8-week surgery recovery log (no lifting)

[Adam Levine]

On October 29th, I had hernia surgery and will be unable to lift until around Christmas - doctor's orders. However, I am going to continue to log activity, body, and diet stats here to remain in the habit of logging and give myself some accountability.

The main goals of this 8-week period are:
- Keep logging weekly.
- Maintain a calorie-surplus recovery diet, gaining 0.25-0.75lb/week.
- Read PP

Also, at the end of the recovery period, I'll be visiting Coach Schudt in Chicago to work on starting a NLP plan.

I have two previous logs. In the first, I tried an NLP on my own and failed:
Want to quit feeling like crap and improve diabetes...

In the second, I laid out a 10-week plan to fix my issues and start an NLP. It was basically successful, and I could start a feasible NLP now if it wasn't for the hernia surgery.
10-week pre-NLP plan (A.K.A. watch me do everything wrong!)

In both of these logs, I logged weekly and will continue to do so, including activity, diet, and body stats. Initial start point is below:

Body Stats
Date: 10/28/2018
Age: 47
Height: 5'9.7"
Weight: 175.8lb
Neck: 16"
Waist: 34.5"
Body Fat (by Navy Calculator): 16.6%
LBM (by Navy Calculator): 147lb
Average morning/fasting blood sugar:101

Lifting Stats (workset weights)
Squat: 135lb, with decent form and some left in the tank. I think I could go 145 easily.
Bench: 142.5lb, with difficulty. That's a real 5RM.
Press and Deadlift: my form is so terrible that the weight doesn't even matter...
Chins: 1 Chin per set is my limit.
But, these numbers are largely irrelevant - I'll be resetting them from scratch when I start lifting again.

[Ken_L]

I am not so sure that eating to gain weight now is a good idea, especially with diabetes. I think that a clean healthy diet aimed at maintaining your current weight or even loosing 1/4 to 1/2 a pound per week, depending on your body fat would be a better idea. In other words don't make the diabetes worse while recovering from surgery since you probably will not be very active for a while. When the NLP is started you will then have more room to eat in a caloric surplus in order to aid in recovery and the building of muscle.

I am not a doctor on an expert on nutrition, these are just my gut feelings. Count my advice as worth how much you paid for it!

[Adam Levine]

I am not so sure that eating to gain weight now is a good idea, especially with diabetes. I think that a clean healthy diet aimed at maintaining your current weight or even loosing 1/4 to 1/2 a pound per week, depending on your body fat would be a better idea. In other words don't make the diabetes worse while recovering from surgery since you probably will not be very active for a while. When the NLP is started you will then have more room to eat in a caloric surplus in order to aid in recovery and the building of muscle.

I am not a doctor on an expert on nutrition, these are just my gut feelings. Count my advice as worth how much you paid for it!

You may be right and I'll adjust if my morning blood sugar numbers start averaging over 110. So far, that hasn't happened.

My concern about cutting now is that at my current body fat (17%ish) and age, if I cut without activity, my body may decide to go after my LBM to lose weight instead of my fat. I also figure I need to eat for recovery from surgery, which follows the same principles as recovery from muscle strain - high protein, whole foods, lots of rest, and a small calorie surplus to recover as fast as possible.

Lastly, since I've been cutting weight for 8 months, I just want to be off the #&$#^ diet and quit being hungry, so maybe I'm just rationalizing, but I'm OK with that.

-->Adam

[Adam Levine]

Week of 9/29 - Week 1 - Week of surgery
Notes:
- Feeling great and recovering much faster than anticipated. Already off all pain meds, even Ibuprofen, and even sneezing doesn't hurt.
- Not much activity this week, but I think I can add more next week. Slept an average of 12 hours/day.
- I'm no longer believing the Navy formula. It worked great for me for awhile, basically inline with what I would expect from reference photos. But, now it's telling me I'm 16% body fat, which when I look at reference photos of 15%, is just fantasy. I'm definately under 20% and over 15% - maybe in the 17-18 range.
- Diet got fubarred. I started at about 2300 calories, and gained 5lb the first two days after the surgery, paniced, cut back too much. Most of it was water weight, and disappeared in 3-4 days. I will be correcting diet next week.

