The PQP program: Prison Quality Performance Program!

It's time to get into some prison quality shape!

Well, it's almost 10 weeks post-op now. The valve seems to be working well, getting quieter all the time, BP and HR look good, and all the recent doctor's appointments have been going well. With some luck, I should be cleared for an increased level of rehab at my follow-up with the cardiologist this week. The docs have been holding me back because of the issues post-op with inflammation, but I have still pretty much passed the point where conventional cardiac rehab would be useful ("You can go up 3 flights of stairs? The nurses in rehab won't know what to do with you!") given that the rehab in my hospital is geared more to patients who are having problems returning to normal activities, rather than getting back to the fitness levels that a lot of younger, more active patients might have been used to pre-op.  So, fingers crossed, I can get back into the gym pretty soon. So, lets look at some baseline numbers:

Age: 36
Height: 6'3''

HR (av): 68 bpm

Weight: 192 lbs/87 kgs

Body fat %: 21% = 40.3 lbs fat/151.7 lbs lean body mass (18.2 kilo/68.8 kilo)

BP (av): 110/76 mm Hg (on 5mg Bystolic and 5mg Lisinopril currently)

Not terrible numbers, but I did weigh about 208 lbs pre-op. Not sure of body fat %, and although I did lose a good amount of muscle this time post-op, unsure if the extra lbs that I shed was due to being in the very early stages of CHF (congestive heart failure) thanks to an enlarging left ventricle and retaining fluid as a result, or if I lost a good amount of fat as well as muscle (I know I didn't lose 16 lbs of muscle alone!) Anyway, I haven't had a stomach like this in many, many years, so we'll see how a healthy diet and return to exercise work out. Of course, it's always good to have goals when rehabbing or recovering from major surgery, so what are my goals when getting into prison quality shape?

1) return to at least a pre-op level of fitness
2) shed 2-3 lbs of fat and gain 4-5 lbs of muscle
3) return to martial arts within the next 6-10 months
4) reduce my BP meds
5) remodel my heart tissue
6) drop my resting bpm to 65 bpm
7) complete my SCUBA certification early/mid 2011

Of course some of these may change as I get cleared to exercise, but hopefully there wont be too many pitfalls/hurdles. Given where I am at now in recovery, none of the above seem too dramatic/impossible, but I guess that is the point of keeping track of any fitness plan: it will let us see what happens.