Hi all,
Just wondering how you are all managing your weight through chemo. Ive gained about 12lbs and am a nutritionist so know what to eat etc but im blowed if i can shift it?
I had hoped one of the benefits of chemo might have been weight loss…
Hi Hatty
had hoped for the weight loss to help with fitting in a wedding dress in July…guess I’ll be waddling down instead…haha.
I’ve put on half a stone, partly due to chemo and partly (mostly) due to unhealthy eating from SEs and random food consumption and not being able to exercise as much.
Think part if it is the steroids, my mum takes steroids sometimes for asthma and says that no matter what she does it is weight gain of 2lb per week plus a bit more from fluid retention…plus the chemo screws with your ability to produce the right things to process food.
There are so many things to worry about at the moment, a few pounds can be lost post chemo.
Would be interested in any tips you have for nutrition during chemo? I eat lots of broccoli and pomegranate.
Cat xx
Hi, Yeah me too. It goes up and down with more sickie periods, but over all I’ve put on about half a stone since 1st Nov. Bald and fat. I know it is trivial, because it is saving our lives, but it is one more hinge that makes me less like ‘me.’
Are you guys doing this dairy free thing or not? I seem to have lived on cheese over Christmas, so should not really be surprised by resulting tonnage!
Tracey.
Glad I,m not the only one lol. Gaining 1k every chemo session when I get weighed. I know I should be eating healthy but sometimes the smell of veg makes me sick. I think eating snacks during sickie periods does not help. Anyway can worry about that later on. Getting through the chemo is the main thing and then I will think about the weight. Mind you I look as if Im pregnant some days.
Just wanted to give some hope…
Finished chemo end of september after putting on about a stone in weight, I already needed to lose weight so the extra weight was not welcome but at the time I just wanted to get through chemo any way I could.
Done rads and now on tamoxifen and have lost about 1/2 stone without really doing anything too drastic…it was xmas after all!
Still need to lose more and I do hate being this big but 2011 has to be the year I get fit and healthy!
Hi, anyone else also on Thyroxine? am already well overweight and have been told that being extreme ER+, I really need to loose stones. Managed one and a half so far, but starting Chemo next week and terrified of undoing all my hard work.
Had a really bad night last night, and ended up on Choccie bics, so I know willpower alone won’t cut it. Any advice ???
Px
Yep tis a miserable thing this chemo!
I spent 2008-9 losing 2 stone through walking more and eating less…I’m not a big eater just got slow metabolism 
So had got to 10stone 2 at dx
Also have to keep active and keep weight down as ruptured both anterior crutiate ligaments in last 8 years and cannot afford to have them mended (if i was 20, a top footballer, the queen etc repair private or NHS no problem)as they are satisfied that so long as I can walk ok I do not need them done (they do not understand my lifestyle so means I have to excercise like mad to keep legs like johnny wilkinson so they dont give way)…so…
Get bluddy BC and what with the chemo messing up my digestive system, lack of usual amounts of exercise, steroids etc I have put on nearly a stone since early october…
Add to that the hairloss = peed orf
I am now Wii fitting and exercise biking but nothing shifts…
Thanks for the replies im so glad im not alone. Its hard to offer advise on nutrition as we have to eat what we can when we can with the chemo.
I do juice and veggie juice when i can stomach it.
I try to eat high protein which helps to keep you feeling full and helps with chemo recovery.
When i have my bloods taken I tend to look at the results and decide what to eat from those. When the white bloods are low ive found pumpkin seeds are very good.
I try to keep my complex carbs small portion and leave the refined carbs alone as much as possible.
I eat as much fruit as I can and i find that helps when im not able to drink as well as i would like.
I havent restricted milk which i might add i hated before chemo but now find i can drink milk shakes. I have to say as im HER 2 pos and neg for the rest i dont worry to much about the milk, soya , i may be wrong but i think dairy and soya are more important if you are hormone pos.
If i can be of any help to anyone i will be happy to help with ideas especially if you are suffering with sickness.
Hi hatty good to see your programme is working (only joking) i was told that weight gain was good during chemo i put mine down to steroids as when i look back i probably ate less i maintained 3 stone have lost 1 half now treatment has stopped started doin a bit of excercise now hoping the rest will go try not to worry to much on your weight focus on getting well first you can only deal with one problem at a time
Hi Elaine I can multi task lol so will keep trying to tackle the weight issue and ive been doing it all my life ha ha.
They told me it was good to gain weight on chemo so that must be standard.If you think about it i suppose it is good because the biggest cause of cancer death is malnutrition. However recent research has shown that your more at risk of reccurence and death by gaining weight rather than maintaining. Just a bit more of that old research thats probably best forgotten lol…
Peachez can I ask a question? The research you comment on re overweight and being ER +++ where is that? Well done on the 1 1/2 stones lost. Jackie
Jackie, there’s lots out there. I was told by my Surgeon and GP anyway… not sure if I’ve managed to put the links in properly, but you could copy and paste. I’ve copied some of the key text on these sites, but as I say it’s all out there!
cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Risk/obesity
- Both the increased risk of developing breast cancer and dying from it after menopause are believed to be due to increased levels of estrogen in obese women . Before menopause, the ovaries are the primary source of estrogen. However, estrogen is also produced in fat tissue and, after menopause, when the ovaries stop producing hormones, fat tissue becomes the most important estrogen source . Estrogen levels in postmenopausal women are 50 to 100 percent higher among heavy versus lean women . Estrogen-sensitive tissues are therefore exposed to more estrogen stimulation in heavy women, leading to a more rapid growth of estrogen-responsive breast tumors.
