You're giving up that ?????

tigerbeth

After shock , surgery, radiation & now on the Letrozole road for 5 years ,, I'd be interested to hear what products & food you have changed or given up to give your bodies the best chance in this shitfest ! 
Time to look after me ! So changes are needed I feel ! 

All suggestions  gratefully accepted .

P

I haven't given up on anything. I know it's wrong to believe that eating and living same as pre breast cancer is possible. But I m doing everything i did pre breast cancer. I do think products are more harmful then we think they are. My personal opinion is that I dont know how long I m going to live so I rather enjoy my time while i can......

iserbrown

http://nutritionaustralia.org/national/resource/healthy-eating-pyramid

Don't know where you were at prior to diagnosis to give you any advice except to say look at the food pyramid.  When I was at school, a long time ago, this was drilled into us and that is how we live, most days we eat something from each food group so we have a good balance.  My Mum was always saying you eat what I give you, and she was big on veggies and fruit and drink water.  Saturday night was our treat night where we could have a couple of chocolate biscuits and a cola drink!  Sunday lunch was always a roast followed by apple pie or crumble or something similar!  
At the end of the day it is about moderation

Did you grab some of the apples that were in the crates at the MCG - gorgeous, so fresh and crunchy!

For me, when I was first diagnosed I was told you are in the typical age group and it was my hormones, no mention was made nor questions asked but what I did or do eat and nor did Breastscreen ask if my Mother used Tupperware when we were kids or in fact if I do!

Hope that helps and you get inspiration from others
Take care

Artferret

Being fructose intolerant and having to watch my cholesterol i didn't really have a choice and am currently eating low fat everything. I do miss apples and onions but they are on my evil list due to fructose. I discovered mountain bread and the wealth of recipes you can use with those is endless, the latest being lemon, lime and ginger chicken rolls...absolutely delish. Having said this it doesn't stop me from having a coffee, skinny of course,  and a chocolate or vanilla cannoli at my favourite italian cake shop!

Deanne

Hi @tigerbeth
I am over 5 years since diagnosis. I have made a lot of changes but very slowly. A one step at a time process. I think the changes I have made have added to rather than taken away from my quality of life.

I eat a healthier diet than before but I don’t eat anything I don’t enjoy! 

I am more active than before bc too but I have found exercise that I love to do so I actually look forward to it! I think about it differently than I used to. I see it as time out, time for me to do something I enjoy rather than something else that I should do, something that I need to force myself to do.

I have swapped to using less chemical products too. It just feels like the right thing to do. Something that helps my body to cope with the side effects of Femara etc.

I have also made changes towards a simpler life. Life is complicated and stressful enough without adding extras that may be avoidable. This is an ongoing process and one that I have to keep myself in check about. 

I honestly think that you need to make any changes slowly and that you need to feel they are the right ones for you. That way you don’t feel like you are giving up things but making little improvements towards a better quality of life.

After all that we go through the last thing we need to feel is that we must give up things that are enjoyable. I just swapped one thing for another. I found that if I was swapping something that I enjoyed but that I felt was truly not good for me, for something that I still enjoyed but that I felt was better for me, it was a double win. I was not missing out but just making a change that was better for me in every way. I hope that makes sense?

Take care and I hope that you find a way to live well after bc.
Deanne xxx

kmakm

I have very reluctantly given up full cream milk. Not that I had much of it but boy, does it make coffee & a bowl of cereal nice. I've given up my daily coffee, as much for the kjs as anything else, but will still have one if I'm out with friends or if I've had a truly appalling night's sleep. I've cut back on sugar, which for me means less chocolate  . I've never had cholesterol problems and will have my first post-Letrozole blood test in October, so I'm more mindful of my red meat consumption. I think I'll make some turkey meatballs tonight.

But the big one is booze. I'd put on a lot of weight with the stress of my life in the two years prior to my diagnosis, and like so many middle-aged Australian women, I'd used wine as a stress buster. So I've gone from at least two big glasses a day to one or two a week. A g&t on Friday, and a glass or two with a meal on Saturday or Sunday. Sometimes I don't at all. Surprisingly to me, it's been the easiest thing to give up. And the good thing is it's saving me a lot of money! When I do buy a bottle of wine it's a much better one. Hey, if I'm only going to drink occasionally it may as well be good!

All this, plus some cancer diagnosis and chemo assisted appetite loss, and an effort to exercise more, has meant I've lost 25kgs. I'm still classified as overweight so to reduce my cancer risk I've got to start working on the rest of it. I'm going to break it down into 5kg chunks. Fingers crossed I can do it.

