How to Build Muscle After Gastric Bypass Surgery

After having gastric bypass surgery, it’s important to take steps to build muscle mass. It’s common to lose muscle after having this procedure because the body has a tendency of using your muscle for energy instead of consuming fat. Fortunately, there are a few things you can do to help prevent this from happening.

Building Muscle After Weight Loss Surgery

Here are the two main ways to build muscle after gastric bypass surgery:

Eat a low fat, high protein diet. Your diet plays an important role in helping you maintain a healthy weight but that’s not all.

High Protein Diet

A high protein rich diet will also help your body build new muscle while preserving what you already have.

The body uses the amino acids found in protein to help build and repair muscle tissue. Without protein your body will lose muscle, so you can see how important a protein rich diet is, especially after having bypass surgery.

One way to help get plenty of protein into your new diet is to use whey protein powder or isolate protein. You can buy protein powders or even protein milkshakes which are low carb, low fat and low sugar. These can give you the essential animo acids and protein you need each day to strengthen muscles and prevent muscle loss.

Check out this article Whey Protein versus Whey Isolate What Is The Difference?

Exercise After Gastric Bypass Surgery

Add strength training to your exercise routine. Strength training helps to build and strengthen muscles while giving your metabolism a boost and it only takes about 30 minutes a day, three or four times a week to get results.

Always stretch before and after each exercise session to prevent strains and other injuries and to help prevent sore muscles.

After the healing process is over, building muscle mass should be a top priority. It not only helps you maintain a healthy weight but it can help you look and feel better than you ever imagined.

One thing that really helped me as someone who does strength training "from home" was to invest in a small set of weights and a great set of active wear. I bought some exercise clothing which is so comfortable. My exercise clothes are super stretchy and feel so great. In fact I've found myself wearing them more and more around the home.

Wearing comfortable clothing during exercise can help prevent injury and give you a confidence boost especially as your body changes shape and improves.

You could shop online or find a more local solution but a great set of sportswear can really help with your muscle building efforts.

Losing weight is not easy and after weight loss surgery in particular you can have a lot of excess skin.

Toning Exercises

Toning exercises can help both muscle growth and skin improvement and wearing good sportswear can really help boost your confidence as you work to tone your muscles.

Gastric bypass is not an easy Journey but there are small things you can do to help your body get into the shape you want it to be.

Angela x

*This is a collaborative post. All thoughts and opinions are my own and any exercise should be under the advice of your doctor.