Health in a handcart

Hi, Phil!

My name is Ann, and I've been here for a while. I'm also a cancer survivor (stage III breast cancer in 2000, full nine yards of treatment). I was also diagnosed severely hypothyroid right after treatment, though not sure whether that was from treatment (possible, given radiation fields) or genetics come home to roost (my dad was hypo). I had high blood pressure, high cholesterol/triglycerides. I slowly, gradually got more active post-treatment, but stayed obese until 2015-16, when I lost from obese to a healthy weight, and have been in a healthy range since. I'm now 67, normal BP, normal blood lipids.

Steroids are (bleep) for water retention, but keep in mind that that's not fat, if you're still on steroids and see some water weight fluctuations from that. All of us have water weight fluctuations, even without steroids, and the swings are usually more dramatic during short time periods than the ongoing fat loss. That means that scale weight can go up sometimes even when fat weight is going down. I know that's frustrating, but the true tale will show up on the scale over the longer haul (4-6 week averages), so once you have a good routine dialed in, stick with it! (The scales that estimate body fat percent aren't accurate enough to sort out the truth, either, unfortunately. Consistency and patience are the best bet.)

You're doing the perfect thing, enlisting a dietitian to give you expert advice. The dietitian at my cancer center was a big help to me in improving nutrition post-treatment (but I kept eating too many calories so I stayed fat for quite a few years . . . ). I didn't increase exercise to lose weight, so I'm quite confident you can make progress just from better managing calorie intake.

If you can increase activity as pain management allows, that's a good thing for health, too. Keep in mind that we don't need to do crazy-intense exercise to get benefits. Just taking a walk in the park when you feel up to it, or doing a little stretching when you get up in the AM, or any pleasant, tolerated forms of movement: That's a good thing.

To me, the best tip I could give is to seek out ways to make weight management, increased activity and improved nutrition relatively easy, rather than trying to get results super fast. So many people go for extremes, then either burn out or give up before reaching their goal weight . . . or if they reach goal weight, they haven't learned the habits they need to stay at that new weight happily, which tends to be a route to yo-yos. IMO, finding and practicing new habits that are pleasant/tolerable and practical enough to continue on autopilot when life gets complicated . . . that's really helpful.

You can do this: I'm cheering for you!