Expert tips and advice.

Ann-Marie

Hi everyone, it's Workout Wednesday at BCNA.

This week I have been hearing from the team that they are tired and are lacking motivation, so tonight's session will be about fun and listening to our bodies.

I wanted to share this information from an article in The beacon (73 summer 2015).

Dr Sandi Hayes is a Senior Research Fellow with the Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation, Queensland University of Technology. Her research priorities include the role of exercise in breast cancer recovery and lymphoedema.

Here are some tips and advice from Sandi that may help you overcome fatigue and lack of motivation

• Understand that the first five minutes is the worst time to assess how you’re going.
• Exercise takes your body from a starting point of ‘stopped’ to working reasonably hard, with increased demands on the muscles, heart and lungs. It takes at least five to 10 minutes for your body to catch up to your level of activity and even out.
• Make sure that the first 10 minutes are slow and gentle. If you’re feeling okay, then pick it up a little for the next 10 minutes. You want to know that you’ve worked while exercising, but you should not feel exhausted.

The key rule is that while exercise may make treatment-related side effects better, it should not make them worse. If exercise is making your symptoms worse, then stop and talk to your treatment team.

Other barriers, such as lack of motivation, are the same barriers that women without breast cancer face. To overcome these it is important to recognise the benefits of regular exercise, set some exercise goals and schedule exercise into your weekly activities.

While fatigue is a barrier to exercise unfortunately lack of exercise only makes fatigue worse.

How do you motivate yourself to stay active?

Deanne

Motivation is something that for me is actually easier since bc. For those very reasons you suggest. I can see and feel the benefits so much more easily than before.

My motivation to exercise before bc was just to loose weight, look better and because I knew it was good for me. That did not tend to work consistently for me and I constantly battled to maintain any sort of routine and let all sorts of things get in the way of regular exercise.

Then I got bc and there were many days during treatment where I felt the absolute worst I have ever felt in my life. I really noticed that exercise helped me to feel better and improved my quality of life during and especially after active treatment.

That was the best motivation of all for me. I just wanted to feel better and exercise was the thing that worked the best for me. I also realised that I had to find things that I enjoyed, not necessarily what was trendy or what others did. For me that was walking somewhere in natural surroundings, using a treadmill on wet weather days and doing a simple Pilates/yoga routine at home.

I have now been consistently exercising everyday for over 2 years since I finished treatment (even Christmas Day, even my birthday, even on holidays, even the day after I had my ovaries removed). Motivation is no longer an issue because I love what I do and can feel and see the benefits. You just need to start doing what works for you.

My life is so much better because I am active. Deanne xxx