losing weight

[kimosabi1961]

because of now being an amputee i dont get much excersise and have gained 50 lbs. im trying to diet but it is very hard. any tips? i am 3 years post transplant.

[Bassetmommer NKF Ambassador]

A dietician once told me not to exercise as it makes you want to eat more. I do not disagree with that. But there are benefits to exercise of any kind. My father was an amputee, so I understand the challenges. See if you can get a hold of some resistance bands. They are amazing for building strength. Sit in a chair, and you can use you good leg or, you can get them around a pole. I have a thing you put in the door and close it and the bands go in there. Even if you do maybe ten or more reps on your arms, it will help with the upper body strength. Do ten and quit and then come back an hour later and do ten more. You will be amazed at how it will make you feel better. There is a lot of exercises you can do with them sitting. Google chair exercises and resistance bands.

As far as diet...the first thing is to log your food. Don't change anything just log EVERYTHING you put in your mouth. Then go through it and see if there are things that are not good for you that are high calorie. Look for hidden fats. Once you figure out what you can take out, you can start there. They say that if you can drop 500 calories from your usual input, you will lose weight. I am not going to say that it true for everyone but start there. I highly recommend seeing a dietician. Be careful of fads as they will wreck your metabolism and what you lose will come back 3 times as much.

The other thing is to check your medications and make sure none of them are contributing to your weight gain.

When I was diagnosed over four years ago, I lost 38 pounds on a renal diet. Then I plateaued and then I lost more. I am now truly stuck and unable to budge my weight. I work out 2 times a week for over an hour each time and walk daily. I don't give up though.

[NilsB]

May I ask which body part (-s) you have had amputated? If a leg, you can still do bicycling exercises and weights with the upper body. If it is below the knee, you can still do a lot of leg work, though of course you must be very careful with wounds. Depending on wounds you may also be able to swim. It is hard to know without seeing you, but there are always (or nearly always) plenty of ways to exercise. Also please do remember that diet is a key component when working towards weight loss. Unless you train waaay more than most people do, diet is actually the main component of weight loss. If you have gained 20kg, I would say you need to make a lifestyle change and the more you exercise, the more leeway you have with your diet.

[kimosabi1961 in reply to NilsB]

left below knee

[NilsB]

Well, with careful attention to the condition of the skin, you ought to be able to bear full weight. As a physiotherapist in Sweden, I helped run exercise classes for amputees. They can be on the ground or in the water (we had a heated pool). Truly there are many options. I know people in the US are limited by the system there but perhaps with the right insurance, regular training with a PT might be possible? If not, one can buy an 'arm bicycle', use weights, and go to public pools. Perhaps there is a water training group for amputees or people with disabilities, so do look around for that (again, possibly tricky in the US, but perhaps). Most importantly, look at what is being eaten and drunk and see what kind of changes might be beneficial. When one loses a limb, there can also be depression (even if the person seems cheerful and strong) and this may affect eating habits. I do wish you all the best.

[jodaer]

Another place to find chair exercises is on UTube. There are plenty and all good. At one time I took an aerobics class and there was a lady in the class who did it all sitting in a chair. Good luck. Losing weight is one of the hardest things in life.

[Darlenia in reply to jodaer]

Yes! YouTube is fantastic source for exercises of all kinds! We have our favorites bookmarked.

[RonZone]

Ok, not even close to being a nutritionist or any kind source of expert advice, you do really need to see a nutritionist for this, even if just to get a list of things to eat and what not to eat at one visit if it costs too much for repeat visits. Then what I had do to over the last two years to lose 40 lbs was actually a very simple mental shift. I look at the list of things I can eat, then look at the list of things I'm not supposed to eat. I label the list of things I can eat as "food". I list the things I am not supposed to eat as "dirt". Then I tell myself, "hey, you don't eat dirt" and that seems to make it ok not to eat that stuff. I learned this from my brother. Not sure where he got it from. And then the second part is that I simply do not put as much on my plate of the stuff from the "food" category any more. I got a post office scale and I "weigh" my plate. I know, not nearly as scientific as counting all the calories and all those technical methods, but as long as I keep the "weight" of my plate within a range of what will help me lose weight, over the long run it works. And yeah, before I started this system, my plate weight was a lot more than what it is now. So reducing the plate weight, helped me visualize the loss for my body weight. Get creative and come up with your own system that works for you. And your own ideas are actually good ones most times, and free.

Oh, and as NilsB suggested, depression can be as tough to fight as Miles Standish (based on your username, you will understand my reference), so do what you gotta do in that area, write on this forum, on facebook forums that deal with transplant and on forums that deal with amputations and general depression forums. I mean don't spend all day on em, but do spend enough time talking with folks who have worked through some depression and get tips from them about that. My tip for dealing with depression is to talk with people about it! It REALLY helps! And look at the five stages of grief, so you understand exactly the process you go through with a loss like that. And don't skip any stages, else it comes back to revisit you later. It takes some time to go through all the stages, everybody goes at their own pace. Just keep doing the work of interacting with healthy, helpful people every day. Limit exposure to those who are holding you back from healing.

Take care and keep writing on this forum.

----Another Lone Ranger Fan 1953

[Sammi_n_Munk]

Hi there kimosabi1961. I understand how difficult it is to find exercises that work well for some of us. I have a sister who is an amputee from childhood. In recent years, she has been seeking to improve her health and become fitter. She told me of some seated exercises she found on YouTube that were helpful. Below, I’ve attached a link to one. I hope you’ll find this helpful too. There are others as well. Please let us know how it works for you! 😊👍🙏

google.com/search?q=chair+e...