After Breast Cancer - How to Move on From a Breast Cancer Treatment

After Breast Cancer - How to Move on From a Breast Cancer Treatment
By Rita Ridgwick

Taking care of yourself after breast cancer

If you're recovering from breast cancer, your body and mind has had a huge amount to deal with. You've probably not been able to focus on anything other than dealing with hospital appointments, treatments, operations and scans. Life may have just been going on around you, but now it's time to start the next step of your life!

So what's the next step of your life after breast cancer? It's all about taking care of yourself so you can enjoy a healthier future. Now is the time to focus on your recovery both physically and mentally and get your life back on track.

It's important to start focussing on the positive aspects of life so that your mind and body can begin to heal themselves. There are some simple things you can do to start a new healthy lifestyle. They don't have to be huge changes otherwise they can be hard to maintain, but follow our guidelines and you should start to see some changes.

Diet

Start eating a balanced diet - A balanced diet is about giving your body the right amount of nutrients that it needs, it's about maintaining healthy eating habits rather than trying a quick fix diet. A balance diet should make you feel good and you should have more energy if you manage to stick to it.

Here's some quick tips on maintaining a healthy balanced diet:

• Don't try and change everything about your diet overnight. Changing everything usually leads to cheating, so take small steps. Try swapping things for healthier choices, such as using olive oil instead of butter, eating salad instead of chips. If you fancy something sweet try eating some fruit.
• Eat in moderation - we all need a balance of carbohydrates, protein, fat, fibre, vitamins and minerals to sustain a healthy body, despite what some diets recommend. Try eating good fats such as oily fish, nuts and seeds.
• Cut down on your portion sizes, you should feel satisfied after eating not full!
• Make sure you have at least 5 portions of fruit and veg a day, try to vary them over the course of the week.
• Try to avoid ready made meals as they are usually higher in salt, sugar and saturated fats - get back to basics and start cooking from scratch. If you don't have much time try looking for healthy quick recipes, there are plenty out there.
• Cut down on alcohol - women shouldn't be drinking more than 14 units per week. • Drink plenty of water.
• Smoking - Stop! We all know the dangers of smoking, but for cancer sufferers it is even more vital to stop. You can reduce the risk of your breast cancer recurring and the risk of developing a secondary type of cancer will be lower.

Get Active

These days people are a lot less active, we have all these modern conveniences that work for us and more opportunities to relax and watch TV.

You don't have to introduce a strict exercise regime into your life, but start with small changes such as walking to the shops instead of driving or take the stairs instead of the lift.

If you feel you're ready to start exercising after your breast cancer, check with your doctor on what sorts of exercise you should be doing and how long you spend on each activity. Exercise is a great way to build and maintain strong and healthy bones, muscles and joints. If you're feeling depressed after your cancer or have feelings of anxiety, exercise will really help to alleviate some of these stresses.

There are many more benefits to exercise, but the one that is really important for people who are recovering from cancer is it stimulates the production of endorphins. Endorphins are a chemical substance produced by your own body when exercising that will make you feel happy and exhilarated!

Get motivated

Now you're over the treatments and operations, find the time to do something for yourself. You could start a new hobby, join a club, meet new people or just enjoy time with your family. If you follow the advice in this article, you should start to feel more alive and revitalised!

Rita was diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of 31. The single parent of a 7 year old daughter she came to fully understand the concerns and issues associated with breast cancer and it's treatment.