[AlaskaAngel]

MJo,

To begin with I was a healthy food eater, not a junk food addict. I then got rid of every bit of anything that was not healthy food. No sugar, no flour, no corn products, etc.

Initially I did 30 minutes of jumping rope per day 7 days a week, and counted every calorie in everything (right down to the 20 calories in my daily fish oil pill). It took 6 years to lose 20 of the 25 pounds I gained during treatment. That worked.... but with the lower testosterone levels of postmenopause my ratio of muscle to fat was less muscle than prior to treatment, and in addition, my knee and ankle joints just couldn't take that on a continuing basis.

So I substituted some resistance/weight training but continued some aerobics. That helped, but the problem you are having with the constant hunger from the added exercise was intolerable for the long run. The weight all came back, even with the exercise and completely healthy food diet.

One especially disappointing learning for me was that although walking helps digestion and balance and is genuinely a good health practice and better than no exercise, it along with healthy food eating was completely inadequate in preventing slow weight gain. I think that is due to the lower testosterone level with aging. I was rapid-walking 3 miles 7 days a week using the highway markers, 1 hour a day. Using that hour of lost precious time every day for exercise, staying hungry, and continuing to lose ground by slowly continuing to gain weight was depressing.

The only thing that I have done in addition to healthy food diet and daily hour of combination exercising is the addition of 500 mg per day of metformin. The endocrinologist I saw tested me and I have no diabetes. I have no other chronic diseases. The metformin has helped. I know that the clinical trials they are doing that use the metformin to lessen recurrence are using a much higher dose per day.

AlaskaAngel