Quote from: InFullStryde on August 15, 2019, 05:01:45 PMHi Vertical,
Sure thing. In my experience, once you stop lengthening, the rate of progress becomes exponential in some respects. You are FINALLY allowing your bones and soft tissues to heal versus, constantly breaking them each day with the lengthening machine. In the first month, as you continue the same committed stretching and strengthening, your body responds by loosening up quite dramatically. Stiffness, tightness of muscles joints, although not 100% wise; will loosen considerably. You will find that your walk becomes more fluid and less robotic and by the end of the 4th month (1 month post lengthen), you start to truly see the light. If you have any degree of APT, or leg straigening issues, you see dramatic improvement as month 5 concludes. By end of 5 months, you're walking pretty darn good. I have a 5 month video in my diary. You're strength isn't quite there yet and sure some stiffness/tightness is still lingering; but nothing to sweat. All that starts to really wear away with continued use of the legs during the 6 month and beyond.
Standing for an hour should work out just fine....will be great for your post lengthening consolidation. Are you allowed to lean up against anything for that one hour? A little device or wall support never hurt during the early stages of consolidation. I have been following your diary; and it sounds like you're walking pretty darn good..so you will likely be just fine with standing up for extended periods.
Additionally, as far as your body weight goes. I also lost mass during lengthening and for me; it was mainly due to skipping meals, a loss of appetite, a lower quantity/quality of resistance weight training. I would try to stay on task eating wise, but would find myself eating only 2 meals a day on some days. Additionally, the lack of sleep contributes to weight loss. Very shortly, I would say 2 weeks or so, post lengthening, my diet returned to normal as did my sleep and I began to fill in upper body wise and my legs as well. By month 5 and 6, I'm approaching my old self again. I actually weigh more now than before by about 7 lbs...due to eating, sleeping and returning to the gym at the 5 month point. Plus, when you are finally able to walk long distances...1 mile, 2 mile+...your legs strengthen quickly and muscle memory also begins to kick in nicely!
Let me know if you have any more questions or feedback!
This is awesome InFullStryde!! Thank you, I feel a lot better knowing things should improve relatively soon. I'm definitely experiencing the tightness/robotic like state that you described. I wouldn't describe it as pain (in fact, the only pain I really felt the entire time was nerve-related issues towards the midpoint of lengthening that have all but disappeared by now), but my knee doesn't want to bend that much when I'm walking, and I'm swaying a lot from side to side. I'll notice a big improvement after each PT session, but by then I'm in pain/tired so the last thing I want to do is walk a lot those days.
Lack of sleep has definitely been an issue for me so that makes sense as something that exasperated weight loss. I feel the same way - I just don't have much of an appetite many days and need to force myself to eat. As I write this, I've been up almost 4 hours and only had a 50 calorie fiber bar and a coffee! Then again, I can pick up a pizza and eat 3/4 of it by myself even when I'm not all that hungry. I'll admit I haven't been watching *what* I eat as much as I'm making sure *that* I eat. Drive-thrus are way easier to navigate than walking to get something healthier.
Great point about standing. Yes, I'll have something to lean against and I suppose I can request a stool. I think the longest I've stood in one spot has been about 10 minutes (I'm not counting walking as "standing"), but it does start to tire me out after 10 minutes.
Sounds like the 5 month point really is the magic moment where things become way easier! I can't wait. Thanks again!
