What should I do from this point?

Here is a huge thread on recomposition.
https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10177803/recomposition-maintaining-weight-while-losing-fat/p1

shirazum2023 wrote: »

@MaltedTea this was such a helpful read. Thank you so much. I will ask my partner to take my before photos the next time he comes and maybe take photos again every 12 weeks to see progress. I think I have seen a few pinned post here about body recomposition. I will give them a read. This is such a helpful community. I am really glad to have joined here. One of the best decisions. Thank you.

@springlering62 hehe you are amazeballs. I always get inspired by people making their lives beautiful. Also yes, I did the handlebar thingy up in the air (this had me laughing for a while haha). I have read somewhere women should have around 25g of fiber daily. I have been incorporating 100g of some kind of vegetables in my lunch and dinner. So 200g in total. Is it too much or too little? I also was diagnosed with adrenal cortical carnicoma (adrenal gland cancer) a month ago. The tumour weighs around 5lbs. So I am not sure if it counts as the fat mass or muscle mass in the body fat results. Also, there's another thing, I am going through radiotherapy, so I am losing a little bit of weight. Can not figure out if its bodyweight or the weight of the mass. So the calories I am eating is about right I feel. I do enjoy the way I am eating. I am given 3 years. And I want to live healthily and make the most out of it. Hence this health journey. Otherwise I would have been the computer nerdall my life I guess. Haha. I loved your reply. It made my day somehow. Thank you.

Wow, you have a lot of challenges! As someone who has had a personal cancer experience, I can understand your desire to improve your health and functioning, thus improve both your survival odds and your quality of life.

As someone who's shorter, and in a healthy weight for that height, keeping your weight stable would be the good plan, especially with recomposition goals (to increase muscle) . . . or even let your weight creep up a tiny, gradual bit if you can (that's challenging during treatment, I know).

I'll bet *no one* knows how a tumor mass shows up in an body composition analysis like that. Frankly, those bioimpedance devices aren't super accurate anyway, so I'd take the whole thing with a grain (or bucket) of salt, even *without* a 5-pound tumor introducing more uncertainty.

Compare the test results (BMR and estimated calorie needs) to other sources of estimates. Specifically, compare what MFP recommends to you for weight maintenance or slow increase (keeping in mind that MFP will give you a *before exercise* number, to which you can add estimated calories from a typical week's workout schedule to give you an average all-day burn number. Also compare the results from a TDEE calculator, which averages in the exercise. (For most people, those latter two results should be close, once exercise is factored in.) I like the Sailrabbit TDEE calculator, as it shows results from several different research-based estimating methods, and has clearer than average descriptions of the activity level. (https://www.sailrabbit.com/bmr/)

Then, in your case, I'd suggest eating whichever of those "maintain your weight" estimates is LARGER. Radiation therapy is depleting. If you end up overeating by a tiny bit, there won't be major weight gain, and it may help your robustness from the treatment. However, I'm not a registered dietitian. Ask your oncology team for a referral to a registered dietitian who's familiar with cancer issues, and use that person's advice (way, way more suitable than a gym trainer's advice, especially in your case).

Right now, the macros you mention would put you at around 1395-1660 calories. If that's the amount you've been eating, and losing slowly, for sure eat more than that.

To get minerals, the best food sources to get a wide range of them will be veggies, fruits, whole grains, nuts, seeds, and that sort of thing. On the fruit/veggie front, varying them so you get an assortment in varied colors can be a help.

IMO, 200g of veggies/fruit is on the low side. I recognize that you're a petite person, so your needs will be a bit less than average. Most national nutrition bodies (WHO, NHS, USDA, that sort of thing) are recommending a minimum of 5 servings daily. IMU, the UK is suggesting 10 servings daily, or considering doing so, and that would be 80g servings, so a whopping 800g (much more than most people eat, though some of us do it). So, if you can still get in some protein and healthy fats, the more veggies & fruit, the better - not just for fiber, minerals, and vitamins, but for other beneficial phytochemicals. Someone eating less than these goals should increase slowly, because sometimes going from just a little to really a lot, very suddenly, can cause digestive distress. You don't need that!

BUT talk with your treatment team (ideally cancer registered dietitian) BEFORE taking any supplements (vitamins, minerals, etc.) or greatly increasing veggies/fruits. Some cancer treatments (including radiation therapy), IMU, work by creating oxidative damage to cancer cells. Supplements tend to be heavy on ANTI-oxidants - may not be the best choice in all scenarios, could work at cross-purposes to treatment at extremes. For sure, during treatment, I was advised NOT to mega-dose on vitamin/mineral supplements, and that is not exotic or unusual advice during treatment. Please, please, check with your team.

On the exercise front, the recomposition thread linked above is excellent: That's how you gain muscle and lose fat while staying at a constant weight. You sound like you have a good routine going.

