Changing at the gym

LorenaB

I was trying to figure out where to put this and suddenly I thought "fitness thread, perfect!"

I joined a new gym in October and I've been taking step aerobics 1-3x/week.  When I go after work I have to change in the locker room. I had a unilateral mast in June, so when I change into a sports bra I also change to a lighter-weight foob.  I always go into a bathroom stall to change my shirt. I was wondering if others do the same, or if anyone feels un-self-conscious about changing in a locker room.  I am going to have DIEP reconstruction next month, but after that I'll have scars -- and no nipple for a while. I'm looking forward to someday not feeling uncomfortable in a women's locker room someday....

Also, I keep my workout clothes in the car all day, and it feels very weird to put on a cold foob.  Bizarre details that no one outside of this board can understand....

Lauren

danix5

I believe in sharing with other women what the after affects are, recon,expanders new nips!  You can view yourself as a teaching project!  Don't be embarrassed go to the dressing room proud and show those who may have an interest and explain what you are going through.

What they will see...they will see that you had BC and you are at a gym moving forward!  Life after BC, you will educate, answer questions and others will see while it all sucks there is life and normal things after a BC DX!

Just a thought!  I flashed my left foob three times yesterday..one at my hair dressers when she asked ...right there in her chair slid my bra and top over and flashed the left one after making sure there were no MEN around. Not into showing the girls to the guys!  LOL!

Then I flashed the CT tech at my scan in the afternoon, so many of the girls there wanted to feel and look.  They appreciated me showing them and said so..

Third flash was at Ann Taylor Loft shopping clearance with a friend.  At the check out we were the only customers there...my right foob which has yet another infection was hurting the clerk asked me if I was okay?  My friend told her I had just had surgery and she told me her close friend just had bilateral, and so again at the check out after checking for the male species, I flashed her the Left one with the new nice looking nip!  Thought the angry right one would be a bit much for a newbie.  LOL!

I am a very open person but the comments I get for sharing with others who do not understand the whole process has been rewarding.  I feel sometimes it may make a difference for someone going or not going to have the regular check ups.   Or if they get BC they will not feel such an unknown about the whole recon thing.  They will think I remember that lady and hers did not look bad.  (except for the right nip!!!!!)

Wear your scars proud, you have been through a lot and the opportunity to talk and share is always a good thing.

Good luck and keep exercising!

Dani

danix5

PS- I know you do not have all your recon done yet, but there are those who do not choice recon so you would be sharing that option at this point!

Have afriend that did the diep, her boobs feel great....  She has a hang to hers that makes them feel and look more natural.  I have silicone foobs so sort of barbie boobs now!  Both sets are doing well and even naked the are starting to grow on me and the acceptance is finally there!

Best to you,

Dani

Raye99

Hi Lauren!

When I first returned to the gym, I had the very same dilemma and would change in the locker room with the other women, but would wait until the coast was clear before taking off my shirt and mast. bra to change into my workout clothes. If a woman would enter my row of lockers mid-change, I felt the need to make an announcement so she wouldn't freak out. Something to the effect of I had bc and have no breasts. Of course, this led to conversations about bc, that I haven't yet had recon., etc. Like Dani, I am very very open; however, now I do not feel the need to announce to everyone within eyeshot that I am about to remove my shirt and mast. bra. LOL. Now I change quickly and really don't give it much thought.

Dani - great avatar, you and your foobs look phenomenal! Looking good!

Raye

danix5

Thanks Raye.. this is new years this year with the new foobs!  LOL!  used makeup to cover scars lines!

Dani

lisa-e

I had a bilateral mastectomy and opted not to have reconstruction.  I wear a compression shirt when I exercise and usually put it on when I get to the  gym instead of wearing it all day.  I refuse to go into a toilet stall to change, so folks see my scars.  They are extensive and I have gotten  some odd looks, although no one has asked me any questions . . .  I am waiting to use my line about getting attacked by a shark.

