Last week, I had my second hip replacement surgery. For weeks prior to the surgery, I was on crutches awaiting an ineffective cortisone treatment to dissipate from the hip so my surgeon could do his thing safely.
By the time I am completely healed up and the doctor releases me as fully functional, I will be way low in my aerobic, cardio, and strength fitness levels. At 65 years of age, coming back from this and reaching my desired fitness levels will be a real challenge both physically and mentally.
Having two artificial hips limits my options for fat burning activities that raise my heart rate for extended periods. I used to go running for this but running can cause artificial hips to wear out prematurely so I will be limited to occasional low impact runs like up grassy or sandy hills.
I am currently 20 pounds overweight and need to drop that in two months to be ready to represent driversthriving.com at the Iowa 80 Truck Jamboree in Mid-July so I will be exploring “field expedient” fitness activities to burn fat and build muscle to get back to a respectable level of fitness as befits a health and wellness writer.
On May 17th I have my follow up with my surgeon and anticipate him releasing me to begin light exercise in conjunction with his prescribed Physical Therapy, so I can begin trying to get a bit of my youthful mindset back. If any of you driversthriving.com readers are ready to get some youth back, I invite you to join me in a little informal challenge so we can share experiences, activities, and – most importantly – motivation.
Once my surgeon releases me, I will post personal baseline statistics and will invite others to do so too so we can work and track progress as a group to benefit each and all.
The “field expedient” fitness activities I will explore will all be based on things we can all do with minimal time and virtually no equipment. I will share these and other things and hope any of you that are interested will do the same. One ancillary outcome I hope to achieve in this is to develop an app that we can all feel like we have contributed to building together to help our brothers ands sisters out on the Long Roads to live their lives to the fullest each day. – Gregory
