Hip Replacement Recovery at Week 5: 3 Spring Reset Tips

Five weeks after my first hip replacement, recovery continues to bring good days, difficult days and some important lessons about patience. In this episode, I share an honest update on my progress, why healing and weight loss are rarely linear, and how the healthy habits we build today can prepare us for whatever life throws at us.

I’m also taking part in our Outlook for Life membership challenge to eat 30 different plants a week—and by Wednesday, I had already reached 43! I explain what counts as a plant, why variety matters and how this challenge shifts the focus from restriction to adding more colourful, nutritious foods to your meals.

With spring arriving, now is the perfect time to shake off the winter blues and restore your energy. You don’t need to wait until Monday or completely overhaul your life. One meal, one habit and one achievable goal can get you moving forward.

In this episode, you’ll discover:

The realities of my hip replacement recovery at week five
Why progress in healing and weight loss is rarely a straight line
What counts towards eating 30 different plants a week
How plant variety can support your nutrition and gut microbiome
Why spring is a natural opportunity to reset your routine
How to choose one nutritious anchor meal
The benefits of getting outside for morning light and movement
How to set a realistic, measurable seven-day goal
Why small, consistent actions create meaningful results

Three ways to kick-start your spring routine

Choose one anchor meal. Focus on improving the breakfast, lunch or dinner that has the greatest influence on the rest of your day.
Get outside in the morning. Walk, breathe or enjoy your coffee outdoors to benefit from natural light, fresh air and time in nature.
Set one measurable seven-day goal. Eat 30 different plants, walk for 20 minutes on five days, drink two litres of water each day or complete two strength sessions.

Ask yourself: What can I do today that will make tomorrow better—and what can I do today that I’ll feel proud of tomorrow?

Download the free Spring Kick-Start Handout

My free Spring Kick-Start Handout will help you reset your food, movement and daily habits without making things complicated.

Inside, you’ll find:

A simple three-day food plan
Easy recipes and nutritious snack ideas
Practical movement and lifestyle habits
A habit tracker to help you stay consistent

Download your free Spring Kick-Start Handout here:

https://www.outlookforlife.com/spring-kickstart

About Outlook for Life

The Outlook for Life podcast offers practical, evidence-based conversations about nutrition, healthy weight loss, fitness and wellbeing for women in midlife and beyond.

Hosted by nutritionist, fitness trainer and life coach Ginny McArthur, each episode is designed to help you make realistic changes that support your health, strength and confidence—without extreme diets or all-or-nothing thinking.

Subscribe so you don’t miss future episodes, and please share this episode with someone who might need a little encouragement to begin again this spring.

Episode Transcript

Hi, and welcome back to the Outlook for Life podcasts.

I'm Ginny MacArthur, and this is a place where we have real conversations.

about nutrition, fitness,

And just generally mature,

And midlife women…

health, well-being, mentally and physically.

Uh, I am officially 5 weeks past my first hip replacement.

Today, I'm going to share how my recovery is progressing.

I'm also going to share…

Uh, one of my clients in the membership

kind of kick-started

eat 30 plants a week kind of a challenge, and you know me, I love a challenge.

So, I'm up to 43 plants this week, and it's Wednesday.

So I'm just going to talk to you a little bit about that.

And then three reasons why now is the perfect time to kickstart your spring routine, if you haven't already.

Please don't wait and three simple things that you can do this week to feel healthier, lighter, and more energized, because that's what we're all about at Outlook.

And stay with me till the end, because I've got a free

Kickstart Spring Handout to help you put these ideas into action.

So, firstly, my hip.

Uh, if you don't know, I've named my right hip George after my surgeon, Georgina.

Chan, um…

It's been a roller coaster. I have good days and bad days.

Some days I feel bitterly disappointed in my progress so far.

Some days I wish I'd never gone down this route.

Some days I'm elated because I'm walking without a limp.

My hip is great.

But my back is really grumpy.

my other hip is pretty grumpy as well.

Um…

So I'm training upper body, I'm strong.

My mobility is good, like, when I look at where other people are at at 5 weeks, my mobility really is extraordinary.

And I can only think that that's down to a lifetime, really, of being active.

and fit, and all of the work I've done in the gym, and the good nutrition, and all of that stuff.

Um, but still, it's a long journey.

And, you know, I'm still taking pain meds.

I still get very frustrated when

You know, I walk a kilometre and my back is so sore that I have to sit down.

Um, I'm looking ahead, as you know, my goal is to be climbing a mountain in under a year's time, and

I'm thinking, oh, is that really going to happen?

I'm also thinking, oh, do I really, really, really want to go through this again?