Another factor related to the higher breast cancer death rates in obese women is that breast cancer is more likely to be detected at a later stage in obese women than in lean women. This is because the detection of a breast tumor is more difficult in obese versus lean women .
info.cancerresearchuk.org/healthyliving/obesityandweight/howdoweknow/#why
Obesity may increase cancer risk by changing hormone levels
Obesity most likely increases the risk of cancer by raising levels of hormones such as oestrogen and insulin.
In early life, oestrogen is mainly produced by a woman’s ovaries, but this stops after menopause. Instead, fat in the body becomes the main source of oestrogen and obese women have up to twice as much oestrogen as women with a healthy weight. 36 They also have lower levels of SHBG, or ‘sex hormone binding globulin’, which mops up oestrogen in the body . This is almost certainly why obesity increases the risk of breast and womb cancers. Obesity also increases levels of insulin in the body. It’s not clear how this could lead to cancer, although high insulin levels are a common feature of many cancers.
Peachez Thanks knew all this thought there must be something else that I had missed. Got a BMI of 22 so that must be it in my case Grrrh. J x
BMI 22, if only I had. Of course we all know there are no sure bets with this. Plenty of slim women seem to get it too. It’s just that I feel personally that I need to do everything I possibly can to improve my odds!! (If only I’d done that a few years ago would’ve caught mine a lot earlier, bum).
However I have also found that there’s lots of research that says that the very fit also increase their risk! Seems we have to find the slim and healthy, rather than try to be an athelete…
Being large also increase risk of recurrance too.
A lot of people don’t realise that the medical definition of Obese could look merely sexy or curvy! It’s actually a BMI of 30 or over. Anything 25 to 30 is just Over Weight!!
So the magic number seems to be 30, a BMI of, and a waist less than in inches, is what I would like for a start off. I am sorry to whittle on so, I’ll shut up now…Pxxx
If anyone needs to calculate here’s a link:
weightlossresources.co.uk/body_weight/healthy_weight/bmi_calculator.htm
Peachez I do so agree whatever we did/ didn’t do it made not a jot of difference to us did it?In the phelbotomy clinic where I went to have my bloods done there was a poster on the wall with 5 ways to reduce your risk of getting cancer eat 5 fruit/veg a day etc how I kept my hands off tearing it down and stamping on it I do not know.But I continue with the healthiest life style I can manage for the reasons you mention.I haven’t even got any yellow wellies either ( did you see that thread) Sorry I hope this does not sound frivolous but sometimes I could scream.I suppose most of us on this forum have a sure cert of a high risk factor --we are female. Nowt we can do about that. J
So true J. Female and getting older are the biggest things, and nothing we can do about either of those. I do find myself with the odd uncharitable thought when I see ladies bigger than me and older than me, and I think ‘why not you’. But it’s not a useful thought so I give myself a mental slap!
Then again I got a new phone today. Lady manager helping me chose model asked ‘what do you want it for’. OH didn’t want me to tell her, but I confessed to Chemo coming up, need entertainment. She said " me too, done it twice, lymph cancer and breast" . Bless she couldn’t be more than 35, and she was much bigger than me! We had a hug!! She ended up throwing in some extras for gratis, so OH was placated!
Yes I do remember the Yellow Wellies.
Hmmm. Pxxx
Oh how nice a new toy to play with and freebies thrown into.What a co-incidence that she was helping you to choose the phone. Now do you know how to use it? J
I’d lost two stone over the summer, and I’m sure that contributed to me discovering my ‘lump’ in Oct. Since dx and mx I have put on about half a stone - and have found that I have been ravenous post FEC#1 - rather than nauseous and unable to look at food.
I’d been hoping that if I had to do chemo, then maybe I’d drop another stone or so during it… instead I think I will be gaining that stone back!
Hey ho - one thing at a time. I know I can lose any weight I put on - done it before, and will do it again… once chemo is over. In the meantime I feel I am dealing with enough cr*p.
Pass me the Thorntons…
Sophie xx
(I did just get the Wii Fit Plus game, tho… so will be trying to keep at least a little active aside from walking the dogs…)
Sophie is the wii fit worth getting or will it turn into another dust collector? Had an exercise bike once that made a perfect coat stand!!!
Deb XX
lol Deb - even if I don’t use it, the kids do! My littlies (6 and 7) hula hoop and dodge footballs and leap around as often as I allow them - so at least they keep trim!
It is really good fun, actually - and you can do ten minutes or two hours… so totally flexible. And as you don’t have to leave the house, you can exercise in your pjs if you want to…
Sophie xx