The latest thinking on making any lifestyle changes is to not do them all at once. So pick one thing, and give it three months for the new habit to get established. And then onto the next one etc. However some people are good with the cold turkey change. What do you reckon you'd be better with? Which thing are you going to tackle first @tigerbeth?

iserbrown

@kmakm is right the hidden kjs or calories, in enjoying a glass of something

Alcohol & Your Weight

Red wine	150ml (one glass)	500-520kj - 120 calories
White wine	150ml (one glass)	504 kj - 120 calories
Champagne	120ml (one glass)	420 kj - 100 calories
Gin tonic	1 Shot sprit 30 mL, 250ml tonic	840 kj - 200 calories
Vodka soda	1 Shot of sprit 30 mL, soda	300 kj - 70 calories

Ellamary98

After my first diagnosis, 5 years ago. I made no drastic changes, really. I didn't drink much through treatment, and coffee gave me terrible hot flushes once I was on the Tamoxifen, but otherwise I carried on as normal. Having said that, I had always eaten a pretty clean and simple diet and exercised a lot. Over the last couple of years, my drinking has spiked to a couple of glasses most nights (extra on a Friday), with a few party binges across the course of the year. I absolutely knew that it wasn't a good idea- for anyone, but particularly for someone on hormonal cancer treatment. I had a couple of short breaks earlier this year, including all of January, and tried replacing wine with gin (which I drink quite weak), but it wasn't until my second diagnosis in May that I had an epiphany- time to completely stop. It's not for everyone, I know, but I find that I function much better without the evening drinks and I have already dropped a few kilos. Interestingly and predictably, my pals are struggling a bit with the new me- there's a lot of gentle pressure to drink socially, isn't there? Like you, @kmakm I don't really miss it. In a way, my mets diagnosis has given me the courage to give up alcohol and because everyone is so supportive, the pressure I otherwise would be under (to have a drink with the gang/let my hair down) is much reduced. I am the now the designated driver, and my friends are designing mocktails for me wherever we go. Oh- and my husband has gone teetotal in solidarity, although I don't expect that to last! 

Sister

I'm not sure I can answer that except to say that I have had hardly any alcohol since diagnosis.  I had my first glass of wine since February last week for my birthday and while I enjoyed it, I also felt guilty (rightly or wrongly) for having it. And that kind of pisses me off.

Anyway,  apart from that, I hope one day to start getting my car s and sugar intake under control!  And I've upped the amount and variety of veggies in the meals to varied reactions from the family.

Brenda5

I hardly drink alcohol at all any more but its not on ban list. In fact nothing is on a ban list but I just don't crave some stuff any more like lollies or softdrink. Sometimes I do like chocolate. I have changed my coffee to black instant with no milk or sugar as its only 7kj so theres no guilt having a few through the day. I eat more fruit like oranges or tomatoes as snacks. I can't cope with fatty meals like mince dishes or fish and chips although I do still eat them sometimes. I just have to chew a few quickeze to stop the burning reflux. Our main meal is usually some sort of basic meat with a pot full of boiled vegetables. Between Tamoxifen and these betta blockers Metaprolol my weight just keeps on going on even with exercise and just basic meals. I may have to go back to the Gp and see if there is an alternative to Metaprolol as this is just ridiculous weight gain for me

poodlejules

Along with some of the ladies above, I now only drink alcohol on my own and family birthdays and Christmas, just my own rule of thumb as I couldn't ignore the stats on drinking and recurrence  . I still have butter on my toast ( I hate margarine ) and fish but mainly have a plant based diet now , based again on my googling and my vegan daughter  
Because I don't sleep well, I'm drinking coffee again after going off it, but not all the time, and substitute with dandelion tea.

Mira

Pre cancer I was eating healthy and exercising.  I made as much as I could from scratch, all my own bread products, yoghurt, stocks, soups, you name it.   If I was to give anything up because of the cancer I'd have to start eating junk foods and not exercising!! 

kmakm

@Ellamary98 The social pressure to drink is a funny thing eh? I'm greatly assisted by one of my best friends being a complete non-drinker. Her father was a terrible alcoholic and she swore never to drink. My biggest problem is my adorable 86yo father-in-law. When I stopped drinking completely at diagnosis, he kept offering me wine and chocolate making jokes when I politely declined, often with explanation. This went on almost daily for two months. In the end I had to ask my husband to ask him to stop. Now that I'm having the odd one he's started again bless him!

Sister

I have a strange desire to get absolutely plastered...but I'm not going to be able to let myself do it.

AllyJay

I've given up giving up stuff. I drink very little, a glass of wine or champagne at special occasions such as birthdays, and do do a test drive with the sweet sherry whilst making Christmas trifles, for which I get many requests...end up making about half a dozen huge ones. I feel it is imperative that I test the sherry first, during and after the Annual Trifle Making Marathon, After getting over the chemo, I've again had a taste for chocolate, and at night, whilst watching Netflix and (surprise surprise) doing my knitting, I indulge in some choc covered sultanas. I generally blame one or other of the cats when the packet is empty, but I don't make a pig of myself. A small packet lasts me about five days.

Afraser

I decided to cut down on dairy fat in discussion with my medicos - for general reasons but also because some reports think full fat milk (usually from pregnant cows) may not be the best choice for women with hormone receptor positive breast cancer. It's not proven. But as I want to keep weight down too, I go for low fat milk and yoghurt and very little cheese. Can't find anyone who recommends alcohol on a regular basis. Which is a pity. I drink de-alcoholised wine, can't really recommend it that much but I prefer it to the other options. For the rest, just the good diet basics - more vegetables, fruit, nuts, preferably fresh with fibre, less meat, more fish, less processed meat, less sugar, more fibrous carbohydrates. When I lost my tastebuds on chemo, this list got severely reduced! The good thing was that the few things still with some taste were good stuff. When you feel lousy, it's really understandable to eat what you enjoy. Problem is, it can stick - in time and in all the wrong places! Good luck all.