Exercise Question

cheryltaco said:

NWGirl, I am a 41 year old female - wow b-day this week, will be 42 I have exercised most of my life, and currently teach fitness classes 5 days per week (cardio, strength training, and yoga). I think if your doctor gave you the ok and you feel good, go for it! Here are some tips you may want to consider, you might want to take some sanitary wipes with you to clean the equipment prior to use (a common cold for someone else could easily turn into pnemonia for someone on chemo with a low immune system). Also don't over do it, take frequent breaks, keep yourself hydrated and get plenty of rest. As you know from my other post, I'm struggling with chemo this time around so I rest when I need to and use verbal cues to keep the class going. If you haven't tried yoga, I would suggest you do so, its a great stress reducer and leaves you feeling so relaxed! Good luck to you and have fun!!!

One more note I forgot to mention, I don't know about you but the cold weather tends to dry my skin quite a bit and some of the chemo drugs really cause the skin to dry out and become irritated, the chlorine in the pools can add to this problem as well so be mindful of that.

I found during chemo that some exercise helped and I felt better. However, I would suggest starting at a lower level than you may have been used to. Perhaps longer walking, using a treadmill at a slower pace than before, would be a good way to start. See what you can tolerate but give some allowance as you can always increase.

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Hi NW!

I was dx'ed at 39 and have 5 kids my youngest being 20 months at the time. After a couple of months of trying to keep up with my large busy family ( I was also homeschooling 3 of the 5 at the time), my parents realized I needed their help, badly. They moved from South Carolina to Minnesota (with winter coming on) and set up camp. For the next 3 years they came up every school year and left at the summer (backward snowbirds). I cannot stress enough how IMPERATIVE that was for my healing. My father drove me to my "treatments" every week--they were over an hour away and my mother cooked for my family so I could just focus on my own macrobiotic meals. The kids juiced for me three x's a day. My parents drove my kids to all their activities. I healed, exercised, nursed my baby, slept, journaled, took hot baths....luxurious!

I am sharing all this wondering if you can enlist the help of family at this crucial time. Healing from cancer is a full time job IMO.

To answer your exercise question (and remember I didn't do chemo so I don't k now how that is), I tried to walk every single day increasing my distance and pace as I could. It was my sanity time too. As soon as I could I was out biking too. These activities helped me feel alive and "normal". I didn't do any weight training type of stuff. I second the opinion of doing yoga. In all the research I did about people who cured their cancer alternatively, doing yoga was a common element to their protocol (as was juicing).

Hope this helps!

peace, emily the juice chick

I was DX in 7/06 with a temp colosomoty and had to take off a year of weight lifting due to my port for IV Chemo infusion. According to my surgeon, I could not weight lift with the port in due to some complications.

Before DX I weight lifted 3 days a week and did cardio 4-5 days a week. I am really into weight lifting. Did a bodybuilding show back in 1993.

During Chemo I would walk and run on the treadmill with the colosmosty. Running made me use more products due to sweating.

After my last surgery (Feb 07), I started back to weight lifting in early May 07 and now doing great. Back to lifting what I could before.

I would talk with my doctors about what types of exercise you want to do and see what they say and recommend.

Good luck and keep us informed.