Hi im 40 and i gain a lot

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embbolinao
embbolinao Posts: 1 Member
in Introduce Yourself

hello everyone. I would like to ask some help or advise or if there is someone here in same situation like mine. I am 40 and had total hysterectomy due to cervical cancer. I did chemo, radiation etc. I had my biggest weight now 195 lbs. im 5’3 in height and i am usually 110-120 like 4 years ago. I do really want to be fit again and get my confidence back.hope i could get help for what food and exercise should i do. Thank you.

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  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 37,377 Community Helper

    Hello and welcome!

    I started being routinely active after cancer treatment in my late 40s - stage III breast cancer rather than cervical, but also surgery-chemo-radiation, then anti-estrogen drugs for 7.5 years. Right after treatment, for extra fun I was diagnosed as severely hypothyroid. I was a little taller than you, more like 5'5", and a bit lighter at 183, but in the same ballpark, FWIW.

    Honestly, in retrospect I was kind of dumb. I did get active - more so than at any other time in my adult life, exercise-wise - but I stayed fat for another dozen or so years, until age 59.

    As you might guess - and probably are experiencing - I was very physically depleted after treatment. I realized that I needed to deliberately become more active in order to recover anything like normal energy, strength, maybe even happiness.

    What I did was start with something manageable, and gradually progress from there as my fitness increased and I felt able. I don't remember all the details, but the progress started with some gentle yoga classes a couple of times a week, then progressed to an increasing few minutes of at-home yoga daily, then some group classes (more strength focused before more intense cardio). Eventually, I joined a breast cancer survivor rowing team that was just forming in my area, got addicted to rowing, and went on from there.

    That made a huge quality of life improvement for me for sure. But like I said, I stupidly didn't pursue weight loss at first. I deluded myself into thinking that exercise was most important for health. It is important, of course, but not the whole story by far. Eventually, at age 59, I committed to weight loss and joined MFP. I decided I wasn't going to do anything to lose weight that I wasn't willing to continue long term to stay at a healthy weight, other than a sensibly moderate calorie deficit until I reached a reasonable goal weight.

    In retrospect, that worked out really well: It wasn't miserable during the process (less risk of giving up!) and it helped me learn habits I could continue in order stay at a healthy weight. When I got to a weight I liked, I just added a few calories to my day to stabilize weight, and went on with the same habits. That was pretty easy, honestly. I've been at a healthy weight for 9+ years since loss, after around 30 pre-loss years of overweight/obesity.

    No one eating plan works for everyone, because we're all individuals with different preferences, strengths, challenges, lifestyles, budgets, and more. I think personalizing the plan is a key success factor, so what I did - what anyone else did - is maybe something you can try if it sounds good . . . but finding your own personal path is the goal, IMO.

    That said, this is pretty much what I did on the eating side of things, and still do in maintenance:

    https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10636388/free-customized-personal-weight-loss-eating-plan-not-spam-or-mlm

    My advice would be not to let a big long-term goal overwhelm you or create "analysis paralysis". Make some manageable positive changes, see some benefits, then make a few more changes. If you keep chipping away in a positive direction, the benefits will add up, and you can surprise yourself with where you end up in a few weeks/months, let alone by next year. Not everything you try may work well for you, and that's OK. As long as you learn from that and keep going, that's a win, not a failure.

    I know that if you'd told 45 year old me what 69 year old me's life would be like, she wouldn't have believed you for a single moment. Honestly, nearly a quarter century later, some things are easy and automatic for me now that would've been high effort or impossible for me in my mid-40s even before the cancer incident.

    I'm cheering for you to succeed, because IME the quality of life improvement is more than worth the effort required to accomplish it.

    Best wishes!

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