And another 9 weeks time.

Which is when the left one is keyed in for being done. I'm not sure.

It's, you know, I'm doing a lot more than in the first few weeks, but it still feels challenging.

And it's still requiring patience, and I don't know that that's something that I have in reams.

So I'm really, really working on it.

What I have learned is that recovery is like weight loss. It's not linear, right? It doesn't happen in a straight line.

And you have good days where you do too much, and then you pay for it. Well, in my weight loss journey, I was the same. I had good days, which were too good, where I under-eat.

And then, I'd go into binge mode.

And I've done that a bit with this recovery. I've done too much on my good days.

And then I've paid for it for a few days afterwards. So healing is definitely not.

linear. Uh, some days do feel like a big leap forward and.

Other days remind you that your body's still healing.

Um, like, on Friday last week, it was my third day back in the office. I've only been doing short days back in the office.

And I have to walk down an alleyway to get to my office, and I was walking down the alleyway.

And I have my laptop and a bag on my shoulder, and my water bottle in my hand,

And I got halfway down that alleyway,

And I went, geez, I'm not limping.

For the first time.

And I'm… I… 3 years, maybe.

I'm not limping walking down this alleyway. So that was a real win.

And then the next day, or a couple of days later, I thought that I would… I'm walking about 6,000 steps a day at the moment, and I've built up to that very gradually. I learned my lesson.

In the early days of doing too many,

And, um…

So the next day, I thought, or a few days later, I thought, well, I'll walk down to the park.

And I didn't even get halfway before I had to sit down on a bench. And it wasn't my hip.

My hip can fail.

tired, but it's my back.

I think the trauma,

of the surgery, the banging and crashing, you know, I've got a scoliosis, I've had a couple of

Operations on my spine.

are over 20 years ago, back when I was riding horses.

And so there is arthritis in there, and it's grumpy. And I think also it's used to a displaced hip. It's used to hip dysplasia where.

The ball of my joint was kind of sitting out to the side a bit, and now it's been bought down its central.

In this perfect new carp,

And that's changed the alignment a little bit, and so my back is struggling.

That is probably my… my worst thing, to be honest.

Um, and I have to remember that that's going to take time to realign.

I'm limited in the core work that I can do, but I'm doing as much as I can at

at the moment. And I'm just thankful, really, for all of those habits that I did put in place before surgery that my core was strong before surgery, or I'd be in real trouble.

you know, that my nutrition was good, my strength and fitness, although less than they had been due to.

The hip.

They weren't too bad and they've continued to support me.

on the other side. So, you know.

You don't have to wait until everything is perfect to do something positive for yourself, so I've booked myself a sauna.

and a cold plunge, and a massage.

Um, the progress, whatever your journey, whether it's fitness, or weight loss, or something else.

It just begins with what you can do today, and I think that's what we have to focus on. I focus on my daily physio.

and focus on what I can do in a day, now, today.

Um, the 30 plants a week challenge, that idea for me came from Zoe, from Tim Spector.

And from their podcast.

And I think it's a wonderful concept.

And I'd never really… well, I had bothered,

But I'd got to kind of Wednesday, and I was on 35 plants, so then I'd just stopped.

But one of my members

Um, she took up that challenge and reported it in the membership,

And so that's got me going again, so.

Actually, I could put the PDF at the bottom of my Monday to Wednesday of all the different plants.

So it's not, like, if you have oats on Monday, that's one.

Uh, if you have plants on Tuesday, that's not 2. It's one plant, right? So the idea is.

to get up to 30 plants a week.

And it's for the diversity, you know, phytonutrients.

are basically in the colors of the plant. So you've got all the different colours, you know, like the reds.

And the oranges, you've got lycopene, you've got beta-carotene, you've got all of those good things, the polyphenols.

And they are all vital for our health. So it's that old thing that we used to say as nutritionists of eat a rainbow.

It's kind of that on steroids.

So, you know, you're not eating enormous portions because it counts things like… well, it counted the turmeric last night in my

In my scramble, it counts…

Berries, flaxseed, chia, cinnamon.

Beans, whole grains, nuts, seeds, you know, sesame seeds.

Uh, tea, coffee, chocolate, you'll be glad to hear. Like, all of those things count.

And it's just providing all of those different fibres and nutrients,

And that greater variety helps to

It helps to keep your gut microbiome more diverse, right? It feeds all of those different little good guys in there,

And remember, most of our immune function is in there.

And it feeds those good guys, and it keeps our immune functions strong.

And I think that's another thing that has helped me through this.

You know, despite having had to wipe a lot of them out with antibiotics.

