Need to lose weight, broken leg!

[bakingmad123]

Hello, I’m pretty desperate, I need to lose weight but have just broken my leg (trimalleolar fracture) and am awaiting surgery. After surgery I will be non-weight bearing for up to three months, then extensive physio. Potentially I will have a permanent limp.

i really need to lose weight ASAP…partly to save my marriage (please don’t judge). I’d really love ideas as to how I can do this at the moment and before my mobility restores? Xx

Fortunately weight loss is mainly about a calorie deficit, exercise is great for health and fitness but you can still lose weight without it. Being pretty completely sedentary will make it a bit more challenging, as your TDEE will be lower.

I’d work out your TDEE and then look at 500 cals below that, and then concentrate on high protein low carb meals within your calorie total. Some people report success with intermittent fasting if that appeals?

Unfortunately you’ll need to just restrict what you eat. Burning calories without using your leg muscles (your arm muscles are very small by comparison so it’s hard to burn calories with arm based exercises) is very difficult. Do you qualify for WLI and could you afford them? I know you’ve said ‘no judgment’ but if you need to lose weight to save your marriage when you literally can’t walk, you haven’t got a marriage to save. Sorry.

Sorry but speaking as someone who broke their leg in three places last year - you are going to struggle to lose weight. I'm still trying to get the excess weight off - and if you need to get weight off to save your marriage your partner needs to give their head a wobble

This

You are absolutely not going to lose weight having broken your leg in thee places without starving yourself. I can assure you of that. My leg fracture was a year recovery.

Honestly? Try and focus on healing and maintaining the weight you are now. Putting any weight on will hinder physio.
You are going to need to be really strong of mind, people will buy you chocolates when they visit - it’s going to be difficult to resist them while recovering and being sedentary.
Try chair exercises - there will be loads online and while they may not help with weight loss they will put your mind in a good place.
Remember as you’re not moving as much you won’t need as much food for fuel - small portions!!
BUT do not make yourself miserable in the process and take each day as it comes.
Hope you get better soon x

I'm sure things depend on your current health, weight and diet and, of course, everyone is different BUT:

I had a fracture of the tibial plateau in March this year. So, that is the top of the tibia right by the knee, and given the nature and location of the fracture, there was no operation, no plaster on the leg (and basically no help of any kind offered either,😡), but was told to use crutches and keep all weight off the leg for seven weeks.
Well, I was actually told I could put a maximum of 20 kilos weight on the leg, but that hurt way too much and I was also terrified of putting more weight on the leg accidentally and causing unfixable harm.

So that meant either lying down, sitting up moving as little as possible with one leg propped up, or dragging myself around the flat on crutches. (The idea of trying to leave the flat was unthinkable. Just the idea of getting down the staircase from our flat felt impossible).

And I lost about 7 kilos during that period. That put me from being in the overweight category of BMI into the top end of 'normal'.
This was partly intended. I was very aware that moving around so much less meant I was at risk of gaining weight, so I drastically reduced the amount of carbs I ate. I skipped breakfast, lunches were either soup made by chucking a bunch of roughly chopped vegetables in a saucepan or salad and feta.

The agony of using crutches also gave me a strong motivation to reduce the weight that I had to support using those crutches.
It was also because every aspect of trying to prepare food was so so DIFFICULT on crutches. Getting stuff out of the fridge, chopping, cooking, serving, moving food from the kitchen worktop to the table, it was all so much harder. So that was a great motivation for doing it as little as possible. And getting a snack would have been so difficult that I just didn't do it.

I'm post menopausal and the weight had been slowly creeping up for years despite my continuing to exercise and trying to maintain a healthy diet, so I'd actually resigned myself to the idea that weight gain was inevitable given my age. Turned out it wasn't inevitable.

By the way, I'm sure you're aware already, but you will lose muscle in the affected leg, and you will probably lose fitness due to the enforced lack of mobility. But physiotherapy afterwards, though fairly excruciating, really does help a huge amount.

Good luck.