October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month
MNAZ57
Posts: 2 Member
Hello! I am new here, as of yesterday! As a breast cancer survivor I want to encourage everyone to have their mammogram! A year ago my 3D Mammo picked up my cancer. I could not feel a lump, nor could any of my Drs. Don’t think it won’t happen to you! As my breast doctor said….”it is not a matter of “if” you get cancer, it is “when”. So…I have done my service announcement!💗 So on to my comments!
Some of my meds have made me gain weight in the belly. I need to lose about 26 lbs overall. I haven’t been ideal weight for many years. I am approaching my 64th birthday and the weight hasn’t budged. But, if I am honest with myself I have not been very diligent! So, here I am! I decided I need to be accountable for what I put in my mouth and you all know how it goes…you never think you are eating as many calories as you truly are…counting makes you aware!
Any tips to help with the belly fat? After all is said and done I am ok that the belly fat is the most I have to worry about right now. Cancer, you suck!💗👚👄
Some of my meds have made me gain weight in the belly. I need to lose about 26 lbs overall. I haven’t been ideal weight for many years. I am approaching my 64th birthday and the weight hasn’t budged. But, if I am honest with myself I have not been very diligent! So, here I am! I decided I need to be accountable for what I put in my mouth and you all know how it goes…you never think you are eating as many calories as you truly are…counting makes you aware!
Any tips to help with the belly fat? After all is said and done I am ok that the belly fat is the most I have to worry about right now. Cancer, you suck!💗👚👄
6
Replies
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Welcome! I too was diagnosed with breast cancer about 10 months ago and while I’m not yet cancer free, I’m hoping to be with the next 6 months. I’m not even 40 yet so it can really happen to everyone so I hope everyone scan when they can. Meds have also made me gain more easily (and I was already really overweight) so I decided to be diligent with my eating healthy and try to move/exercise more and I’m steadily and slowly losing. Unfortunately you can’t reduce only belly fat but toning and losing overall body fat will help. Stick with MFP and you will see results too. Good luck!4
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Mine was Invasive Ductal Carcinoma. I wound up having a lumpectomy and radiation and now on hormone therapy for five long years. BUT... I will not complain about how the meds make me ache and feel nauseous...so many are fighting a harder battle. I hope you are soon cancer free! You are so young to be going through this...it seems so many younger women are finding it. I hope you found yours early. Mine tumor was under 8mm and was stage 1A. I was so blessed that everything went as good as it possibly could. So far! God is good and will see us through!3
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Shoutout to all the previvors out there - it's so important to take control of your risk and do what you can to reduce it. I'm so glad I had the option to have surgery and great doctors who didn't try to downplay my concerns.
And best wishes to all of you fighting back! You got this.1 -
Hello: May I add to your public service announcement, which I fully endorse?
Many people don't realize it, but men can get breast cancer too, and they're statistically more likely to die of it because it's so frequently caught at a later stage. They don't think that little lump they feel on their chest could be cancer, so they don't go to the doctor - and often they do feel it fairly early, since there isn't mostly as much breast mass in the way. Yes, much rarer among men, but it can happen, so help the men in your lives understand it isn't women only!
I had stage III locally advanced breast cancer, 5 tumors in left breast (largest 3.1cm), 1 tumor in right breast, one positive lymph node (9 nodes removed on the left side). I had bilateral mastectomies (one simple, one modified radical, no reconstruction by choice), 6 months of chemotherapy every 3 weeks (Adriamycin/Cytoxan then Taxol), 6 weeks of radiation on the left side (yes, even with the mastectomy), 2.5 years of Tamoxifen, 5 years of Arimidex. In the months shortly after the initial surgery/chemo/radiation, I was diagnosed as severely hypothyroid and treated for that, too.
Breast cancer diagnosis was 21 years ago . . . in fact surgery was 21 years ago *today*. No evidence of disease, at this point.
I was diagnosed at age 44, am 65 now. After surgery/chemo/radiation, I started being very active athletically (despite a quite sedentary life beforehand, and a desk job). I stayed overweight to obese for around another dozen years, finally losing weight (class 1 obese to healthy weight, 50-some pounds) back in 2015-16 at age 59-60 using MFP, and have maintained a healthy weight since, and I'm still very active (rowing, biking in summer; indoor versions of those in off-season plus some strength training). FWIW, I'm 5'5', around 125 pounds nowadays.
For belly fat: Mostly, it's going to be about keeping a sensibly moderate fat loss rate going until one's body decides to give up some in that area. For many of us, that zone is among the last place for fat to leave, unfortunately.
Working on posture can help the appearance: In brief, anterior pelvic tilt (top of hip bones forward of bottom of hip bones, instead of stacked atop), and a computer head/neck head-forward, rounded shoulders thing will tend to push any belly fat forward and compress it downward/outward respectively. That makes the belly fat look more prominent. There are exercises for those things, if they're a factor. They're both pretty common posture issues, these days, in men and women both.
Finally, there is some limited research hinting that regular strength training may help a tiny bit extra with fat loss in the abdominal region, for post-menopausal women. It's a little speculative to advance that as a true thing, but strength training is so good for us in other ways, that it's worth doing for the improved strength, longer probable independent life, fall avoidance, bone-strengthening benefits and more . . . and if it actually does help a little with belly fat, that's just an extra bonus.
For those who (unlike me) still have breasts: Do those self-exams, get those mammograms! (I do self-exam, but don't have anything to mammogram, of course.)
Hugs to those of you still going through treatment, or for whom it still looks pretty large in the rear-view mirror. Long-term survivorship, even from fairly advanced stages, can happen. I'm not the only long term stage III survivor I know, for example.4 -
I was diagnosed 7 years ago at age 31. I had to have a mastectomy on my right side. Chemo and the plethora of other drugs they had me on made me gain a huge amount of weight. I am aiming to lose that over the next 12 months so I can finally have my reconstructive surgery and live my life again. Check your boobs ladies…. I had no risk factors or family history and yet I had a breast riddled with cancer… I’m only here coz I checked and went to the doctor straight away.3
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I had DENSE BREASTS!
Be sure you know whether or not you have dense breasts. Dense breasts make your mammogram hard to read! Things get missed!
5-year survivor here. At age 60, diagnosed with IDC left side; DCIS both sides; lobular both sides.
DMX August 2016, 17 nodes removed left axillary; 3 nodes positive.
ER/PR +, HER2 negative
AC/T + radiation left side + Femara for 10 years.
I was diagnosed and biopsied on both sides after 3D mammogram. Surgeon gave me the option of only a lumpectomy on the right side; they saw only DCIS and Lobular there. I said please take the whole thing--mastectomy both sides.
Good thing I chose double mastectomy: post surgery pathology found a .9 cm Invasive Ductal Carcinoma in that right breast tissue.
If I had opted for only a lumpectomy, I would have gone home with that tumor hiding and growing! Who knows whether the chemo would have killed all of it.
Lana1 -
What she said ! Go get your mammogram! It can save your life. One year ago I went for my bi-annual screening. They found a 7mm tumor.
I am well today and very very grateful. Just do it even if it´s scary. The sooner the better.
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I’ve been meaning to make an appointment for a mammogram. My doctor recommended it when I turned 50 which was a few months ago. Reading this thread has served as a good reminder. I’ll make the appointment tomorrow.1
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