  

AnneW

I was pretty self-conscious changing in the locker room for the first few months after surgery. I have implants with no nips. Now, I don't even think about it, and no one has said a word. I'll talk to anyone about it if they ask, but I don't volunteer.

Anne

barbe1958

All this is one of the reasons I don't even wear foobs. Why should I wear fake breasts to make "YOU" (the general public) feel better! I am not ashamed of my scars or chest. I wear perfectly flat tops with a cropped sweater or some such. I have flashed it 3 times to curious ladies. They are all amazed; one of them thought I would at least still have my nipples! I think we are the ones that are educating the ones lining up behind us. If I had had a role model like me (wink,wink) I wouldn't have been so scared. .

You ladies in the gym are sending the perfect message that life DOES go on, and on...and in perfectly normal ways again. You should be very proud, not ashamed or afraid to hurt someones sensibilities.

Now if only I could get up the energy to go to a gym.....sigh.

lisa-e

barbe1958, I am not ashamed of my scars, but I really don't want to have to educate the young women who frequent my gym.  It takes a lot of energy to be a role model and I am there to work out, to climb, and I don't want to have to explain my scars to them.  Therefore, I am a bit uneasy when I change - I know at some point I will be asked questions.  It is hard enough having to explain  the changes in my appearance to friends and acquaintances.

barbe1958

Lisa-e, I understand what you're saying but that's why the sentence also said "or hurt someone's sensibilities". I certainly am not suggesting you stand in front of everyone and give a lecture, just saying that you are setting a good example. 

Sorry if I offended anyone. 

lisa-e

barbe1958, you certainly didn't offend me.  No worries...

It might be easier to stand in front of everyone and give a lecture . . . then I would only have to do it once . . .

digger

This is such a great thread, because I definitely have been struggling with the locker room.  I'm a little over 2 months post unilateral mx with tissue expander.  About a month into it, I finally made myself go into the gym. I had been using my treadmill at home to get my strength back, but I really yearned to get back into the gym and be with other people.  I guess I was craving being somewhat back to my normal life. 

For the first several weeks, I changed at home into my sports bra and shirt, so I didn't have to deal with that part at the gym.  Then, when I was through, I changed back into my normal clothes in the stall.  But, I really like to take a shower there, so now I bring a clean shirt with me and hang it next to the shower so I can slip it on inside the shower stall.  I can't bring myself to just change in front of other women, and that does sadden me.  However, I've had a lot of problems with wound healing, and I really think I would scare people.  The incision is just so ugly right now. 

I do wonder oftentimes if anyone else even notices that I go into the shower with my workout shirt on, then come out with a clean shirt on.  I don't see anyone else doing that.  I also wonder if anyone notices how uneven my breasts are right now.  The foob is higher on my chest and about a third larger than the "healthy" breast.  But then, I tell myself, I'm sure everyone else has their own problems, and the last thing they're doing is looking at my boobs.  

One last comment...I definitely have "boob envy."  I am really envious of those women who have their own natural breasts and just take it for granted.  It really does feel like I'm the only woman with this bc issue at that gym, but I guess at my age (47), most of the women there are younger anyway and therefore have less of a chance of having dealt with bc and mastectomies. 

car

This is an interesting topic, since women differ in their attitudes about baring even healthy bodies at the gym. I've even read a study that indicated that the popularity of walking outdoors among women is partly due to the fact that many of them hate the mirrors at the gym.

Over the course of 3 years and 8 surgeries (starting w/a spinal lamenectomy), I've just gritted my teeth and gone into the gym (and to work) in various stages of reconstruction. W/the lamenectomy, it was lugging around a walker--something I associated w/my late parents. I'd prop it against the treadmill at the gym and do my workout, and at school I'd lash a totebag to carry books and papers w/FlexiCuffs (a friend's a cop!). Then the cancer hit. I wore my own clothes through various chest sizes--even as Frankenboob moved up toward my neck. When I couldn't lie on my stomach in Pilates and do the moves, I'd just curl on my side and let folks wonder. I dressed in the locker room as usual. If someone asked--and most didn't--I'd explain, as I did when I hugged someone and got a funny look. OOPS. Sorry about bouncing off of me. Forgot about those implants.

