Have broken foot so can't exercise - going mad. HELP!

[Notalwaysabowlofcherries]

I have a broken 5th metatarsal which is taking forever to heal and apparently will need surgery. SO - months of cast/boot/crutches etc. ahead… Have already had 6 weeks waiting (in vain) for bones to knit together. Going crazy as can't exercise at all - not even allowed to swim. I am usually a v. active person so finding this really hard. Comfort eating instead which is clearly totally unhelpful, but feeling low so in slight self-destruct mode. Does anyone have any experience of this and/or advice? Weight piling on which is depressing me even further. Realise there are bigger things to worry about in life, but finding it hard!!!

Oh dear how frustrating!

Can you develop an addicition to Candy Crush? Teach yourself how to knit? Read the complete works of Pratchett?

I'm in a similar situation for a rather different reason. I'm in the early weeks of pregnancy, bleeding and have previously miscarried, so exercise is off and has been for weeks. I feel awful - so untoned and sluggish. I can't tell what is preggo bloat, what is actually weight gain and what is my muscles relaxing from lack of exercise at the moment. I don't think I have ever gone this long without being physically active before and it's driving me a little crazy.

So I sympathise but cannot offer much in the way of solutions. I guess the one thing you can control is diet and weight control is about 70% diet, so you can at least maintain your weight that way until you can get back to it. Then you won't have weight to lose, just muscle tone to regain.

I was coming here to recommend swimming, but that's out too.

Your situation is my worst nightmare.

There are some arms-only exercise machines, I remember we had a sort of 'cycling' thing you could do with your arms, in an office gym, ages ago.

Picking up a new skill might cheer you up?

Can you do upper body stuff? Like punches, hand bike, weights, that kind of thing?

I broke my leg in March 2013 and had 20 weeks before I could even walk without the aircast boot. I have always been active and I think the physio kept me sane, lots of leg raises etc which you can do lying down, then I took to adding pelvic floor exercises and anything else which didn't involve putting weight on my leg. You could even do arm exercises with weights. If it is any consolation people spoke to me about 'muscle memory' and said I would be surprised how quickly fitness comes back and it was true! First week of September I could only run 10 steps, by end of October I could do 5 k pretty easily with no pain. Last week I had another op to remove the metal from my leg so am now looking at another 6 week stint of no exercise but it feels fine as I now believe the whole thing about fitness coming back easily. Good luck, I know it is a miserable time, very frustrating. Maybe you can make a plan to take on a real challenge once recovered, mine is a charity bike ride in Nat and 10k in June.

Thanks to everyone for your advice and sympathy! Eurochick, I feel your pain too. Inability to exercise plus presumably stress about how the pregnancy is progressing. You are right about trying to sort out my diet - I am just finding it hard to muster any will power about sensible eating at the moment. Need to give my mental attitude a reboot somehow! Abear, your story is really inspiring; sounds like you had it tougher than me too. Good idea to think of something to aim for and good luck with your charity bike ride and 10k. And in the meantime, need to come up with some sort of home/floor-based exercise regime based on legs/core/arms as suggested. Am going to try to do loads of reading - which I always say I don't have time to do (says she, pretending to be positive when not really feeling it….)

I agree with abear that you will be surprised how quickly fitness comes back. I am an on and off runner due to a knee niggle, and whenever I start back up again, the first couple of runs are awful and I look like a tomato by the end, but it's not long before I am running pretty close to my pre-break times and finding it a lot easier.

Upper body weight training, try searching youtube for exercises.

Resistance bands can be used in place of weights, consider yoga or plates based exercises.

It must be maddening you poor thing but there absolutely IS stuff that you can do!

Lots of people on here exercise at home and will have suggestions for you!

I'm wondering if some kind of modified tabata would be possible??

er - am clearly massively behind the curve, but what is a tabata - let alone a modified one??? Need to get my (increasingly ample) arse into gear and all these suggestions are really helpful. Sitting in a self-pitious heap isn't going to help anyone….

It's a form of HIIT, a browse on youtube should give you an idea

On the Shred DVD, JM recommends punching exercises as a good way of getting cardio in if you've got a lower body injury (might also help work off some of the frustration! It must be really gloom-inducing - I do find my mental health suffers when I can't exercise and I'm only a recent convert.) Good luck finding something.