Help!!! Super motivated but broken ankle and other issues

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NewBeginnings
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Help!!! Super motivated but broken ankle and other issues

Post by NewBeginnings »

Hi everyone!!

I am new to this forum. Where do I begin? Well, basically I am a 32 year old female who currently has a broken ankle. I am non weight bearing for another 3 weeks and then will be getting physio. I have struggled with weight since early 20s and about 3 years ago I started taking drastic action and started seeing real results in 2011 and especially 2012. I was at that point on a good eating routine and had cravings under control (I'm an emotional eater with an addicive personality) and I was doing a fitness bootcamp with lots of HIIT and weights and running and some personal training by friend who is a personal trainer and does finess competitions and owns her own gym. in 2010 I was 202 pounds of flab and by spring of 2012 I was 140 pounds of tight toned muscle. I felt amazing, I looked amazing. I was modelling. Then in the Fall of 2012 everything crashed......some major life events and life long battle with depression, anxiety and abuse caught up with me. I turned to alcohol. It slowly robbed me of everything I worked so hard for family, life, friends, body, career, modelling. I was gonna write a book. I was gonna make a difference in the world. I was going to travel and inspire others. Leave a legacy. I let diseases swallow me whole and I was waiting for death. The more I drank the worse things got and the worse things got the more I had to drink to cope with it. I hated myself. I had given up. It took 2 brain surgeries, a lot of hospital stays and a few friends and family and doctors who have loved and believed in me when I had given up hope and thought everyone else had too. The broken ankle was the final straw. I still remember the day something inside me clicked and I realized I was gonna start from where I left off and live life better and fuller than ever.

It has been over 5 weeks since I drank. I have started doing detoxes eating clean with lots of protein again, I am exercising doing any exercise I can think of that I can do that will not put weight on ankle (pushups on knees, planks on knees, etc). I am doing all the right things...journalling etc. I've had physio and will again after the cast comes off. Here is where I need help.

I put a lot of weight on with all the drinking and not exercising for over a year. I'm back over 180 (I'm 5'8"). I have lost 5 pounds this month and gained quite a bit of upper body and core strength. The thing is now that I am so determined and making so many big changes in life and a lot of things are going right the fact that ankle is slowing me down and I'm not seeing or able to get the results that I want as fast as I want is frustrating. I know it is not healthy to do it too fast and that a lot of people tell me to concentrate on getting ankle healed and worry later about getting fit and getting all dreams in place. I'm just itching to go though. The physio therapist told me that crutches on stairs were hard and to just stay home and heal.....the social worker has told me that too....and others but I have a life to live. I no longer want to sit around and rot. I want to fly!!! So I pushed and got stronger and I can do stairs on crutches like a pro and proved everyone wrong. Yes, everyday life is challenging but I do it because I know it'll be worth it.

So, this summer I have been making travel plans with old friends and am planning on writing a book and going all out. I want to look and feel best. cousin is getting married and I am even thinking about fitness competitions and I so badly want to model again....it is a life long passion and dream. Please give me some advice on how I can do this. I want to look and feel best. I'm not sure what kind of limitations leg will have out of a cast. I'm also kind of going blind on how much calorie intake I should be taking in in a day. Any help would be appreciated. <3
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Boss Man
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Re: Help!!! Super motivated but broken ankle and other issu

Post by Boss Man »

Hi New, it's good to talk to you.

Firstly I want to tell you have extremely proud of you I am, for managing to talk about such difficult things in a way that came across as not tragic or pitying, but beautiful and brave. It says a lot about the sort of heart and character I think you possess and the kind of human being you are capable of being and you should be very proud of who you are on the inside, because I don't think you're a broken person, but someone who lost their way to some extent and I fully believe you CAN and WILL become the person you want to be and however we can we WILL support you for as long as you want us to :).

Right now the only exercise I would suggest is what you're doing, as when you're out of the cast it will still be a case of how the leg responds to things, because you may not be fully healed, but in terms of the gym you should be okay to use certain things like a pec deck, a cable row machine and a shoulder press, so you're getting some kind of upper body workout and the press and row exercises will target to some extent the biceps and triceps as well.

However the push-ups and the planks on the knees will also work and you could do the things said and have the planks in there as well.

If you do the exercises in this kind of way starting with the pec deck, then cable rows and then shoulder press, followed by the planks, that should be good as the small muscles are worked last and the chest comes first so you're not working it with partly fatigued stabilisers and synergist's.

None of these would require you to use any weight, so there's no lifting and carrying of anything, or holding anything whilst seated or standing.

I'd say do this mini workout 3x a week on alternate days and do 2 sets of 8-10 reps.

For the peck deck, 2 plates will suffice for now, the cable rows the same, and the shoulder press just one plate, with planks at a basic 30 seconds and increased by 5 seconds a week and the other weights going up a bit every week.

Depending on the machine setup you can add a 2.5 kg disc to it, then the next time go without the disc and add another plate, but if it's got a couple of little 5lb lockable weights built in like nautilus ones do, then add one in the second week, the other the next and then remove both and add another plate in the third week and scale up in that way.

The only issue is with the shoulder press, as you can't add discs to one plate because often they may have no pin hole in the top, so if it's not the nautilus setup, you'll have to use the one plate for 2 weeks until you might be ready to try 2 plates, then use the plate adding method thereafter.

You'll need this softly, softly adjustment process as you're probably -conditioned to some extent, especially in relation to the movements involved, so you don't know how your body will tolerate things if you go heavier to start with.

When you get to the point in the future where you feel like it's getting heavy to workout, then maintain 90-95% of max lifts for reps, as you don't need to go to failure, as the added fatigue and energy expenditure, outweigh any potential minor benefit I feel, as opposed to going to that 90%-95% of max.

Hopefully that all makes sense.

I think the diet would be something to definitely look at, so what times do you eat and what foods do you eat at those times?

I want to finish by saying GOOD LUCK and based on what you've said, I don't doubt that on the inside where it counts you're a beautiful person and you certainly have the right to try and become more beautiful on the outside too if you want to and I applaud you for not being afraid to lift weights and for thinking about competing, as we've had a few people on here before that have done that, so you won't be the first to say I'm going to do that sometime and you're certainly a long way off from being past that as I've heard of people in their 50's who compete, so you've got loads of time if you want to do it, to work your body up to a good, strong competitive condition and make a considerable future out of it in terms of how often you compete :).

However for now, be proud of what you wrote on here and your attitude to yourself and just be strong and keep believing, because it will be a long road, but I am certain you CAN do it and you are DEFINITELY worth it and we as a community will back you all the way if you let us :).
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