Fitness and Cancer

Obviously it's important to stay physically fit, no matter who you are.  But if you are a cancer patient or survivor, it is particularly important.  Maintaining a healthy weight for your body could improve your prognosis, both by helping you cope with the side effects of treatment and by decreasing the chance for recurrence.

Physical fitness might be the last thing on your mind while you are running through the cancer gauntlet, so here I've collected my posts on the subject of physical activity both during and after my cancer treatment.  Hopefully you will find something inspirational, if not informational.

  • Walking to chemotherapy:  Blue machine-->puke machine
  • Walking in my neighborhood in the spring, 1 month after mastectomy:  Beauty
  • Walking to radiation:  Yet another brand of fatigue
  • Biking despite painful radiation side effects:  Cancer treatment didn't kill me, and Many ups, just a few tiny downs  (Note:  In this post I claim to have fallen off the exercise wagon, but in hindsight I was wrong to be so hard on myself.  I always walked around my neighborhood, often pushing a stroller, not to mention the weeks of physical therapy exercises.  In the winter months when I was feeling well-ish I walked indoors with Leslie Sansone and my kids, just a mile at a time.  It's about doing what exercises you CAN do, not about what you used to do or what you think you should be doing.)
  • Biking to work in the rain, 3 months after radiation:  Ooo, that tickles
  • Cutest bike date ever, 4 months after radiation:  Bike date with Nori
  • Starting yoga, 5 months after radiation:  Music to my mind and muscles
  • Biking in The Netherlands, 1 year after diagnosis:  The Netherlands

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