I… I think that having a good, diverse microbiome at the beginning

Even if it's wiped most of it out,

It's better than having a dysbiosis and a bad microbiome at the beginning, where you're suffering from inflammation and all of that stuff.

So, give it a go. I think it encourages us to think about what we can add to our meals, rather than focusing on restriction.

It goes, oh yeah, if I add celery, that's another plant. If I add carrot, that's another plant.

If I do red cabbage and green cabbage, that's two plants, you know, if I bought coriander or basil or whatever onto this, that's more plants.

So it does get you thinking about that.

So I would encourage you…

to give it a go, count your plants for a week. Don't worry if you don't reach 30 straight away.

Use your first week as a baseline and see what you can add in the following week.

It's actually quite fascinating.

The other thing I want you to really think about, now, as we record this,

We're basically still in the first week of September.

And, you know, now, Sprout, I can feel it outside, I'm starting to get my seeds in and my plants in in the garden.

Uh, now is the time to get into your spring routine.

Because waiting really makes starting easier, so don't think you'll wait.

Get going now, you know, don't… we always do that thing of, we'll start on Monday, or we'll start when daylight saving rolls over, or.

We'll start when life becomes less busy.

But there's never a perfect time.

So, taking one small action step now,

will start to build momentum.

And remember that small changes over time.

create miraculously big changes, right? So, small changes.

And those small changes

If they mean getting outside more or drinking more water, or going to bed earlier.

Those small changes are hard at the beginning.

And then you get over the hardness, and it gets messy, where you start to think of excuses. Like, I always say this in the 12-week program.

You know, we… we overcome those hard things,

And then we reach the messy middle, where we start to overthink things, make excuses not to do things.

But if you can overcome the messy middle,

And you come out the other side, those changes create beautiful things. They're so, so worth it.

So, that's what we're all about. Small changes over time,

Not about perfection, but…

progression, you know, taking one small action.

at a time. And you don't have to have a whole plan worked out before you begin.

You can go, what's one thing I could do?

I know, in the morning, I could sit outside,

And listen to the dawn chorus with my cup of coffee,

Instead of still being in bed.

And I could put one hand on my heart, one on my belly,

And I could take 6 deep breaths, like, 4 breaths in,

Hold for 4, exhale for 4, or whatever your preferred pattern is.

Get that morning air into my lungs.

Listen to that bird song.

Birdsong is magical for human beings. It's good for us.

If you can, sit under a tree.

You know, or look at the…

I don't know, for me, I've got quite a lot of tropical plants around my deck, so I kind of get quite a buzz out of looking at those.

But whatever it is for you, that might be one, just to get up 10 minutes earlier and sit outside as the sun comes up.

Get that blue light on your retina, which.

helps to set your circadian rhythm for the day. So, spring naturally gives us more energy, but often this time of year.

If we've had seasonal affective disorder, we've had the winter blues,

It can be at its worst right now.

So right now is a really good time to give yourself a kickstart and get rid of those winter blues.

take advantage that the days are becoming longer and the mornings are becoming lighter.

At the moment with my HEP,

Um, I'm struggling to walk in the morning, so I…

I do my physio and then I strength train either in the gym or on my deck.

And if it's… I do my spin bike every second day, I've got up to 11 minutes, you'll be pleased to know.

Uh, but usually, I would walk after that before my day starts.

But at the moment, I'm too sore in the morning.

So I have to change that around, and I have to walk in the afternoon.

And so generally I try and finish work and walk it around four.

But it's been lovely having just that little bit more light in the evenings.

And knowing that if I can't get out the door until 5 or even 5:15.

I can still walk in the evening.

Which is, you know, we need to make the most of that.

We really do. We have more opportunities to get outside and become active.

And we also start to have more opportunities to eat better.

Because there's more… there's more spring plants around, like, there's asparagus around already.

Before we know it, there'll be strawberries. I've got peas in the garden getting ready to go.

So, oh, my carrots this year have just been wonderful, they've been growing over the winter, but they've been great.

I've got lettuces out there already.

So we can start to make

lighter, healthier meals, including all of those 30 plants,

It just gets easier this time of year. We don't feel that we need to have the stodge because it's cold and dark and wet.

So use that natural change in season.

to your advantage, use it to help you get going.

You know? That's why we say she's got a spring in her step.

It doesn't mean a boing type of a spring.

It means it's spring. It's springtime, it's new beginnings, it's new life.

Get outside in nature and smile. Feel the wind and…

If you're in New Zealand, feel the wind, if you're in Waihee, definitely feel the wind on your face.

and the rain in your hair, but know that summer is just around the corner.

So this week…

I want you to…

Think about resetting one of your meals. So we start with just one meal that's going to be an anchor meal.

