Losing weight to up my odds

I have been doing low carb now for over a year and lost just over 80 lbs. I eat no sugar, grains, or fruit. Pretty much the atkins diet. I eat lots of protein. I also fast 5 days before each chemo and 24 hours afterwards. I usually lose about 10-15 lbs in that week, but gain most of it back again. I also try to exercise at least 3 times a week. I walk 2 miles on the treadmill at 3 m/h and 3.5 miles on the bike for 20 minutes. That takes about an hour. I make sure I do it the 1st 3 days after chemo, and during the week of fasting to keep my energy up. I rarely have any side effects except this time, I am neutropenic, but that's because they discontinued the neulasta. They won't do that again, I bet. I am hoping for the neuprogen injections this coming week to help with that.

Good luck with losing. I have lots of low carb recipes if you're interested Let me know.

Although I haven't experienced what you have, here are some suggestions you may want to consider, if they are viable for you. I am post-meno now at 55 and have been the same 110-112lbs at 5'7" consistently for decades (aside from pregnancy timeouts). For any diet/nutrition plan to be sustainable, you can't feel that you are deprived, nor can you eat things long term that you hate. I do work out regularly, including weight lifting (it does not make women bulky and burns loads of calories).

Hormone balancing becomes really important during peri-menopause and helps you maintain a healthy weight, as well as minimize hot flashes. You should eat healthy fats with omega-3s, which help with hormone balancing and are critical to body functions from sources such as almonds, salmon, olive oil - easy to google sources. Take a fish or krill oil supplement. I saw a naturopath to help with hormone balancing. Ditch the unhealthy fats, or at least minimize them. Eat lots of plant based foods, organic if it's feasible for you. I personally eat a fair bit of low fat dairy, because I tolerate it well and enjoy it. Reduce red meat consumption and portion size. Focus more on chicken and fish. I eat very few prepared foods, but if you do, read the nutrition labels and watch out for high sugars, salt and fat content and source of fat. Breakfast cereals are often loaded with sugar. Liquid calories - this one's the killer for most people. Fruit juice is loaded with sugar. Alcohol and fruity cocktails especially are calorie laden. It's all about choices, but food is meant to be enjoyed, so you have to have a healthy balance. If you like wine, depending on how often, consider cutting back. Drink lots of water. I have never eaten low carb. I usually have a balance of fibrous and starchy carbs at a meal. I have witnessed countless women eat low carb diets over the years and they will lose a lot of weight quickly, but it always rebounds back. Low carb isn't sustainable for anyone and you have very low energy levels. Slow and steady healthier eating, along with exercise takes longer, but will stay off. Sugar alcohols, which are what most sugar substitutes are, are tough on the gut and cause bloating, and numerous studies have found they do not signal satiety in the stomach, which leads people to binge to feel full. I watch my sugars and keep them on the lower side. I do use some stevia (plant derived and not a sugar alcohol) occasionally as a sugar substitute. Essentially, you need to be aware of the nutritional content of what you are eating and drinking, cut the crap from your diet, and don't indulge too often in the reward stuff that you know isn't helping you reach your goals. Learn to make or buy healthier preparations of the foods you like. Deep fried or crumb coated chicken strips? Grill chicken with a spice rub or low sugar sauce or marinade you make yourself. Even though you undoutedly have no desire to look like one, bodybuilders are experts on obtaining a low BMI physique. You don't have to track and weigh food like many of them do, just be aware of what you're putting in your mouth and whether it is helping you move toward your goal. It's ok if it doesn't, but if you make too many choices that don't, you won't be successful in losing weight and keeping it off. Bodybuilders eat carbs - healthy fibrous and starchy ones.I personally eat snacks, which are healthy (e.g. a piece of fruit or some veggies and hummus, or homemade healthy cookies), so I am eating something about every 3 hours and never feel starving and overindulge. Best of luck to you in finding what works for you.

Shells, to some extent the tools like LoseIt and calorie counting are very valuable to keep you on track, and it helps to "prioritize" how you want to spend your calories. and I think weight watchers is a good solid program. If you find you still struggle, you might have to have a totally different approach. When I was diagnosed, I was at the top of my BMI and a three pound gain put me into the overweight. I really wanted to get down further within my BMI because I had a recurrence. In my younger days, calorie counting worked. But this time with calorie counting I'd just get hungry and I was on the lose 3 lbs, gain 3 lbs cycle. I had to totally change the way I eat to lose weight, and cancer is my motivator!

