Exercise is something you can take very slow. You don't have to push yourself very hard to get benefits. Exercise in our journey should be a careful and measured process that isn't considered a tool for weight loss, but a tool for overall health. Unless you are working out hours per day, the extra calorie burn is not going to make a significant (if any) difference in your weight loss process. Additionally, intense long term exercise can actually slow your metabolism down and exacerbate the "starvation mode" of your body, which then slows fat loss.
While exercise doesn't have much impact on weight loss, but it has a significant impact on other areas of health. Once cleared to exercise fully, you should focus on strength/resistance training to maintain muscle mass. A lot of people think eating protein "protects" us from muscle loss, and that is not the case. Protein is broken down into elements that build and repair tissue, but it doesn't protect muscle loss.
We need to try and have a fat to muscle loss ratio of 3:1 (3 pounds of fat lost to every pound of muscle). We are always going to have some muscle loss in this process, but we can minimize it with a fairly small amount of resistance exercise to stress and damage muscle tissues so it can grow and repair. That's where the protein helps out. Muscle does help with maintaining our metabolism and calorie burning. It's also important for general health and mobility as well, of course.
Walking is good for mobility, healing, circulation, digestion, and many other things. The physical therapist I've been working with on my bariatric team promotes HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training), which is essentially doing a series of strength exercises at a pretty fast pace with little rest in between sets. A decent workout can be done in less than 20 minutes and it will not only work muscle but get the heart rate up which is good for the cardiovascular system and many other health benefits. Two or three times per week is all you need. I generally alternate between walking/jogging and HIIT workouts. The nice thing about HIIT is that it is flexible to your current fitness level. You do as much as you can, and whatever your "max" is at the moment is enough. As you gain strength and endurance you can do more in the same amount of time, etc.
Go slowly. If your bariatric team has a physical therapist, reach out to them to put a routine together for you that incorporates some strength training. You don't need any fancy equipment...body weight is enough, or adding in some things like resistance bands, etc. I use my body weight and resistance bands for the most part.
You are still early in the process, so there is no need to rush into any crazy exercise routines. Take it slow and do a little bit at a time. I just focused on walking (just increasing distance and pace slowly) for the first three months and then added in more strength training.
Good luck! No need to rush into anything!
