I am trying to improve how I feel and look to increase my fitness and mental state. I went to a gym and had a good work out. Afterwards I had a chat with a nutritionist. She made me feel terrible ! Basically everything I do or eat gives you cancer and it is all my own fault. I was not happy. Yes, I do things that are not good for me but that does not give a person the right to speak to me this way to me. So a good way of trying to help myself is now ruined as mentally I cannot cope with this attitude.I feel worse now. Has anyone had this experience?
Rachy xx
think I would go to another gym! How dare she speak to you like that, think its really awful! we need those things that are not good for us aswell as trying to be proactive with diet!
Take care love Debs xxx
hi there,
dont let someones insensitivity put you off. as numerous people have said on here, that breast cancer can effect anyone irrelivant of how theyve lived their life previously. maybe if she keeps putting people off she wont have to work very hard, when you think about it, or shes just boosting her own ego, at your expense. so like someone else said, find another gym and give her the wide berth.
what about walking in the countryside, and getting the veiw of the lovely nature we have at the same time, and no horrid people to deal with
good luck, remain positive, theyre are plenty like her unfortunetly, but we have a choice if we let them hurt us.
take care, youll get there, without her help.x
My first post disappeared, so here goes again.
Good on you for having a try at trying to feel better, and what a horrible person - just ask her, does she know what its like to have BC?
Everything is bad for us, including life… but, a little of what you fancy doesn’t hurt if it improves your self esteem.
Keep it up Rachy, and like Debs says, why not change your gym.
I would report this ignorant person. She would have 40 fits if she knew about my diet. I sometimes feel that being a woman and breathing is the reason I got cancer but if you read all the different articles anything and everything causes cancer. I just hope that stupid person never finds out what it’s like because I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy. Keep your chin up and do what you feel is right for you even if its a ton of chocolate and/or a vat of booze. Me I go for the chocolate! HUGS!
Marion.
That’s awful! We all know just how unpredictable this disease is and that even women with the healthiest of lifestyles are still diagnosed with it.
I’ve just joined a gym too and it feels so satisfying afterwards when I’ve had a good workout. I say keep up the exercise at your own pace, manage your diet in your own way - and avoid the nutritionist altogether!
I’m off to the gym myself now.
Take care
Naz
Hi Rachy
I finished chemo last July and am nearly through the Herceptin. I’ve had a terrible time with complications at every step of the way. I sought some psychological counselling and at my first session was told that my active lifestyle and running around after 3 young kids was to blame for my cancer and if I don’t slow down it will come back!!! Sport is a really important factor in my lifestyle and I’ve just applied to run next years London Marathon for BCC. Needless to say I’m not going back to that particular counsellor! I don’t know why people lay it on thick and enjoy the blame thing. I’m sure these people in so called professional and responsible positions don’t mean to purposefully be so insensitive. Perhaps they engage mouth before brain and are just not aware as they are not living this nightmare every day? Anyway I just thought I’d add my experience so you know you are not alone and lets collectively have the strength to tell these do gooders to stuff it!
Good Luck xx
Please please put pen to paper and send a letter of complaint to the manager of the gym and if it is part of a chain copy it to their head office too. In law ignorance is no defence and there is certainly no defending this ignorant attitude. I try to “educate” my friends but I was as clueless as them about cancer before it happened to me. My eldest daughter (12) had a go at her science teacher today who started spouting off some twaddle about exactly the same thing… he hadn’t heard about my diagnosis but even my daughter knows how important it is to get the correct facts across, it certainly made him change the focus of the lesson.
For what it’s worth, one of the first things the surgeon said to me after my diagnosis was “don’t go down the route of asking yourself whether you did anything that could have given you this, because we’ll probably never be able to tell you why you got it”. I always try to bear this in mind. I had always been fit and healthy prior to this and could go for years without seeing a GP for anything. However, I did have a very stressful 5 years leading up to BC starting with major water damage to my house and finishing with my dad’s death in care from issues related to severe dementia. In between we had neighbour problems and my husband had an employment tribunal case against his former employers which collapsed on a legal technicality.
The oncologists told me they were very interested to hear about this stress aspect as they know there may be things that link stress to cancer but they don’t yet have any concrete evidence.
I have a relative who has just retired from oncology and he gave me advice on my situation. Whilst he was a concerned relative, he was also very matter of fact about things, it’s how the medical profession are. I actually found the worst people to deal with were the GPs, for me the duty of care from them fell down towards the end of my treatment. I had to go to the surgery to make an appointment for my husband last Friday, the first time I have been at my surgery for 10 months. I bumped into my GP and said hello, he didn’t even seem to recognise me and didn’t even have the courtesy to ask if I was keeping well!
