Breast cancer, and seeking advice

[msleslie]

I'm 39yrs old but thought I would share what worked for me. Prior to this year, I exercised (strength / core training) and walked a couple of times a week but never lost any weight. In January, I decided that I wanted to lose 20lbs to return to my ideal body weight. How? Counting Calories was the key to my success not exercise. Yes, I think that exercise is important for your body but not necessarily the answer for losing weight. I LOVE to eat and although for the most part I ate healthy I ate a lot. There is a free online tool called www.myfitnesspal.com which makes it a breeze to count calories and track your health goals. The website will allow you to plug in your age, height, weight, and how many days per week you will exercise. It will return to you the number of calories you should consume each day to meet your goal. The site also contains a massive food database for grocery items as well as meals consumed at restaurants which will make it simple to count your calories. This was great for me because I was not expected to deprive myself from my favorite foods - it was realistic & only required planning. In 12 weeks, I went from size 14 to size 8 by controlling portion sizes, counting calories, and making sure I ate every 2hrs. (small midmorning, afternoon, evening snacks to help keep metabolism up) Best Wishes with obtaining your personal goal.

[AlaskaAngel]

Hi Msleslie!

Your suggestion is an excellent one for the women here who are premenopausal or perimenopausal and should work well for them, and there are many younger patients here. Part of the problem for breast cancer patients is that there are so many important differences among us.

The vast majority of breast cancer patients are over age 55 and postmenopausal, which changes not only their ability to process nutrients but also their body composition. They form more fat around the middle, and more fat deposits around the organs inside the abdomen. When they drop their caloric intake to the point where younger patients would tend to lose weight with exercise, instead their metabolism goes into a form of "starvation mode" and becomes more efficient than yours, and instead of losing weight they just continue to exercise and diet, exercise and diet, without success.

But also, there are those among us at all ages who have other disease processes besides breast cancer that limit their ability to vigorously exercise, and yet they still need help with losing weight they have gained with steroids and chemo.

We really do need more emphasis from our caretakers on finding ways to match our individual metabolic capabilities, with the help of registered dietitians who specialize in oncology.

A.A.