Now, all I have to worry about are scars (I'm getting scheduled for a tattoo) and in a way I feel as if I earned them. I'm not sure if I have "boob envy" (though I like the term), but there are times when I envy women who haven't had to deal w/all of this.

ktym

Barbe: I hear you, maybe its just cancer self centeredness going on, but the last thing I'm worried about is upsetting someone else's sensibilities because my chest doesn't look the way it used to.  They can deal with their own issues.  Same goes for my hair, dont like the wig, I'm embracing the bald.  Ignoring some of "the looks", like I said, their issues not mine.

 Digger, yes boob envy.  Saw someone on a TV show the other day with this cut away blouse both in cleavage and under the arms and told my husband, I would never have worn that, but sorry that option just isn't there anymore .  Never took my breasts for granted before BC, but still really miss the one that's gone. 

roseg

I've done the boob envy thing. These days I'm amazed at the number of women flopping around in bras that aren't doing a thing for them! I guess that's what a few years of re-done boobs will do for you. Breasts in a right-sized bra with good support can take 10 pounds off the way you look. 

If I shower at the gym I take the private stall and get dressed in there. I am a regular at the gym and am not interested in becoming a gossip item at the treadmills.

I've connected with several women who've had breast cancer at the gym. A pink t-shirt, a water bottle, an offhand comment. Just no nude bodies! 

haltsaluteatx

This is a great thread and timely for me. I had bilat no recon 10/28. I started going to the gym about a month ago. I was really anxious about changing even though I had a cami on. I had all I could do to keep myself together. I heard my physicians voice in the locker room and nearly lost it then. Usually I am hoping not to see anyone I know but that doesn't usually work. I figured I needed to be able to change there at some point so why not just start out. It is easier now. I can change my cami too. I still feel abit self conscious but I can deal with it. Noone has said anything and I haven't seen anyone staring but I suppose I think they are. The showers are all private stalls so that is ok. I did not want to go into the bathroom to change either because it seemed like hiding. This is all part of the coping process for me. That first day I did 15 min on treadmill and boy was I out of shape. Ugh. I thought that was the end of me. LOL.

barbe1958

You did great at 15 minutes on the treadmill! I'm so bad, that yesterday as I went searching for a dress for my daughter's wedding, my arms actually got too tired to move the hangars! I had to stop a number of times. Too funny, but so sad.... 

Beesie

I never liked changing in front of other women before, so why would I like it now?  It's not embarrassment about my mastectomy and reconstruction, it's because I'm a very private person and always have been.  Part of my being a private person is that I don't feel the need to share my breast cancer experience with the world or feel any compulsion to educate the world about the after effects of breast cancer treatment.  Within our small world here, I am defined by the fact that I had breast cancer.  Out there in the rest of the world, that's not who I choose to be.  If I encounter a situation where I know that someone is going through testing or breast cancer treatment, I'll jump right in, share my experience and offer support.  But to the world at large, nope. 

So it's great if someone wants to change in front of others, it's great if someone wants to share their experience with others and serve as a teaching tool about breast cancer, but just as great if you don't want to do these things.  It's not a question of whether you are proud or ashamed.  It's a question of what you feel comfortable doing.  We each have to do whatever we feel comfortable doing. There's no right or wrong way of doing it and by virtue of having had breast cancer, we don't have to change who we are.