My usual exercise advice is to devote an amount of time that allows for good overall life balance (leaves enough time/energy for other important things), and split it between cardio and strength. You're pretty much doing that, if life balance is good. The other part of my generic advice is to keep gradually but manageably increasing the exercise challenge as fitness improves, to keep making fitness progress but avoid becoming persistently fatigued (which bleeds activity out of daily life and just plain doesn't feel good). The "avoid fatigue" advice is even more important in your case. Exercise can help with treatment-related fatigue, but overdoing is kind of easy, and has a high fatigue penalty. What I mean by "increasing the exercise challenge" is to increase strength training workload (though some combination of increased reps, sets, weight per rep, etc.), and on the cardio front, add a bit of intensity, duration or frequency (without overdoing).

I love your positive attitude, and I'm wishing you all the best. There's indeed research showing exercise (especially) and healthy eating to have positive influences for certain types of cancer, so I think you're on a good track. Wishing you much success!

first of all you sound perfect, ha ha, are you eating a nice variety of foods, I would try to get all your minerals and vitamins from food, and if there is a deficiency concern ask your doctor to run some blood work, I doubt it she will even recommend it based on your exercise you seem healthy and strong, to build muscle and get the most bang for your buck look into compound exercises (ie multiple joint movements, squats are king, bicep curls are a waste of time, etc.) just eat everything in moderation, lots of green veggies, and watch your sugar intake (sodas, juices, milk, alcohol all bad) we fixate on fat in foods being bad but low fat foods use sugar as a replacement in order to preserve the taste, so it's actually better to eat the regular fat yogurt than the low fat, but good luck convincing people of that, ha ha

muszyngr wrote: »

first of all you sound perfect, ha ha, are you eating a nice variety of foods, I would try to get all your minerals and vitamins from food, and if there is a deficiency concern ask your doctor to run some blood work, I doubt it she will even recommend it based on your exercise you seem healthy and strong, to build muscle and get the most bang for your buck look into compound exercises (ie multiple joint movements, squats are king, bicep curls are a waste of time, etc.) just eat everything in moderation, lots of green veggies, and watch your sugar intake (sodas, juices, milk, alcohol all bad) we fixate on fat in foods being bad but low fat foods use sugar as a replacement in order to preserve the taste, so it's actually better to eat the regular fat yogurt than the low fat, but good luck convincing people of that, ha ha

Green veggies . . . and yellow/orange/red veggies . . . and purple veggies . . . and white veggies. Varied, colorful veggies. All have good things in them (vitamins, minerals, other beneficial phytochemicals such as antioxidants, fiber, and more).

And yes, I do disagree with you about low-fat foods. Low-fat food *products* sometimes do use sugar in a quest to create so-called "hyperpalatability" at lower fat content, but that's easily seen on ingredient labels.

My nonfat plain yogurt contains no more *added* sugar than plain full-fat yogurt, i.e. zero added sugar in both.

There are more grams of sugar in nonfat plain yogurt (per serving of yogurt) than in full fat, but it's all sugar that the cow put there. When one takes out the fat, the other macronutrients (protein, carbohydrate such as sugar) become a proportion of each serving, because arithmetic. This is in no way harmful or deceptive.

Personally, I prefer to eat nonfat yogurt, and get my fats from foods that give me more pleasure - such as nuts, seeds, avocados, etc. - than would that extra fat in my yogurt. There are many people whose food preferences cut the other way, i.e., they enjoy full-fat yogurt more than I do. Either of those taste-preferences can be associated with good overall nutrition, and with low intake of added sugar, if those things are among a person's goals.

I sincerely hope you’ll continue updating us, so we can cheer you on. 😘

shirazum2023 wrote: »

@springlering62 @AnnPT77 Hey guys, I hope you are doing splendid. It has been around 9 to 10 days and I wanted to update you. Despite eating 1876 (median of the last 7 days) calories, I have lost more than 1.5 lbs (0.7 kilos to be exact) in the last week. Making it a total of 5 lbs (2.3 kilos) in the last 19 days. (Doesn't add the math, so much of deficit, how?)
I am very small. 58.5/59 inches, 149/150 cm, and now 98.5 lbs. According to various TDEE calculators, my intake should be around 1290-1380 calories. Assuming I am working out 5 days a week, walking 10000 intentional steps on rest days and maybe my neat is slightly higher since I have pets and I fidget, do you think I should increase 100-200 calories more? Extra oil, cheese or maybe peanut butter sandwich?

Also funny thing, I have abs for the first time in life. Upper abs. But I look like a stick figure now

if you keep losing you need to add calories. I agree with Ann, I would add 500 per day and stick to it for a few weeks making sure there was no further decrease. You may see an increase in weight a day or two after increasing, but the immediate increase is just water weight due to extra glycogen stores and increased food in your system. Even if you were at maintenance (which you aren't) adding an extra 500 calories would only be a gain of 1lb a week.