Um, choose the meal that, for you, has the biggest influence on your day.

So it could be that you're a breakfast skipper,

And you know in your heart that when you eat breakfast, you make better food choices during the rest of the day.

In that case, it might be that breakfast is your starting point.

You could be, uh, lunch skipper, because you're at your desk, or you're out and about doing stuff.

And then you find yourself mid-afternoon hoeing into cheese and crackers or whatever.

is in front of your face. In that case, if you miss lunch and then you overeat later.

It might be that packing yourself a sandwich or a couple of wraps, or making sure when you cook dinner you have leftovers for your lunch.

So lunch might be your anchor meal.

Or it could be that you get home and you're tired,

And you can't be bothered. You just can't be bothered to cook.

And in that case, evening is that anchor meal. Your dinner, sorry, is that anchor meal.

So, think about which is the most important meal for you,

To get right in the next week.

Think about building it around a good source of protein.

plenty of plants.

For your first two meals of the day, high fiber carbohydrate.

and a small amount of healthy fat.

So decide which meal it's going to be before the busy part of your week begins, you know.

And then you can just repeat it. You can repeat it, or just change it around a little bit.

One reliable meal

can provide an anchor for your entire day and improve your food for the whole week.

It could be that you make the outlook.

Berry Bake. That does eight serves. That's your breakfast sorted. Or the quinoa or oat bake.

Again, that does 8 serves. It's sorted.

The crunchy granola, that's nine serve.

It's sorted. Might be for you, it's a third of a cup of rolled oats, a tablespoon of chia, flax, some frozen berries.

some soy yogurt.

Uh, and I don't know, some prunes, or…

chopped up half an apple or half a banana, whatever it is for you, think about it.

prep it and have it there for the week.

I always, when I cook a dinner,

I always cook one meal that will last us for at least 4 meals.

So I cook once, and I want to get at least 2 dinners and 2 lunches,

out of that meal. So for instance, last night,

I made this beautiful tofu scramble,

And, uh, I have a basic recipe, but then I just add what is ever in the garden, or what's in the freezer, and I had some

broad beans in the freezer, and I threw those in, and I've still got chillies from last year in the freezer, threw that in.

And I had some radishes, and some…

Spinach… actually, it might be Silver Bay. It's either spinach or silver beet. I thought it was spinach, but it's looking more like silver beet.

Um, carrots from the garden. Now, throw all of that in. It has soy sauce.

Um, juice of a lemon, because I've got lemons out there at the moment, some nutritional yeast, it was just.

Yum. And then today I had that for lunch. So I just heated it up in the microwave.

I toasted a pitter pocket.

I made myself… I put it on slaw, and I cheated, I just bought a bag of PAMS Everyday Slaw.

I put it on the slaw.

With the toasted pitter pocket, and then I make my own soy yogurt, but you could use plain Greek yogurt.

And I mixed a teaspoon of a beautiful pineapple and turmeric.

kimchi that I found recently with some clients, actually, at the beach, we found it in the beach deli.

And I've got a teaspoon of that through it and mixed it up, and then mixed the tofu scramble.

through the slaw,

with the yogurt, with the kimchi mixture, and oh, it was such a good lunch.

So, you know, I… and that I have enough

to have that scramble tonight as well. And tomorrow I might do the same with it, or I might choose to make a burrito with it and put it in a wrap.

Or I might stuff a pitter pocket with it.

Um, or put it in a taco, you know? Or I might just have it on top of

some baked kumbra, something like that.

So then I've only cooked once, but I've got four meals, and I just think that's smart. Unless you've got time and you love to cook.

I love to cook, but I don't have time. And at the moment, I don't have the energy.

I'm still too tight, I get fatigued quite easily still.

Still too tired at the end of the day. So, um, anyway, so your anchor meal could be your dinner or your lunch, it could be a crock pot.

It could be something lighter. Now we're coming into this time of year, you know, it could be a piece of protein,

Or a cup of beans,

chili beans, or chilli,

with a whole lot of fresh veggies. Kenny makes the most amazing salads at night time.

He does slaw, he makes it himself with cabbage and.

parsley and carrot.

And then he adds peas, like baby frozen peas, obviously, which he thaws, he puts those in.

And then he'll chop up whatever veggies are coming in from the garden, and he runs it all through.

And he uses the peplars sources or he.

He makes a watered-down kind of mayo, and he mixes that all through, and it's so beautiful.

And then we just plop protein on the top of that.

