Two years ago I underwent surgery to repair an abdominal aortic aneurysm. Essentially this surgery entailed opening up my abdomen and splicing a piece of tubing into the main artery serving my legs. The net result of the surgery is that I was laid up for a period of about six months without too much physical exercise. Well this sedentary life left me 30 pounds heavier with a big, robust, stomach. Not only did this bulging stomach pose a health problem but it very uncomfortable.
The following year I had a heart problem that sent me into the emergency room followed by a coronary catheterization and a stent being installed in my right coronary artery.
Yes it was a wakeup call. I decided it was time to change my diet and lose a little weight. Changing the diet was relatively easy, and I’m now on an 80-90% vegetarian diet. That is I only eat chicken or meat every ten days or so.
Anyway, I still had the stomach to deal with, so I needed some exercises that I could do, to work on the waistline without putting too much stress on the repaired abdominal artery. Here’s a few of the exercises I found that helped.
I started with general cardiovascular exercises. These get the heart pumping and raise the metabolism so I can burn some fat off. These exercises include using a stair stepper, a treadmill, and stationary bike. This helped in general terms to just limber up and also to start working. I normally did this sort of exercise for twenty minutes to a half hour.
Once finished with the warm up, I started doing some target exercises to reduce the waistline.
- Crunches – I was afraid to do these in the traditional way. I did a less stressful crunch. I laid on my back and instead of raising my head toward my knees, I simply flexed my stomach muscles. Over time this seemed to help without putting excess pressure on my abdomen.
- Crunch twist – Here I again laid on my back, with my legs bent, I would just twist from one side to the next keeping my feet flat on the floor.
- Trunk twist – Another twist I did was from a standing position with my feet apart, you twist you whole upper torso, arms included, from one side and then to the other.
- Dumbbell twist – This is the same as the trunk twist but using some dumbbells to add additional resistance. I held the dumbbells at my side while I twisted from side to side.
- Ball twist – I lie on my back with a medicine ball held in both hands above my chest. I then twist to each side and back to center.
- Knee curl – Lying on back, I bring each knee towards my head.
These exercises are not extremely difficult and are fairly low stress. However, over time they have had a remarkable affect on reducing the excess flab around the middle. So far I’ve successfully lost 18 pounds and with only 12 pounds to go to my target I’m sure I’ll make it.