Rachy, that sort of attitude really annoys me. I blame people like Louise Hay with her crackpot theories about emotional issues giving rise to various illnesses. The whole moral superiority of some people who haven’t faced a serious illness themselves - arrghhhh! Don’t get me started! I’ve stopped talking with any depth about my bc to a neighbour who has told me several times I’ve got bc because I like to drink the odd glass of wine. The experts can’t say where it comes from so why someone with absolutely no scientific training knows better is beyond me.
Oops. Rant over.
Morning all!
That nutritionist really should be taken in hand! - and as for a counsellor to say “running around after a young family has caused cancer” - I’m (almost!)speechless - doesn’t happen often! Wonder what they would say to someone who hadn’t had children? - probably that being childless had caused the cancer…
Amazing, isn’t it, how suddenly everyone becomes a medical expert when you tell them about something like this?! Friends, family, neighbours -they come out with some gems!- but, to be fair, the comments are often fuelled by irresponsible journalism. How often has “this study shown that” - followed the next day by “this study shows the opposite” been the news of the day?
Fair enough, there ARE some lifestyle issues connected with some types of cancer, but, as we’ve proved on these forums, breast cancer is such a hugely differing disease from one person to another. We all have different lifestyles; good, bad and indifferent diets at times of our lives; varying levels of exercise, again, throughout our lifetime. Who hasn’t had episodes of stress? I would guess all of us have lost someone close, had job issues …used alcohol for the wrong reason at least once…
How the hell can anyone say “That’s what did it?!” Really like the comment from Cherub, on what her surgeon said - spot on. Different situation, but similar respons; many years ago, I had a miscarriage, and agonised if I had done something, or not done something to cause it. Of course - it was just one of those unfortunate things - nothng to blame, and we have to be the same about this, I think.
OK, rant over!!
Lizzy
The trouble is anyone can call themself a nutritionist without having any real qualifications. The British Nutrition Society are trying to regulate this but it will take a long time.
I work at a dental hospital where nutrition is being studied in terms of the link to oral cancer. Basically, a good diet will boost the immune system and help alongside many other factors in reducing the risk of cancer, but to pin the blame on diet for the main cause of cancer is a very stupid and ill-informed thing to do. Cancer as we all know is caused by many different things including genetic predisposition and certain lifestyle behaviours. If changing your diet would guarantee no cancer, wouldn’t that be wonderful!
Take no notice - she will have done an NVQ for two weeks at the local college and now knows more than hundreds of researchers!
I am horrified to hear this Rachy…what a horrible experience. If you can bear to then write a formal complaint about this ‘nutritionist.’
I think cathy you do local colleges and NVQs a disserve…this woman probably has no qualifications unless they are from some obscure unregulated place.
Jane
Jane
If I do the local colleges a disservice, then so be it. Our local college does do a 3 week course on healthy eating, outlining the basics of diets. It does not qualify anyone to give advice on diets concerning medical issues - that really is the role of a state registered dietitian. Trust you to pick me up on this! My point is that Rachy should pay no attention to someone whether qualified or not, who spouts such nonsense.
I fully sympathise with you over the way you have been spoken too.
After a life of not smoking, not drinking exessivly, not having a diet with a high meat content, always having either a vegetable garden or allotoment so I had lots of fresh veggies I am now diabetic and have had BC and now bone secondaries. But yes, I have always been overweight.
None of us set out to have an unhealthy lifestyle but it seems that we can be made to feel guilty over whatever we do.
So, cope with what you can and ignore the rest. We grew up with a wealth of pollutants which I am sure to be proved to be more the cause of the increase in the worlds ilnesses.
Hugs ((((x))))
Margaret
Hi Rachy,
How dare they say that to you at the gym! As others have suggested, write a strong letter of complaint to the manager and whilst you are at it, get in touch with the local paper - that should put her in her place.
I live in Spain and speak a fair bit of the language but not completely fluently and often misunderstand them. After my mamograph I thought that the results would be sent to my local doctor, so after a couple of weeks I went to the local health centre and saw a doctor (not my own), who had the ordasity to tell me “cancer is caused by having Xrays, and it is all in the mind” I came away from his surgery thinking what a MCP!! (Male Cheovanist PIG). I have often thought about going back to see him and telling him that I did have breast cancer but then why should I bother with people like that.
Change your gym and treat that person with the respect that they deserve - completely ignore them - they don’t exist!
All the best for the future
Margaret xx
I went back to the gym yesterday and did my session. The ‘nutritionist’ was there and she did not where to look. She couldn’t meet my eye so I just said very loudly whilst exercising ‘hello’ smiling at her.The look on her face was a picture. She had been expecting me to go off on one and I had done the opposite which left her unable to say a word !
Rach xx
Indeed, good on you.
You’re a better person than I am - I don’t think I could have been so polite, however tounge in cheek it may (or may not) have been.
I’m just pleased to hear that it hasn’t deterred you from returning to the gym.
All the best
Naz