Not sure where to post this....

L1zardQueen wrote: »

5’3” and 111lbs? Isn’t that underweight?

That's in the normal range. If her goal is to reach 100 lbs that's underweight. The low end of normal range is 104 lbs.

OP why is your goal to be underweight?

singingtiger wrote: »

Hello!
This is my first post here, but I’ve been using MyFitnessPal for a while. I’m becoming frustrated.....
I was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2018 and had the works as far as treatment is concerned ( 8 rounds of Chemo, then a double mastectomy, then 33 radiation treatments, and finally my reconstruction surgery) I’m now on Tamoxifen. I have gained a little bit of weight, but I’m still in the healthy range. (I’m 5’3 and I weigh about 111. I’m trying so hard to lose because I’ve weighed about 100 lbs before and I’m just becoming very frustrated that I can’t lose. I know that Tamoxifen can make it hard to lose weight. I have a Peloton bike that I ride everyday. I have the MFP app set at 1,370 for my goal, I’ve logged my food today at 945 and my exercise is showing as 707 ( know that is exaggerated and my exercise number is different everyday) I guess I’m saying all of this to say that I may need a little bit of an education.... I know that 1370 includes my deficit right? But does that mean I need to eat ALL my calories to lose weight?(that just seems like a lot of calories!) right now my remaining calories is at 1,132. I don’t really need to eat all of those calories back do I?
Thanks,
Megan

We could almost be treatment twins - but not quite. I had stage III BC (in 2000), but a slightly different sequence: Bilateral mastectomies (1 simple 1 MRM), 8 rounds of chemo (4x3wks AC, 4x3wks Taxol), 30-something days of radiation, 2.5 years of Tamoxifen, 5 years of Arimidex (similar, different mechanism of action). No reconstruction, though.

This may be weird, but have you considered strength training, or do you do some? For me, an effect of treatment was a pretty high level of physical depletion, including (I suspect) muscle loss. That has some fairly subtle effects on actual metabolism, but can have bigger effects on daily life . . . effects that are hard to see, because treatment creates a pretty big interruption in our routine. There's some potential for muscle loss to affect weight management, in various ways.

A second question I'd ask is whether your thyroid hormone levels have been checked. For reasons that AFAIK are not known, hypothyroidism (underactive thyroid gland) is more common after breast cancer treatment, and can have up to about a 5% depressive effect on BMR, as well as causing fatigue, possibly body aches (which many blame on the Tam), both of which can reduce our calorie expenditures (perhaps not consciously), plus can increase water retention, which confuses things on the scale.

I was diagnosed as hypo some few months after finishing BC treatment. If you were hypothyroid, that could have an effect, or if you were previously diagnosed and haven't been retested for dosage adequacy, that might be relevant.

I assume you've considered the net effect of mastectomies plus reconstruction on your bodyweight goals, if there is any? I don't want to presume, but I've known women to go bigger or smaller, and I'm not sure what weight/density differences there might be even at similar physical dimensions.

I did so many different things in my life after treatment that I don't really have a good handle on whether the Tamoxifen/Arimidex caused increased water weight for me while I was taking them. I think the main mechanism through which these drugs cause fat gain (as distinct from water retention) is via increased appetite, or possibly some fatigue. The appetite side is still annoying in a calorie counting context, but not a barrier if you can figure out how to stay mostly satiated at your calorie target. The fatigue side is a little more difficult, but exercising is a good strategy, and eventually (once you've stuck with consistent calorie goals for a while) you can adjust your calorie intake if you really need to, to match up with actual calorie expenditure as gauged by actual weight loss rate.

As far as the exercise calories, yes, eat some back, as others have said.

If it stills seems like a lot of food to get down, consider some more calorie-dense foods like nuts, nut butter, full fat dairy, fattier cuts of meat/fish, avocadoes, salad dressings, butter/oil in or on things, etc. Or heck, if your day's nutrition is in good shape, but you have calories left, it's OK to consider a less nutrient-dense, more calorie-dense treat food.

How much of the exercise calories to eat back would depend on how realistic they are. I didn't see where you said what the source of the 707 exercise calories was: Fitness tracker you've synched to MFP (which one)? Peleton itself? MFP exercise database? If you mention the source, someone might be able to comment on probable accuracy.

If it's an adjustment from a fitness tracker, it's probably not just exercise calories, but potentially also an adjustment based on differences between your daily life activity as the tracker sees it, and MFP's estimate based on your activity level setting in your MFP profile. 707 would be quite a few calories, just for exercise, at your size. (I usually end up with around 300 +/- 50 calories for an hour of fairly intense exercise; some things I do give me more per hour than that (rowing machine!) but only if I go at a pace that I couldn't sustain for a solid hour. (I'm 5'5", 129-ish, so a little bigger than you.)

If you don't have any idea of the exercise calorie accuracy, I'd say shoot for eating back 50% or so (not necessarily all on the day of the exercise - you can bank some), but suggest you pick a consistent percent and stick with it for a while. After 4-6 weeks, if you're consistent, you'll have pretty clean data to let you figure out whether your goals need adjusting, based on average weekly loss.

You mention being frustrated about weight loss, and being on MFP for a while. How long have you been sticking consistently with that 1370, and have you lost any weight at all? Knowing that might help us suggest further ideas.

BTW, that advice about asking your oncologist for a dietitian referral was good. My cancer center had a staff dietitian who gave me a lot of helpful information.

Best wishes!