And on a busy night, that could be… that could be a real cheats meal, it could be a couple of store-bought burgers, or a couple of vegan sausages, or…

Whatever the thing is. For you, it might be an omelet.

you know, make an omelette, but throw lots of different veggies in it.

whatever your thing is. So that's number one, anchor Meal.

Number two, I've already mentioned, get outside every morning. It does not have to be a workout.

It can just be a 10 minute walk.

Or 20 minutes, depends on your fitness and your mobility,

But get outside that morning light helps to signal to your body that the day has started.

It sets your circadian rhythm, it makes it easier to sleep at night.

That might be something you need to do as well, go to bed earlier.

Um, and it also helps to… to set your appetite for the day.

So a lot of us, when we're going through menopause, and even out the other side, we end up with a real, what they call.

appetite dysregulation.

Which… which is part of us, you know, our estrogen levels dropping.

So, getting outside in the morning, getting that morning light on your retina,

helps to set that for the day.

Walking, of course, if you can add some walking into it, it's going to improve your energy and your mood.

For the rest of the day. You're gonna get that endorphin hit,

You're not going to feel like you're still stuck in winter mode.

Right? But if mornings are possible for you, like me, with

My rickety old back at the moment.

Then decide when movement will happen,

and put it in the diary. So it could be at lunchtime, now the evenings are longer, like me, it could be after work.

But just make sure it happens, and even if that walk is at lunchtime or in the evening.

I would still recommend, like my friend Faith does, just sit outside on your deck with your morning coffee.

Listen to the dawn chorus.

What a what a start to the day.

get that light on your retina.

And then I would encourage you as well to set one

measurable 7-day goal.

So, not something vague, like, I'm gonna eat better, or I'm going to exercise more, or I'm gonna lose half a kilo.

Well, that… that is measurable, but it's not a great goal to have.

Honestly, choose something that you can complete and track. That's why I love the Outlook Habit Tracker.

And if you hang around and you get the free spring handout, there is a habit tracker that goes with that.

So it could be for this week you aim to eat 30 different plants.

uh, walk 20 minutes for 5 days this week.

Drink at least 2 litres of water every day this week.

prepare tomorrow's lunch the night before?

When you serve up dinner, serve yours and whoever else in the family you're serving.

and put another serving into your lunchbox for the next day.

that could be something, or it could be that you're going to complete

to strength training sessions, or go to Pilates twice, or…

yoga, or whatever your thing is, but I want you to decide something that's trackable, something that's achievable, and something that you can congratulate yourself

for achieving at the end of the next seven days. Don't make it too big. Little things, remember? Small changes over time.

make super huge results, because once you've done one thing,

then you can work on the second thing, and you can build on that.

So, you do not need to overhaul your entire life.

Don't get down if, like me, things aren't going the way you want them to go.

Honestly, there's some days that 5 weeks post-surgery, I…

Had a very different vision of how I would be.

feeling, and what I would be doing.

But it is what it is. Make the best of what you've got.

Choose, remember, one meal, one habit, one measurable goal,

Small actions performed consistently over time are what make meaningful.

change. Ask yourself, what can I do today that will make.

Tomorrow better. What can I do today that I'll be proud of tomorrow?

To help you get started, I have created a free spring kickstart handout.

It's got 3 days food on it, it's got 3 days' worth of recipes.

Uh, it's got some snacks, it gives you some practical ideas to help you reset your food.

your movement and your daily habits without making things overcomplicated.

You'll find the link in the episode notes,

Download it, choose your starting actions and begin today. Don't wait until next Monday.

That's me, I think. Have a fabulous week.

enjoy it, enjoy. We're so blessed, we're so lucky to be here.

Every day is a blessing.

I, um, I'm a big fan of Robin Sharma.

And in an email he sent the other day, he recommended a film

Uh, and it's called Perfect Days, and I'm a real Lou Reed fan, and I don't know if any of you.

would remember his, um, his album Transformer.

and Perfect Day, which is the sauna, which I love. I won't sing it to you. You don't want me to sing it to you.

But anyway, perfect days is around that. It's on Apple TV. You have to pay, but it's like $5.99.

And it's just about…

It's just showing you how whatever life throws at you, and wherever you are, even if your job

Is cleaning toilets in Tokyo.

Life is what you make it.

And that we can all have perfect days,

Right here, right now, where we are, we don't have to wait to be on holiday or for things to be perfect.

That's my closing message. Have a great week, guys. I will speak to you all soon.

Hip Replacement Recovery at Week 5: 3 Spring Reset Tips|Episode 22

Hip Replacement Recovery at Week 5: 3 Spring Reset Tips

In this episode, you’ll discover:

Three ways to kick-start your spring routine

Download the free Spring Kick-Start Handout

About Outlook for Life