Weight gain during Chemo/Radiation and did you lose it.

Anonymous

Weight gain during Chemo/Radiation and did you lose it.

baffledbutterfly7

A question for you ladies hoping someone can relate, I have finished all my treatments. I started tamaxofien but ended up having to come off of it because I was having severe depression and went back on Wellbutrin, because its worked for me before. I have a meeting with my Oncologist next week where I'm sure we will figure out what hormone therapy will be best for me. But I also gained a lot of weight, so back story. I lost 40ish pounds in 2018, and had kept it off until I started Taxol in Dec 2019. I gained around 1 to 2 pds a week through all 12 weeks and continued to gain for the next couple of months. Some of that was definitely due to my eating and lack of excercise. So I am now done with all treatments last radiation was May 1st and last chemo was Feb 17th. I ended up gaining 45 pds, so all that I lost and a little more. I have now for a little over a month been eating healthy and walking or eliptical machine. I have lost maybe 8 pds but it seems to have stalled and I really can't handle this weight. I hate that after everything I'm still fighting so to speak, except now its the weight, that I have to lose because of reoccurance and because I don't like being this big. I'm just wondering has anyone else gained weight from chemo, did it come off eventually? Am I being to unrealistic because I am just done with treatment and its going to take time. Just really want to know I'm not the only one or that someone else has had this experience and was able to get back to where they were prior to cancer. I spent many years obese and I was really proud of getting to a place where I was still not THIN but I was normal and looked healthy (to me anyways). I feel like cancer takes so much and going through all the treatments I kept thinking that it would all be over and life would go on but I didn't anticipate that I would be back to square one in my weight loss journey, which was not easy the first time and I'm sure will be twice as hard this time. I just feel like its never ending and its always something and I'm tired. Thanks for listening.

Runrcrb

baffled butterfly- sorry to read of the weight gain. I gained 15 pounds over the course of cancer treatment, the bulk being during chemo. In retrospect, I lost taste and ate a lot of sweets just trying to taste something good. And it was Christmas. Anywho, the weight is hard to take off. Part of that is age (59) and part is that the body can use fat stuff to make estrogen which it likes so it holds on (when I floated that theory by my MO she didn’t shoot me down). I am finally making some progress through Whole30. I’m not advocating but it helped me kick the sugar habit and the simple carbs. Good l

baffledbutterfly7

Thank you for responding Runrcrb, I am just trying to eat lots of unprocessed foods, veggies and fruits, and smaller portions of dinner, since I'm not making my whole family change their diet and I hate to cook so I'm eating what my husband makes just less. I have cut most of my sweets out, dark chocolate on occasion. I too ate sweets because nothing else tasted good and I was pretty miserable through chemo and that made me feel better. I wish I could have eaten better and exercise more, but I couldn't I tried. I'm just gonna keep trying to make healthy choices and hope that something starts to give.