Movement & Physical Activity
Maintaining an active life can be difficult for patients living with obesity. This can be due to a number of factors commonly associated with obesity, which may include pain, poor sleep, stigma and fear of comments from others, or the demands of managing other chronic diseases.
One common symptom of obesity is a decline in a person’s ability to maintain their physical ability and mobility. Support and therapy to enable routine physical activity is the best way to prevent a decline in a person’s physical function and mental health. It is important to understand that this is the main reason why routine physical activity is important for people living with obesity. Burning calories is not the reason that physical activity is important.
Physical activity should be routine and enjoyable. It should include routine domestic, work and lifestyle activities. It does not have to feel like “exercise” or a hardship. In order for routines to be routines they must be enjoyable.
Some groups that support additional movement that may be available to you depending on where you live are
If the area that you in live is not covered by these supports, there may be a similar support local to you. Your local Social Prescribing Network may be able to support you to connect to your local group https://www.allirelandsocialprescribing.ie/services-map
The Irish Collation for People living with Obesity run a movement group https://icpobesity.org/peer-to-peer-support/
Our youtube channel has one example of this movement group (video shown here), and there is also a 5 minute feel good work out
Looking at the importance of resistance training post bariatric surgery.
Once surgery is complete the road to recovery begins, as a person’s body adapts to changes, weight loss may occur, as this happens the body tries to compensate for the reduced calorie intake by using stored energy from muscle or fat tissue, with a preference for using muscle tissue first.
During this time it is important to maintain muscle mass by doing some strengthening work, this is called resistance training.
This video suggests ways to engage with resistance training to protect muscle health after bariatric surgery.