the point that, well, pretty low at the moment. For most on here, I do a lot of reading as the typing takes a bit now, as my hand has decided to act up with arthritis.

I used to eat before all this happened to me, only one meal a day if anything. Now, with all that has happened and with the help of the dietitian I finally got to see, I am eating three meals a day. I do ride my stationary bike each day. I use the step machine I have, and to get to them I have to go down 13 steps (then back up when finished). And if the weather is nice, I do go out for my walk during the day. But I have still put on weight :(

Even though my energy level is very low, I am still doing all that I wrote down. I am not one to sit (only sat for the first two weeks after coming home, then I was up walking from room to room). I will check out that site as well, as I can use all the help I can get. I have started to do pelvic floor exercises as I have noticed that I have the gurgling noises I had when I had the stoma. As well, I have noticed I am passing air vaginally. I told my doc about that and she said nothing to worry about, so I am trying to tighten up the muscles to see if I can stop it.

Again, thank you for the site. I will check it out :)

Take care
Cathyxx

Slow and steady wins the race, as someone said. So take things at your pace and keep doing what you can. A strong will, in most cases, is a good thing!

Hi Mrs. A,
I apologize for taking so long in answering. I am afraid my energy levels are to the point that, well, pretty low at the moment. For most on here, I do a lot of reading, as the typing takes a bit now as my hand has decided to act up with arthritis.

I used to eat before all this happened to me, only one meal a day if anything. Now, with all that has happened and with the help of the dietitian I finally got to see, I am eating three meals a day. I do ride my stationary bike each day. I use the step machine I have, and to get to them I have to go down 13 steps (then back up when finished). And if the weather is nice, I do go out for my walk during the day. But I have still put on weight :(

Even though my energy level is very low, I am still doing all that I wrote down. I am not one to sit (only sat for the first two weeks after coming home, then I was up walking from room to room). I will check out that site as well, as I can use all the help I can get. I have started to do pelvic floor exercises as I have noticed that I have the gurgling noises I had when I had the stoma. As well, I have noticed I am passing air vaginally. I told my doc about that and she said nothing to worry about, so I am trying to tighten up the muscles to see if I can stop it.

Again, thank you for the site. I will check it out :)

Take care
Cathyxx

Slow and steady wins the race, as someone said. So take things at your pace and keep doing what you can. A strong will, in most cases, is a good thing!

Oh Cathy,
Many have weight issues and you can overcome it. I know it won't be easy and surely you cannot only eat one meal. I have read that eating fewer meals makes our body store more fat in reserve because it shifts into starvation mode. I'm no expert on what exercises to do but even walking up and down the steps inside the house can be a workout. Here is a link to exercises for folks like us with a stoma for belly fat though. http://www.stomaatje.com/belly_exercise.html
Hope it helps.

Hi Mrs. A,
I apologize for taking so long in answering. I am afraid my energy levels are to the point that, well, pretty low at the moment. For most on here, I do a lot of reading, as the typing takes a bit now as my hand has decided to act up with arthritis.

I used to eat before all this happened to me, only one meal a day if anything. Now, with all that has happened and with the help of the dietitian I finally got to see, I am eating three meals a day. I do ride my stationary bike each day. I use the step machine I have, and to get to them I have to go down 13 steps (then back up when finished). And if the weather is nice, I do go out for my walk during the day. But I have still put on weight :(

Even though my energy level is very low, I am still doing all that I wrote down. I am not one to sit (only sat for the first two weeks after coming home, then I was up walking from room to room). I will check out that site as well, as I can use all the help I can get. I have started to do pelvic floor exercises as I have noticed that I have the gurgling noises I had when I had the stoma. As well, I have noticed I am passing air vaginally. I told my doc about that and she said nothing to worry about, so I am trying to tighten up the muscles to see if I can stop it.

Again, thank you for the site. I will check it out :)

Take care
Cathyxx

Wow Cathy,
You sound like you're on the right track. Remember, don't overdo it. As far as your energy level being low, what do your doctors say? I take B-12 complex when I'm feeling sluggish; it seems to help.

Thanks, Mrs. A. I am slowly learning. If I take my walk when I come home, I rest. I do a bit of housework, like dusting in the living room. I had to rest afterwards. Tests came back and I have low iron. It is lower now since the surgery. I was and still am on a B-12 shot twice a month, and I do take a multivitamin each day. She tried me on iron pills, but that backfired, you could say, as it was blocking me up. I tried them for 3 days and barely went to the bathroom, and as a blockage was what landed me with the colostomy, I wasn't going to take that chance again. So she said to try one every second or third day, but my bowels just kept slowing down. I would take the iron pill on, say, Sunday, and my bowels didn't move more than once until Wednesday. I can't take the chance. The other problem is that I have fibromyalgia as well as CFS/RSD, and now they tell me that it is possible I have something called Sjogren's Syndrome. But like fibro, there is no sure test for it. The eye doctor did try the one test that can say it is possible (and I hope never to have that one again), and that was to place a hard strip of a special paper under your eye and leave it there for 5 minutes. If it comes out dry, then it is a sure sample that you have this syndrome. And with it comes dry eyes (I have had no tears in months), so I have to use eye drops throughout the day, and at night I put eye gel drops in. I have to carry a bottle of water with me at all times as my mouth feels like sandpaper now, and this can lead to dental problems (which it has sent me to surgeries). The other thing it does is zap your energy, so add all that in and the two surgeries close together this year, I will be lucky if I ever see my energy come back. But it will not stop me. It will, and finally I admit it, it has slowed me down but not stopped me. I am already starting to plan in my head (and my family jokes that is never a good thing, lol) on just how I am going to do my yard work this year because I have been waiting for 2 years.

So I am not sure if I will ever have my energy level back again, at least to the level I had in 2013. I would be happy for that back, but I have to come to terms and learn to deal with the fact that I have a whole new bunch of stuff to deal with. But I will.

I do admit to being impatient with myself when not being able to get things done. And now, as well as learning, I have to be careful with my left hand because of a mix of arthritis and my family doctor says it is possible my carpal tunnel is starting to act up. And at this point, I want no more surgery for a while as it takes me longer to get my energy back. So I am impatient with myself for not being able to do things for myself and having to ask for help. I am, as the family says, a proud/stubborn/strong-willed, and the granddaughters added in a tough old coot. So I will come to terms at some point, but for energy/low iron, it looks like I am going to have to deal with that without meds.

Slow and steady wins the race, as someone said. So take things at your pace and keep doing what you can. A strong will, in most cases, is a good thing!

Thanks, Mrs. A.
My family says I definitely have that for sure, lol, and I guess considering all that has gone on, I suppose I do. But I do have my days where I tell myself I am tired in more ways than I could ever have imagined, and today is one of those days. But I have gone for my walk, have had a rest, had my lunch, had the rest, and did some vacuuming as it won't get done if I don't do it, so I think for the rest of the afternoon it will be spent resting and doing some stitching. And I would oh so love to nap, but that is the one thing that seems to elude me yet, but I keep trying on that one as well :)

Thank you for the support. It is much appreciated.

Take care.
Cathy