Monday, 10/29
Surgery day - no lifting for at least 6 weeks.

Tuesday, 10/30
Light stroll, 40 minutes.

Wednesday, 11/1
Boxing class taken at the speed of Tai Chi (hey, it's their fault for saying they don't count speed or power in their classes) - 30 minutes

Diet Stats:
Average calories/day: 2,076
Average protien/day: 229g
Average carbs/day: 181g
Average fat/day: 51g
Protien from dairy: 347g (22%)
Calories from dairy: 2,250 (15%)
Supplementation and drugs:
- 5,000 IU of Vitamin D per day
- 1 Flintsones multivitamin/day
- 500mg Metformin/day
- 40mg Atorvastatin/day
- 1 OTC Omeprazole/2 days

Body Stats:
Age: 47
Height: 5'9.7"
Weight: 177.3lb (up 1.5lb - but seems to be correcting itself)
Neck: 16" (no change)
Waist: 34.25" (down 1/4")
Body Fat (by Navy Calculator): 16.1% (down 0.5% - but not believable)
LBM (by Navy Calculator): 149lb (up 2lb)
Average morning/fasting blood sugar:102

-->Adam

[Adam Levine]

Since I wasn't believing the Navy Calclator body fat method (said I was 16.1%, and I look more like 17-18%), I decided to get measured using an InBody BIA scale. I know that isn't much more accurate, but it verified the results, coming in at 15.9%.

So, I'm choosing to believe that the Navy Calculator is still useful for me, and my body fat is somewhere around 16%, which is honestly too low for my age. 18-19% would be optimal.

I'll chock up not looking like 16% in reference photos to the fact I'm currently deconditioned. I really need to start NLP.

-->Adam

[Adam Levine]

Week of 11/5 - Week 2 - Doing chins without doctor permission
Notes:
- Added neutral-grip chin ups, but intentionally not doing Vaslava and keeping my abs as relaxed as possible. The chin-ups seem to be easier on my abs than going to the toilet, so I figure I'm OK. Still not doing main lifts or any lift that requires Vaslava and extreme tightening of the core.
- Feel great! No pain at all, and even though I'm not supposed to lift, I feel like I could!
- Blood test came in - A1C, sugar, and lipids were all in the normal range, except for total cholesterol of 123 which was actually low! I'm going to my doc to talk about reducing my prescription dosages.
- Amazing progress on pullups - from one rep to three per set in a week!
- Still losing weight and LBM - may need to add calories to diet. This may have been a factor in my ability to improve chins.
- Daily fasting blood sugar is not increasing despite 200g/day of carbs

Monday, 11/5
Chin up machine: 26x10,65x5,117x3,156x2
Neutral-grip pullups: BWx7x1
Intervals: (15°,6MPH,30sec,3min rest)x6 - Peak HR 167
Boxing class taken at speed of Tai Chi

Wednesday, 11/7
Chin up machine: 26x10,65x5,117x3,156x2
Neutral-Grip Chin-Ups: BWx7x2
Intervals: Intervals: (15°,3MPH,2:30sec,1min rest)x7 - Peak HR 172


Friday, 11/9
Chin up machine: 26x10,65x5,117x3,156x2
Neutral-Grip Chin-Ups:
BWx3x3
BWx3x2

Diet Stats:
Average calories/day: 2,291
Average protien/day: 258g
Average carbs/day: 208g
Average fat/day: 52g
Protien from dairy: 277g (15%)
Calories from dairy: 2,250 (12%)
Supplementation and drugs:
- 5,000 IU of Vitamin D per day
- 1 Flintsones multivitamin/day
- 500mg Metformin/day
- 40mg Atorvastatin/day
- 1 OTC Omeprazole/2 days
- 5g Creatine per day (added this week)
- 15tsp benefiber per day (added this week)
- 2g+ DHA and EPA per day, in the form of canned salmon (added this week)

Body Stats:
Age: 47
Height: 5'9.7"
Weight: 174.3lb (down 3lb)
Neck: 16" (no change)
Waist: 34.25" (no change)
Body Fat (by Navy Calculator): 16.1% (no change)
LBM (by Navy Calculator): 146lb (down 3lb)
Average morning/fasting blood sugar:102

-->Adam

[Adam Levine]

Just got back from doctor.

