In the lead up to your surgery, you are encouraged to be as fit and healthy as possible to avoid all complications. So, for me, this really was an excuse to get into shape – after all, I wanted the best possible outcome with my new breasts! I started a health and fitness regime 12 weeks out from when I thought would be a good time to have surgery. They say that 3 months is a good amount of time to lead into any sort of habit. By 12 weeks, things are supposed to be simply so much a part of your routine that you couldn’t even think about not doing them.
For me, this routine was eating 3 healthy meals a day, with the odd “cheat meal” thrown in every here and there. I’d been used to waking up in the morning and only downing a coffee, leaving it until lunchtime to eat. They say that this is not great for your metabolism, but it’s the way I’d done things for many years.
On the exercise front, I decided to do yoga once a week, spin class once a week, and weight training on two other occasions. This isn’t exactly a full-on exercise schedule, and if I missed a weight day, I’d slot it in on the same day as yoga or spin.
This healthy schedule wasn’t a huge change, it was just to get me a bit healthier than I already was. I wasn’t going for weight loss, as I was comfortable with my weight, I just wanted to feel cleaner, more toned, and be healthier overall in time for my surgery – and I did!
Surgery went off without a hitch and recovery was progressing well. The one thing that I was interested in was getting back to the routine that I’d been doing before my surgery. It felt like a turning point in taking care of my health forever and I felt really good about it.
Of course, the doctor had gone through before the surgery the key dates in surgery recovery. He advised me that it was always a little bit different for everyone, and to always listen to what my body was telling me first and foremost. If I was in pain, I shouldn’t be returning to exercise.
But what the doctor did do is give some general indications for when most people could return to light exercise after having a boob job. With a breast augmentation like mine, he recommended that I wait around two weeks before returning to light activities. He advised that these sort of activities included things like yoga – not an intense class, a lighter one, obviously, light stretching, and other light cardio exercises.
But when the two weeks was up, I could tell that my body was ready for it, so started doing some yoga videos at home. I wasn’t quite ready to return to the yoga studio as yet, but I had some good pointers from my teacher about videos to try out at home. I also did some slow walking on my partner’s elliptical trainer that we keep on the balcony. With these two combined, I felt that I was getting just enough exercise to slowly ease myself back into my full body activities.
He said at 4 weeks, I could return to most of my workouts, and at 6 to 8 weeks, I could probably go all out if I was ready. I made sure to go back for all my check-ups and chat to the doctor throughout so that we were both on the same page. He was encouraging of my exercise plans and let me know that I was healing nicely.
Now, with my surgery, I was young, fit and healthy, and having a breast augmentation. Obviously, recovery time might vary if you are significantly older, have any health issues, or are having a different procedure, such as a breast lift, or nipple surgery done.
So, it’s always important to number one, chat to your doctor beforehand about the expected return to exercise dates, and number two, listen to how your body is going during your recovery as well.
If you keep these two things in mind and don’t have any complications following your procedure, then you should be well placed to return to exercise, probably before you know it! Remember to start off very slowly, because your body is still healing, and progress very gradually from there – and you’ll be back to full speed in no time.