Yep, weight gain seems to be a pretty common side effect of the medications used to treat metastatic breast cancer. For me, I’m not sure if it was the Ibrance, Letrazole or Zoladex that caused me to quickly gain over 17 pounds in less than 3 months. For most women, the shift into menopause is gradual and takes years. My oncologist told me that having the drugs strip all the estrogen from my body was like being pushed off a cliff into menopause. From my discussions with other women in the same boat, weight gain is a very common complaint. I battled for months using different strategies to try to get a handle on stopping the scale creep.

• I tried a 1,200 a day diet for a month or so with very little success
• I jacked up my exercise routine by starting spin class and adding body pump twice a week to gain muscle. That didn’t move the scale either. I ended up with tennis elbow from being too aggressive with my lifting.

Eventually, I started to suspect that it wasn’t how much I exercised or how much I ate, but rather what I ate might be the biggest culprit. After hearing other women with MBC talking about how they were having success with cutting carbs, I decided to try that route. With mets to my liver, I thought going full Keto might not be a good idea. I started with just cutting back on my carb intake to stay at around 50-100 grams a day. This meant giving up bread, pasta, pizza, cereal and sweets. Though they are a bit of a franken food, I do treat myself to Quest Hero bars (chocolate caramel is my favorite) for a sweet treat. It contains Allulose as the sweetener. From Healthline: “Allulose is a rare sugar with the same chemical formula as fructose. Because it isn’t metabolized by the body, it does not raise blood sugar or insulin levels and provides minimal calories.”

I still exercise but keep it to spin class 3 days per week. I was walking about 1.8 miles between home and work but lately I’ve biking to and from work, which is about 6 miles each way.

So far, I’ve lost 7 pounds which may not sound like much, but to get the scale to move at all was a major milestone for me.

I use a few gadgets to manage my activities. After trying out a couple different fitness watches, I settled on the Garmin VivoSmart 3 [update: I still have my Garmin but upgraded to an Apple Watch]

It’s not perfect, but it does the basics that I want: heart rate tracking, step and floor tracking, time, calories, and accepts alerts from your phone. It integrates with MyFitness Pal and Strava. It’s even water resistant so you can swim with it as well.

For core exercises, I bought a Stealth Core Personal Trainer – In short, you play games on your smartphone by using your Abs! It’s tough – I still haven’t gotten past a minute at a time.