barbe, you've mentioned a few times in your posts that you choose to not wear protheses because you don't feel the need to make other people feel comfortable.  I completely understand where you are coming from and I think it's great that you feel that way. But please understand that many (perhaps most) of us who do wear protheses or have reconstruction (as I did) don't do it because of societal pressure or because of how we appear to the rest of the world - we do it for ourselves, because of how it makes us feel.  In making my decision to have reconstruction, I never once thought about what someone else might think.  I had reconstruction because I knew that I wouldn't want to have to deal with breast cancer every day for the rest of my life.  So for me, it's great that I can get dressed just like I always did and wear the same bras & clothes that I always did (except I fill them much better now!).  As for how I look to the outside world, I'll be the first to admit that it's important to me that I look just like everyone else but this isn't because I'm concerned that I might make someone else feel uncomfortable.  I've simply decided that I don't want to be defined by breast cancer. I feel that the fact that I've had breast cancer isn't relevant to most people I encounter in life so I'd rather appear "normal" so that this is never an issue (unless I choose to bring it up).  That's my choice. It's not a statement about my confidence or self-assurance.   Just as I said earlier about changing in the locker room, there is no right or wrong on this.  There are lots of ways to approach this and no one way is better than any other way.  All that counts is that we each do what's right for us. 

Jorf

I've never been uncomfortable with nudity and I'm still not. (I met my best male friend when he and his wife came over to do a sauna at our house - my husband had met him in EMT class and he and I had horses in common - "Hi, nice to meet you" and we took our clothes off. I'm a little more self-conscious about who I'll sauna with now but everyone knows I've had BC and so why not. I think 25 year old men need to learn what it looks like and how it's dealt with  - after all, most of them were great supports to me during my chemo.) There are a lot of women at the gym who spend way too much time in the shower stalls drying off, getting dressed. It actually pisses me off when there are other women waiting. I don't try to hide my implanted breast with a scar rather than a nipple. No one has ever said anything about it but I would be perfectly comfortable if anyone did. I felt like a spokesperson with my bald head and I feel the same with my funny chest. If one women comes into the gym the day after finding a lump or getting a letter about a mammogram and she sees me and either does or doesn't say anything I'll be happy. She'll know that, for most of us, life goes on and we go to the gym and our hair grows back.

I can certainly see the modesty side of things for anyone - with a BC history or not. Everyone is different on this.

(I have to say that it kind of makes me laugh - there's a woman who has cosmetic breast implants [I recognized them when I was on the second floor and she was on the first lying back doing chest presses and I saw the familiar shape] and she's one that puts on her bra and thong in the shower stall. She'll show her butt but not her breasts? She paid a lot of money for those breasts!)

DragonladyTina

I had a bilat.with tissue expander recon in 05, well healed and I am at the gym a few times a week. I don`t do anything special with regards to changing, I do it as quickly as possible while keeping my bra on.

I don`t mind talking about it but like Rose, I don`t want to be the topic of conversation at the gym. I often get a few questions because my pink ribbon BC tattoo is usually visible in my work-out clothes and I get a few smiles or nods from other women who quite possiblly have walked in my shoes.

I have always been quite modest so I have not changed too much even though my boobs are quite perky and not under my arms anymore!

Tina

barbe1958

I am very modest as well, and one of those women who changed in the bathroom. Surprised all?

I still would change in the bathroom, if I ever went to a gym again. I don't believe I'd change my modesty level from how I was before. That's pretty much what I've been trying to say through all this and most of you are basically saying the same thing.

Ashamed of my body now? No, but I've always been EMBARRASSED by it. Like I said on another thread, my torso is so ripped apart with surgeries and stretch marks (first stomach surgery 51 years ago at 10 days old) that doctors are stunned when they see it. So I am not one to flaunt it either, even after my reduction that gave me gorgeous perky breasts. I just feel sad that ladies who used to have no problems feel that now they do. I envy women that can walk around with no inibitions.

Once again, sigh, I'm sorry if I offended anyone!

nosurrender

I always go into a changing stall when I have to put on my bathing suit. I never was a naked person- never felt comfortable walking around locker rooms with no clothes on- ever - I was always modest about changing.

