By Lisa Cleveland, PT
We see it every day at Mayfield Physical Therapy: patients who are between a rock and a hard place. They are hurting; they need to strengthen and stretch; and they have been advised to lose weight. How, they wonder, can they lose weight when their back hurts? How can they lose weight when simply walking across the room is difficult?
The answer lies in caloric intake, not exercise. Patients who are recovering from surgery or facing the possibility of surgery cannot simply get on the treadmill and burn off the calories. In truth, this is rarely the best way to drop pounds. Exercising more, it turns out, typically increases appetite, and we end up more fit but possibly just as heavy.
Losing weight when you are recovering from back pain requires an honest discussion with yourself about how much you truly eat each day. One of the best ways to do this is with an app. There are apps today that include a database of thousands of foods, including restaurant meals. To find a selection of these apps, type “calorie counter app” in the search bar on your phone or computer.
If you use a weight-reduction app like this honestly, you may be surprised at how many calories you are actually consuming! You may discover that there are 70 calories in only three of those whole-grain crackers! You may find that some restaurant meals contain as many as 2,500 to 3,000 calories – an entire day’s worth and numbers that will cause you to gain, rather than lose, stubborn pounds.
How many calories you actually need will depend on your height and build. Your app – or your doctor — can help you determine your caloric target, and then you can strive to trim a few hundred calories off that number each day.
The extensive system of food labeling in grocery stores and many restaurants can help you choose delicious, low-calorie meals, snacks, and desserts. You can find a tasty frozen dessert, for example, with only 50 calories. My favorite restaurant trick is to order the meal I want and then divide it in two – half for now, and the other half for a wonderful lunch or dinner tomorrow.
Beware of packaged foods that seem to have a reasonable number of calories but actually contain 2 or more servings! Whole foods – apples, oranges, bananas, grapes – are ideal because they are nutritious and packed with water, which will make them more filling.
Mayfield neurosurgeons say that if you can lose 20 or more pounds – or 10 percent of your weight – you are very likely to experience a decrease in your pain. Such patients also may reduce their need for other medications. And imagine this: what if weight loss reduced the stress on your back so much that you didn’t even need surgery?
Lisa Cleveland, PT, is Director of Mayfield Physical Therapy.