Like 7of9, I also do the 13 hour fast or longer if I can. To sum up how I changed my diet: I eliminated sugar, grains, and dairy initially and lost 13 pounds. Over time I tweaked a bit to see what I could add. For instance, I discovered I could eat cheese and stay successful - not sure to this day about plain yogurt and milk, I also discovered I can eat a little pita bread or corn tortillas or a few crackers and stay successful . I think this is because they don't elevate my blood sugar. What I ate: instead of oatmeal or blueberry yogurt for breakfast, I started eating nuts, which are easy to take to work and eat after my 13 hour fast. On the weekends I would have eggs with a little cheese, avocado, salsa, and eventually added one plain corn tortilla. I gave up sugar in my coffee (hard, hard, hard). For lunch I'd get a salad with chicken or take cheese or chicken, olives, fruit, carrots and cucumber. Dinner - stop eating things with buns and bread and pasta and potatoes and pizza - you will naturally have to eat a ton of veggies to replace those. "Dessert" - I always keep frozen blueberries on hand to add to any fresh fruit I may have. In the winter, I might cook blueberries and apple with a little cinnamon for a warm dessert - in the summer I like it semi-frozen for a nice cold treat. Sometimes I have a little Lindt chocolate - three Lindt Lindors have 15 grams of sugar. Handles that sweet craving for a low carb cost and very satisfying to me. If I'm still hungry after eating my meal - the olives and almond butter off the spoon would help.

I kept this off really well for 3 years. I used to exercise 150 minutes a week and then my BS mentioned new studies showing that more is better. Ironically as I started increasing my exercise a lot - to about 6 hours a week, I started to have trouble controlling my appetite and stray more from the diet due to sheer hunger and now I am struggling to maintain my weight. More tweaks are in order. I feel like this is a constant experiment and battle!

Bearclaws, good luck with your radiation. I will be joining you in about 3-4 weeks and will be continuing the perjeta and herceptin until next july. I need to get back to exercising, I have taken 2 weeks off, and I know that is not good. I will get there today for an hour at least. I have been really under the weather, and weak after my last chemo, my blood dropped and I was neutropenic for the past 3 weeks. They have agreed to do a neupogen injection to raise my counts if necessary tomorrow. Also, there was a bat in my basement for 5 days where my treadmill and stationary bike is, I have since gotten rid of the bat. I caught him by throwing a bath towel over him then took him outside and he flew away, thankfully!

I changed my diet during treatment. A lot of what has already been mentioned: minimal white bread, pasta, rice, a lot more veggies, lean protein, mostly fish and chicken, no sweets, no fruit juice. I did it gradually, working to find things I actually liked, ditching one thing at a time etc. Doing it this way meant that it became a habit. I lost about 25-30 lbs, and it has stayed off since (6 years). At the same time, I walked a minimum of 45 minutes a day, often more. Once I was finished with treatment, I started going to the gym as well, 4-5 times a week. I haven't kept that part up the last few years for various reasons, but still walk a lot.

I've struggled with my weight all my life. It has been a relentless battle. The women in my family turn into apples as they age, no matter how much exercise and careful food choices. Add to it all that comes along with breast cancer treatment, and it just feels hopeless. I'm convinced radiation killed my thyroid. The letrozole wrings out every drop of estrogen. I'm not poor-babying myself, but I'd love to know how to take pounds off and keep them off without feeling starved.

Hi, SSinUK, lovely to see you! Yes, I'm on metformin for recurrence prevention. I participated in a clinical trial in San Diego that studied whether or not metformin leads to weight loss, and I was in the treatment arm. Alas...it did nothing for my own weight loss. My oncologist said it sometimes helps, though.

I'm on levothyroxine, yes. It keeps my thyroid levels in the healthy range, so I can't blame my pounds on my thyroid. Rats.

hmm. I'm blaming my thyroid for everything (it was definitely that not lattes) and praying metformin is the golden bullet for weight. V depressed today to find I'm now insulin resistant. Feels like impossible odds. :

I just downloaded the running act for beginners - Couch to 5k. Got to keep trying...

How is everyone doing on their weight loss journey? I've settled into the intermittent daily fasting routine and it feels totally normal now. I've lost weight, slowly and steadily and am now in the top range of "normal" BMI for my height. I'm shooting for having it at the lower end of that range, about 25-30 lbs less. That may take a year, which is OK. It feels really good to have shed most of what I gained on chemo. My diet hasn't changed all that much, because it was good before BC. Just less of it and timed differently.

I'm motivated, in case I bail out on the AI's that Drs are recommending.

1200-1300, with usually a cheat day on weekends.

Yes, that's not a particularly low calorie allowance for me. Evenwhen i was running 30-35 miles a week, I couldn't go over 1400 calories without gaining weight. Of course, as weight goes down, so do calorie requirements. But what I like about the IDF (Intermittent Daily Fasting) approach is that I actually feel full for several hours a day. If I stretch out the same amount of food over twelve hours, I'm constantly hungry.

BTW, I had thyroid tests last week and all completely normal.

Bareclaws you are kind of similar to me - struggling to lose a few pounds to push down below the BMI high and vertically challenged! I mentioned I was tweaking my plan. I started eating more protein after reading a study about "protein pacing". I did lose another 3 lbs, but the last two weeks I've been so busy at work that I kind of went back to my usual eating and am back up 1.5. I've been weighing the same every single day, but at least holding steady. Hopefully things will slow down at work after this week and I can prepare my food plan and get back to my higher protein.