BigViffer

Wow, that is an amazing difference. Absolutely beautiful! Sent from my phone. Please forgive brevity and spelling.

Ah, I do something similar. I was thinking of something with actual grapes. Thank God I was wrong! Sent from my phone. Please forgive brevity and spelling.

Grape meatballs? Sent from my phone. Please forgive brevity and spelling.

Ooh! Crying is good! Make them feel like a total @ss for bringing it up! Sent from my phone. Please forgive brevity and spelling.

I like the idea of the quiche. A soft protein at 4 weeks is a good idea. If you haven't had much meat yet, I would hold off eating the pull apart chicken or pulled pork in public. Chicken was the first meat I tried when I was cleared for meat. Came right back up.

For me, lying or obfuscating the truth is too much work. I don't want to have to remember what I said a year ago or even a week ago. I would much rather just answer with the truth. That being said, I never wanted to inspire anyone either. I really could care less what anyone thinks of me and I sure don't concern myself with others business. If someone in my office asked that I am not a personal friend I would make something up on the spot. lol, with a deadpan face and no humor in my voice I told people who were rude enough to ask that I lost weight from chemo, drug addiction, my wife leaving me, tapeworm... you name it. But as soon as they would mention that to anyone, "I heard that BigViffer lost all that weight because of his meth addiction!" There would be someone who would give them a dumbfounded look and tell them I had surgery. TL:DR - tell people whatever you want because you are the one who will be dealing with it, not your friend.

I'll agree with you that no one knows how to spot correctly. I had one guy offer to spot me even though I was in the power rack and had the safties set. That guy must have got a pretty good work out doing rows because he never let go of the bar and I barely had to work. All the while he was yelling, "It's all you bro!" Ugh... meatheads. I only do bench press because it's in my training program. It is by far my least favorite of the primary lifts. I much prefer the overhead press. As for my back, the entire reason I had surgery was to lose weight for back surgery. As I lost the weight, my back got so much better it was incredible. I never did have that surgery. It's not gone away, but I may have pushed off the necessity of it for another 10 years. Deadlifts have been the best thing I have done for my back. I have a love/hate relationship with deadlifts. I dread them all the way until I am done. Then I love them! If you do get back into barbell training, I truly hope that you will get on here and detail your progress. I would dearly love to have someone with a similar background health wise to compare notes with.

With that stated, the elliptical is a great start. Feel free to come back later with any questions later. Sent from my phone. Please forgive brevity and spelling.

Resistance training is usually synonymous with strength training (i.e. weight training). However, I don't know if I agree with @JerseyJules. Obviously I am a big fan of strength training and will advocate it's benefits to just about anyone. And yes you will burn a ****-ton of calories doing it. However, there is no way I am going to even talk to anyone while doing it much less have a conversation. Even on the elliptical or treadmill, if you have enough breath to comfortably converse with someone, you aren't really burning much. Sure you are getting some exercise, but you aren't really working. And once you are in cardio level heart rate, calorie expenditure goes up very high. It's kind of like a motorcycle. Once you reach a certain speed, say 185-ish, the amount of horsepower that got you there does not maintain a linear ratio above that. It takes a huge amount of horsepower increase to gain just 1 or 2 mph. In this example, increase wind resistance. In the gym, the reciprocating mass (e.g. you or me) starts demanding more fuel for the increased activity. So it's not just the heart that is working hard, it's the glutes, quadriceps, deltoids, latissimus dorsus, and trapezius when talking about the elliptical. So while a comfortable pace with a heart rate of 120-ish will burn calories, anything higher than that will burn significantly more. BUT! You will of course not be able to maintain that pace for long. Now you are getting into interval training. And honestly, you aren't ready for that discussion, lol! Suffice to say, get comfortable doing a routine. Once there, reassess your goal. Do you want to be a cardio warrior like @jenn1 or perhaps a weight trainer like me? Or you might just want to enjoy a general plan of fitness and enjoying how everything just works easier now. You may find a new hobby that you enjoy and you can tailor your training to increase performance in that field.

Competive powerlifter?! Here on this forum?! WTF?!! How have we not crossed paths before? At 6 month post op your stamina is going to be low as will your strength. Building new muscle will take patience and dedication. I would love to talk more about the main lifts (squat, deadlift, & OHP) if you decide to go back that route. I am not making the progress I want and I do not know if it is the diet holding me back or the lifetime of injuries that prevent me from making gains. Before I get ahead of myself though, I need you to prove your "worth". High bar or low bar squats?

