Food and Fitness

I've been reading other blogs and doctor sites and I realized a lot of them mention being put on a specific diet at the two week before surgery point.  Apparently the reasoning is to make sure your body has the right building blocks to heal faster and also avoiding certain foods, supplements and medications that increase bleeding risk (for example, no ibuprofen).  This of course made me wonder what foods are good for healing? And what about exercise? I decided that I should work on my healing building blocks now...six weeks of good eating is better than two, right?

  All my research led me to believe first, that exercise and being in good shape before any surgery helps the muscles regenerate and heal faster.  So, although I'm already in pretty good shape I decided to set up a schedule to make sure I keep up with my workouts.  I used my teambeachbody account and put my workouts in the calendar.  To keep from getting bored I plan to do a different workout "series" each week.  This week is Insanity week, next is Asylum, then Turbofire, then Les Mills combat, then Insanity and Asylum again.  

The next step for me was to get my diet down.  I couldn't find anything truly specific on what to or not to eat which was frustrating, I'm the kind of person who would love it if I could find an exact meal plan of what to eat to prep for surgery!  So I googled "foods that help heal after surgery" and basically found  that I need plenty of lean proteins, because protein helps muscle heal.  I also learned that lots of fruits and veggies contain specific vitamins and minerals that help the healing process such as zinc.  So, I need to eat a good variety of fruits, veggies, whole grains, and lean proteins to get my body in order... Got it!  Hahaha, nice and specific right?  I guess my surgeon can tell me at my two week pre-op appointment what food I shouldn't be eating, so until then I'll just go for a healthy variety.  I already avoid artificial sugars like the plague (they give me headaches), so that's something.  No sodas, that's going to be hard... And limiting caffeine to one cup or less a day also hard... I've got 3 kids remember?  And it's summer... I've already told my friends at karate that they can kick me if they see me eating cookies or any junk food (sugar is my HUGE weakness) or drinking soda...I mean business!  

We went grocery shopping as a family Sunday for our new diet.  My husband and I decided that we should do this together as a family, partly because our oldest son is definitely a bit too "squishy", a almost 9year old should NOT weigh over 90lb!  So this has become a teaching exercise, I want my kids to learn what foods are healthy and what makes them different from "sometimes foods" (because I don't want to forbid foods, I want health to be their choice, not forced).  So far it's going great!  And I've lost 2lb, bonus!! Fingers crossed that this all helps!  It certainly can't hurt!