PREPARING FOR SURGERY
Exercise Before Surgery
Guidelines to Help Maximize Your Surgical Outcome
As you know, morbid obesity is a disease with devastating medical, physical, social and psychological effects. The National Institute of Health has determined that weight-loss surgery combined with behavior modification is the most effective long-term solution to morbid obesity. Here we will discuss one component of behavior modification – exercise.
Exercise is a very important part of your weight-loss program. It is an important behavior that strongly supports good eating behaviors post surgery. We are going to provide some guidelines for increased activity/exercise to help you maximize your surgical outcome.
Benefits of Exercise
The benefits of exercise are many and well documented. Exercise benefits all the systems of the body and is an extremely important part of the new lifestyle in which you are choosing to participate.
Exercise helps to:
- Lower blood pressure
- Strengthen the heart and circulatory system
- Strengthen bones and muscles and decrease joint stiffness
- Lower blood sugar
- Increase endurance and energy
- Provide stress relief
- And most importantly – Help you lose weight and keep it off
Program Details
You will receive an initial evaluation and orientation by our Physical Fitness experts prior to your surgery. We require you to purchase 5 sessions with our fitness instructors. Normally, we want you to complete 1 session before surgery to establish your exercise baseline. Then we want you to use the other 4 sessions post surgery; once every 3 months as you are losing weight. This will help you to continue to develop your skill set around physical activity and exercise.
The Physical Fitness instructor will help to ensure that you are able perform the appropriate type of exercises at the appropriate level of exercise intensity.
Other Considerations
Our fitness instructor will help with advice regarding:
- Footwear
- Warm-up and cool-down exercises
Other fitness questions or problems:
- STOP – if you feel any pain, discomfort, or lightheadedness.
- Report any unusual symptoms to your doctor.
Contact us if you have any questions or concerns: 541-930-7819