Dang it, that should read cellulose husk that surrounds corn kernel.

Fluffy, it's all about progression. just like I said earlier. Start off with no resistance and short times. Progressively increase the duration and resistance over time. And no, I just feel winded. Heart is beating fast, but I feel pretty good actually.

Now that I am home, I wanted to expound upon that answer. I eat probably every 2 hours. I start off the day with protein. Then carbs two hours later. Small carb 20 minutes before the gym at lunch, then protein on the way back to the office. Then a salad. As I'm leaving, more protein. Then dinner. Then a "dessert" which is usually a protein cake. I don't care what the protein is really. Beef, chicken, whey... as long as it gets the job done. Carbs are pretty much always oats,bran or quinoa or this really great multigrain bread we've found. The salad dressing is the worst part of any salad. I don't really enjoy the eating the same as I did pre-op. I just like hitting my macros.

Weeelllll, kinda sort. True insoluble fiber shouldn't count as a carb. Case in point would be the cellulose husk that cannot be digested around each kernel. While the inside is easily digestible, the husk passes through the entire digestive system.

All damn day! Sent from my phone. Please forgive brevity and spelling.

Well, my goal is actually 2,000. That is just after my heart rate monitor sync'ed with MFP. I don't like to go over 2,500. But there have been days when I have hit 3,000. Usually on deadlift days.

If you are new to using the elliptical, I would keep the resistance low or even at nothing. Get used to the motion of the machine. When you can do the machine for 30 minutes without worry of falling off, start getting comfortable with no hands. (for the times you need to wipe sweat or take a drink). After that, start to titrate the difficulty by increasing the resistance. The sooner you can increase the difficulty the better. Spinning your legs with no resistance will burn calories, but nowhere near what actually fighting for it does.

15 grams of carbs is nothing. Carbs are not our enemy, they are necessary for our health. It is really only an issue when the carbs take over the majority of your diet OR the only carbs you are getting are the worthless processed carbs. According to my tracking yesterday: Yeah, I wouldn't worry about 15g of carbs personally.

Totally depends on your goal and how you are using the elliptical. What is your heart rate at peak? How long are you maintaining it there? Are you in cardio zone or merely burning off calories? If you are going for cardio endurance, you will want moderate heart rate for at least 20 minutes. General exercise is just keep moving for the 45-60 minutes. If you are looking to improve cardiovascular peak performance, then you will need high heart rate for 10-15 minutes. For example, I am going for cardiovascular endurance. I have an average 140 bpm heart rate for roughly 45-50 minutes (length of an episode on Netflix). On the days where I feel the need to push the envelope, I will up that into the cardio training zone of 170-180 bpm. But I can only maintain that for around 10 minutes then "rest" for 20 minutes, then pick up the pace again.

I am assuming that she is from either Canada or the UK. She also gives her weight in kilograms. It is common for the date format to be day-month-year (dd-mm-yyyy)in those areas. It actually makes a lot more sense to have it that way. Here at work, I name my files with date stamps in yyyy-mm-dd format so that they sort properly. So in this situation, her surgery date may be Dec 2nd 2017.

Belligerent? What in the world are you talking about? I now honestly believe you are nucking futz. You now have your wish, I won't offer any more information.

Since I am the one who asked if you were making this a gender issue, I can only assume that you are insulating that I am slow. However, you explicitly said women 3 times in your post. Not "people" or "members" or even "guys"; you said women. Since you expressly excluded men, that sounds like a gender specific issue. Don't blame me for your poor communication skills. You are making it very difficult for anyone to even want to help you.

I have always had high BP, that is until this surgery. It seems surreal to me that my doctor now tells me I need to start salting my food. It's amazing how quickly I feel better after salt hits the blood stream! Does an increase of sodium affect you that way?

Hmmm, changes within the inner ear would account for the dizziness, but not for the darkening of vision while standing. That is almost always related to blood pressure. Either hypo or hypertension can cause vision issues like the ones described.

Are you walking every 20 minutes or so? I remember when I was recovering, it was February and there was snow and ice everywhere so I had to pace the hall of my house. Very boring but I would pace it back and forth about 10 times. The motion of walking helps pass the air bubbles through. If the weather is inclement in your area, have someone drive you to a mall or Walmart and just make slow laps around the place. Walking really is the best medicine/tip for dealing with gas.