Fitness Buffs, Please Share Your Experiences

I have been jogging and weight training 4 days per week for the last 15 years, (and I am in really good physical shape for my age, I am 44 and weigh 118 pounds. I am very worried that my stomach will sag after my partial abdominal hysterectomy. (Removal of uterus only, leaving cervix,I have large uterine fibroids) I would like to hear from anyone else that works out regularly and had either a partial or total abdominal hysterectomy. I did speak to my doctor about this, but he could only give me estimates and it really makes more sense to hear from other women that have experienced this! How long was it until you were able to walk, jog, weight train? Were you able to strengthen your stomach muscles? I will miss working out! It will be frustrating not able to do anything for so long! Please share your success stories with me.

TeeCee,

Take a look at Fitbug's page to give you a starting idea. I was taking tiny little walks for the first few weeks, and didn't go back to dancing until 5 weeks (had a performance) or the stairclimber until 8 weeks. I wasn't doing weights last year, so I can't help with that.

Good luck with your surgery! Your fitness will slide a little bit during your weeks and months of recovery, but you'll catch up in the end. Be sure to concentrate on healing as much as you can, and see that as your job instead of your fitness routine. It's hard as heck, I know.

Teecee:

There's been a couple of really good threads on this recently, like last week sometime. I'd look them up for you (no time today, sorry!) but if you do a search with "yoga" or "swimming" these are words I used on these threads.

Take a look over the last month, a lot of this has been covered.

I'm at almost 8 weeks, and started back with isometrics, especially of my abdominals, as the first thing. I didn't try anything else until I could reliably tighten my abdominal muscles without pain.

I've gone back to about 20 minutes of various yoga things a day and swimming (almost up to 1/4 mile) every other day without too much distress.

The swelly belly thing is a little frustrating...I got rid of a 5-inch plus mass and really thought I would get my waistline back, but my GYN (also had a hyst 2 years ago at 44) tells me it will be about six months before my final figure takes shape.

Light arm weights (5 lbs) with few reps are the way I've gone back to my weight workout. Swimming helps that, too.

Good luck!

Audrey