On the 12th week of recovery from my facial surgery, I’ve been reunited with cardio workouts. Couldn’t be happier! Just last Monday I had my pity party, and it’s amazing what happens in just a week :D

Time to get these dirty!

Basically, after the extremely complicated surgery to remove the venous malformation in my cheek, I had a fat graft placed in the cheek to fill in the newly-empty gaps. The fat graft takes a while to be accepted by the body and soften. I’ve been waiting patiently (well…somewhat patiently) for 12 long weeks to get back to the workouts I love! Just last Friday, I received an email from my surgeon. It had one line: “It is okay for you to return to normal physical activities.”

You would have thought I won the lottery, those eleven words made me so happy. :) I grabbed my tennies and headed to the gym the first chance I got to hit the elliptical. I could finally get my heart rate above 100!

(It’s a temporary reunion, as my next surgery is in just 8 weeks. Still – I’ll take what I can get!)

*Seems like Monday’s have become my personal posts, away from recipes and workouts. You can find my more health-related posts here*

For anyone coming back from an injury or exercise hiatus, the most important thing to remember is eeeease back into it. I’m SO guilty of breaking this rule – the excitement of being back to running makes it easy for me to do too much too soon. Gotta keep it light for the first week, at least!

Beginning Elliptical Workout:

5 min on Level 1 – keep rpm’s above 60

10 min on Level 4 – keep rpm’s above 60

10 min on Level 4 – keep rpm’s above 65

5 min on Level 2 – cool down

Enough to sweat and log a couple miles on the elliptical, and feel good about a REAL workout :)

Missy is not as enthusiastic about exercise as her mommy ;)

Now that cardio is fair-game, I’m excited to share more elliptical, stair master, bike and rowing workouts.

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