He's recommending I go off diabetes drugs entirely, and cutting my dose of Atorvastatin to 20mg/day.

I'm going rogue and doing 10mg/day (or maybe 20mg every other day if I get sick of cutting pills in half).

-->Adam

[Ken_L]

Just got back from doctor.

He's recommending I go off diabetes drugs entirely, and cutting my dose of Atorvastatin to 20mg/day.

I'm going rogue and doing 10mg/day (or maybe 20mg every other day if I get sick of cutting pills in half).

-->Adam

That is good news! It would be great if you could completely get off of all the drugs. There is a good chance that the limited training along with the dietary/lifestyle changes that you have made since deciding to start an LP have contributed greatly towards this. Keep up the good work!

We have to put up with a medical system that is based on big pharma. Drugs to help a problem along with other drugs to counteract side effects sometimes 3 or 4 deep...... It is easier to prescribe a drug then to truly deal with the problem and the drug will have a higher compliance rate because it is easy. Eat healthy and train hard, forget the drugs, but that is a whole nother discussion.

[Adam Levine]

I don't know if I'll ever get completely off the statins. Even with normal or low cholesterol, I'm at a pretty high risk of heart attack due to some awful genetics (3 close blood relatives had them at age 55) and that I had high cholesterol for a very long time. Statins have been proven to reduce risk of heart attack even in folks with normal cholesterol.

That said, I don't need 40-80mg like my PCP had me on. 40 had my LDL and total cholesterol below the "normal" range, but not dangerously low. I think 2.5-5mg would probably be enough.

[Adam Levine]

Week of 11/12 - Week 3 - Off diabetes drugs!
Notes:
- Poor progress on chins this week. I think I made a mistake trying to do shoulder dislocation stretches between sets - it seemed to interfere.
- Off Metformin. Atorvastatin reduced from 40mg/day to 10mg/day. Need to watch blood sugar.
- Doing crappy job of gaining 0.25-0.75lb/week. I keep losing weight...

Sunday, 11/11
Chin up machine: 26x10,65x5,117x3,156x2
Neutral-grip pullups:
(177.9+0)x3x2
(177.9+0)x2x4
Total: 14

Wednesday, 11/14
Snuffed up day with shoulder dislocations
Chin up machine: 26x10,65x5,117x3,156x2
Neutral-grip pullups:
(176.2+0)x3x1
(176.2+0)x2x3
(176.0+0)x2x1
Total:11

Friday, 11/16
Chin up machine: 26x10,65x5,117x3,156x2
Neutral-grip pullups:
(175.8+0)x3x3
(175.8+0)x2x2
(175.8+0)x1x3
13 hours later..
(180.8+0)x2x2
Total:23
Boxing class taken at speed of Tai Chi

Sunday, 11/18
Chin up machine: 26x10,65x5,117x3,156x2
Neutral-grip pullups:
(177.2+0)x4x1
(177.2+0)x3x3
(177.2+0)x2x2
Total: 17


Diet Stats:
Average calories/day: 2,293
Average protien/day: 267g
Average carbs/day: 215g
Average fat/day: 36g
Protien from dairy: 299g (16%)
Calories from dairy: 1,960 (12%)
Supplementation and drugs:
- 5,000 IU of Vitamin D per day
- 1 Flintsones multivitamin/day
- 500mg/0mg Metformin/day (ended this week)
- 40mg/10mg Atorvastatin/day (dosage reduced this week)
- 1 OTC Omeprazole/2 days
- 5g Creatine per day
- 15tsp benefiber per day
- 2g+ DHA and EPA per day, in the form of canned salmon

Body Stats:
Age: 47
Height: 5'9.7"
Weight: 173.3lb (down 1lb)
Neck: 16" (no change)
Waist: 34" (down 1/4")
Body Fat (by Navy Calculator): 15.6% (down 0.5%)
LBM (by Navy Calculator): 146lb (steady)
Average morning/fasting blood sugar:102

-->Adam