My diet and training during chemotherapy

I trained and monitored my diet through 18 weeks of chemotherapy, and I think it made a tremendous difference in keeping me feeling good and functional as much as possible.  I would encourage anyone going through chemotherapy, whether they want to engage in body building or not, to exercise regularly and to eat carefully.

Here are a few things I did:

Exercise during Chemotherapy

My chemo treatments were tough.  Many women with breast cancer will have 8 treatments and alternate between drugs.  I had six treatments, but I received all three standard drugs (TAC) at every treatment.  My treatments were three weeks apart (instead of two) for this reason.  It would take until day 11 post-treatment for me to feel healthy again, so I would have a little more than a week of feeling strong before the next treatment began. 

I would have treatments on Monday afternoons for 4 1/2 hours.  My worst day would be Thursday, so I had a massage on that day from either of two massage therapists who were trained to work with cancer patients.  Donna and Brenda were the two therapists at St. Mary's Hospital Wellness Center (in Langhorne, PA) and they were wonderful.  The massage on my worst day helped me get through it more easily.

Each day without exception, I would make myself get out of bed, get dressed and take at least one slow walk in my neighborhood.  It was hard to get out of bed, but once I was out, I would start to feel better.  I would also do a 20-minute stretching routine each day.  As the days went by, I could walk and stretch a little more until I reached the 8th day, when I would add in some resistance training.  By day 14, I could jog 2 miles and do a fairly intense resistance training workout, which I would do each day for the week prior to my next treatment.  I am convinced that this made me stronger for the next chemo treatment, and I my chemo symptoms were reduced because of my training. 

Every Monday morning, my trainer (Domenick Salvatore), would come to my house and work with me.  Even if it was day 8 and I couldn't do much, he came anyway and I did as much as I was able.  Psychologically, this was very important to me.  It helped me feel less like a cancer patient and more like a healthy athlete.  How I perceived myself was cricital to my ability to stay active.

The great thing about training all through chemo is that I was able to maintain my fitness level so that, at the end of cancer treatment, I was still in good physical condition and ready to prepare for body building.

Diet during Chemotherapy

I experimented with my diet after each cycle and, by cycle 3, had figured out the best eating plan to help me feel better and move through the symptoms faster.  Don't get me wrong; I still felt lousy much of the time, but not as bad as I could have felt.  Many people lose weight during chemotherapy, but others gain weight because they are not exercising and they find that constantly eating can help settle their stomachs.  My goal was to maintain my weight throughout chemo.  I tried to limit the sweets and high-fat foods, and to eat as much organic, whole food as I could. 

During the first few days of chemo, I would get up at 2 a.m. or so (I would naturally wake up) and go into the kitchen for a small bowl of shredded wheat 'n bran cereal with skim milk and two 12-ounce glasses of water.  I didn't always want the water, but putting lots of ice in it and drinking it slowly helped get it down.  This middle of the night snack helped me feel less queasy in the morning.  Hydration during the first few days was also important to get the chemo drugs out of my body faster and help me feel better.

As much as possible, I limited sodium in my diet, as it only made me feel worse.  I ate small, frequent meals with minimal spices, sugar or fat in them.  Too much fat or oil in a food would make me feel worse after eating it.  I also gave up ginger ale after my first cycle, as the sugar did not leave me feeling so good.  Diet ginger ale tasted bad during this time, as chemo changes your sense of taste.

Eating healthfully and exercising gave me not only physical improvements, but psychological ones as well.  It felt good to be taking care of myself during this time and doing all I could to minimize the negative effects of chemotherapy.