Now, after cancer and a bilat, I am more sensitive.  I do find myself looking at the natural breasts on the women who get changed out in the open- I keep thinking- "Oh yeah, THAT's what they used to look like!" I can only imagine what they think! I find them fascinating. Like someone who used to own a classic car and traded it in for a new model but still stops when they see the old classic car on the street go by.

barbe1958

Someone on another thread called it "boob envy" and I know exactly what you mean! I never used to notice breasts and now they're everywhere! It's like I'm seeing double! LOL

Dejaboo

I feel the Boob Envy- LOL...I find myself always looking at boobs, wether in the locker room or not.  I especially have a fixation with Cleavage since I have this gross uniboob.  So I also have Cleavage Envy.

I am some what Modest in Public.  I never was at home- I am now- sure dont want dh to see this gross chest.  Although he has.

In the locker room I have found ways to keep my towel across my front.  I wear a bra while working out- although I would rather not as it is painful to wear- But it lets me undress with a towel...Vs being seen if I just had my Workout shirt on.

I do not wear a bra after working out.  So I can slip my shirt right on while still wearing a towel & No one sees.  if they were normal Implants with Finished nips- I think (hope) I will be a little less self concious...I guess only time & getting fixed will tell me that.

Pam

desdemona222b

I have a badly maimed left breast after a lumpectomy with 3 incisions.  It looks bad. 

I just change in the gym - this is how I see it - I'm not watching anyone's body and hopefully they're not watching me, but if they are, who cares?  I don't owe them any explainations about my poor little boob, and I think they can figure out for themselves if they have to look at it that I had breast cancer!  No one has ever asked me about it, btw.

I'm not really that comfortable changing in the gym period - my bod is not what it used to be, but then we can't all be young and have a fantastic body, at least not all our lives, and I need sports bras and showers just like everyone else.

Farrah

I have gradually got over boob watching and now I think I have a strange coping strategy where I feel I'm the normal one and all the other ladies are the unusual ones. I look at women my age and think 'wow, you're in your 50's and still have your own boobs...amazing!! 

The same thing happened when my dad passed away 25yo. I see women my age who still have their father and think it's amazing! 

barbe1958

That's because it has become your new "normal". This is your reality. That's why it's sad to hear women wanting to "get back to normal". The old normal doesn't exist anymore!

Change is inevitable. Growth is optional.

Jorf

Yes, boob envy for sure. Well, not always envy (hee hee) but boob wonder. I think, "Wow, two breasts, two nipples, pretty much matching, whadayaknow?" even when they're less than "perky".

Funny, a couple of days after I wrote what I did above I went to the gym at an odd time and saw a woman who was clearly doing chemo. We talked for a while. It was nice to see her.

33skidoo

There is a large cross-section of ages at my gym.  I've noticed that a HUGE proportion of women have had surgeries (of all kinds) and wear their battle wounds well.  I've seen so many scars that my 4 no longer phase me.

lisa-e

The gym I frequent is a climbing gym, which means that most of the women their are younger than me.  On Friday, I was changing when group of high school students were in the dressing room.  They were so involved in their conversation about the effect of alcohol on their mothers that I don't think they even looked at me.  Good thing - besides the scar issue - I was having a hard time supressing my laughter.

smithlme

OK...my issue isn't at my gym. In October I will be walking in the Komen 3-Day, this time as a survivor. We use portable showers that are in a long truck. The stalls are separate but the dressing area is all-in-one. I've had two mastectomies, a large scar from my failed TRAM and the scar from my hysterectomy. I know that other survivors will "get" the scars, but how do I feel comfortable around the other walkers?? I sure don't want to be the survivor "poster child" and I really don't want to freak anybody out since some of the walkers are barely 18. I also am not ashamed of being alive and having survived cancer two times. But....I've never been so self-conscience of my body. I feel like the geek in school!

Linda