Tag: Body Fat

Invisible Effects: Body Image, Part 3

In Part 1 of this series I wrote about breast loss (which I ended up not having to deal with) and how strongly I equated breasts with being female. In Part 2, it was about my fear of having no control over my body and being susceptible to weight gain as a cancer survivor.

In Part 3, I’m writing that my body reacted in a way completely opposite of what I feared, and I managed to regain some semblance of control.

As mentioned, many women with breast cancer, particularly those whose tumors are hormone receptor positive like mine, put on weight. On top of the “my-out-of-control-body-is-killing-me” feelings brought about by cancer, the threat of runaway weight gain added to my frustration.

Yes, this was another example of how, throughout my fact-finding research, I took to heart what I read and immediately assumed that if it happened to others, it was also going to happen to me. Except that it didn’t. Just as how statistically I shouldn’t have gotten breast cancer, I also shouldn’t have ended up almost 10 pounds below where I started pre-diagnosis.

My body is quite reactive. If you’ve read my posts about how I respond to anxiety, you know that I shed weight quickly. I am not an emotional eater; I am an emotional non-eater, and more often than not don’t have to fight cravings. I have to fight a lack of appetite

As weird as this may sound, the resulting weight loss was one of the strongest indicators that I wasn’t completely out of control, that my body hadn’t completely turned against me. And more than that, it was another reminder that my situation was not typical. So by maintaining a very doable 6 day/week workout schedule, I broke through the mentality that what others experienced was necessarily what I would.

Right side of my ribcage. I can see my serratus and external obliques, but have to focus on building strength, not losing weight.

In addition, and arguably more important is the fact that cancer recurrence and episodes of lymphedema have been associated with higher weight levels (see this Susan Koman web article addressing this issue, including journal references). According to a bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA) body fat monitor, I’m sitting at about 20% body fat. The actual number doesn’t really matter, since these monitors are notorious for being inaccurate. What matters is that those numbers are stable and that I’m able to build muscle.

What also matters is that with my level of activity both pre- and post-diagnosis, recovery has been quite good. I feel strong. I feel lean and fit. My sense of self-efficacy is high. And I’m finally able to exhale after holding my breath about all the things that were happening to my body.

Piece by piece, I’m reclaiming my physical self again. At that same time, I’ve still got a lot to sort out in my head. I know that keeping my body fat in check doesn’t mean that I’m protected from cancer, despite what numerous news reports suggest. It makes me uncomfortable being bombarded with that message, though. According to the December 20, 2018 National Health Statistics Report (Fryer et al. (2018)), the average woman in the U.S. is obese. In the interest of public health, the “lose weight” message is trumpeted constantly. Every time I’m exposed to that, my perfectionism kicks in and I have to fight the urge to clamp down on my fitness and nutrition.

Being an outlier doesn’t gain me much sympathy, and it does comes with its own challenges. In the process of sorting out everything that’s happened to me, I’m working to keep an even keel going forward and not go to extremes. As with everything, moderation.

Invisible Effects: Body Image, Part 1

This is going to take several posts to get through. Body image is a dicey subject for me.

First of all, let’s talk breasts. Mine are not very big to begin with. Okay, they’re teeny. That usually doesn’t bother me although there have been times that, standing 5’11”, I’d wished that I’d had a more sizable bustline. Most notably, this was when I was toying with the idea of competing in fitness-based figure competitions; ultimately, I decided to stay away from the extreme dieting and arbitrary body judgments that came along with these contests.

Regardless, breasts were an important part of giving figure competitors an attractive, balanced look. But at such low body fat levels, breasts were collateral damage. So what the dieting took away, silicone gave back. I found this odd because no matter how hard these women worked to achieve the “perfect” physique, according to the judges (and society) they couldn’t pull it off without something artificial. We have a powerfully ingrained notion that breasts = femininity.

I hadn’t realized how much I bought into the notion that I needed breasts to define myself as “female”.

When I learned that I had breast cancer, one of my first thoughts, right after, “Am I gonna die?” was, “Will I lose my breast?” The diagnosis left me empty, but thoughts of disfigurement drained me even more. There were different possibilities for surgery, different conditions under which I’d lose more or less breast tissue. And they were all stressful. I mean, I had little breasts, but they’d nursed two children into toddlerhood and I was remarkably attached to them.

And if I needed an entire breast removed, would I opt for reconstruction? Is there even such a thing as an AA cup implant? Or would a larger implant push me into getting the other side done too, for the sake of symmetry? As you can see, I was wading into excessive-surgery territory.

Finally, if I didn’t get reconstruction, would I get freaked out by a flat ribcage where my tiny-but-now-incredibly-important breast had been? Furthermore, would my husband, accepting and loving as he was, be turned off by a missing breast?

True to form, I had died a thousand deaths before finding out that I could get by with a lumpectomy. And because of the small size of the lump and where it was situated, close to my armpit, it hardly changed my breast at all (as noted in my post about breast changes). So all the worry was for naught.

But many women have not been so lucky. Emotional aspects of breast loss, reconstruction, lack of sensation and societal pressures are not discussed nearly enough but can have a powerful impact on the psyche of cancer survivors. And this drives home the point that cancer is complicated far beyond the cold, clinical elements of treatment choices and survival rates. Breast cancer gets at who we have been taught that we are as women. Re-evaluating that, and possibly re-examining it as a society, will take a lot of work.