Exercise - how much do you manage?

Morning

Your training and experience sound very similar and as you say it also has such a positive effect on mental health and well being.

Having been previously fit we have the advantage of muscle memory  and it's all about quality not quantity for now. It's already made every day activities like going upstairs easier so I feel more like myself.

the Fitbit is a great motivator. I keep an exercise diary and although I'm not doing much on a daily basis it's encouraging to look back over a couple of weeks, consistency is key.

Basketball looks like such good fun. I'm trying to pluck up the courage to go to a 'boot camp' class at the village hall across the road tonight, the instructor knows my history and says there are all ages and fitness levels working at their own pace.

dog walking is great, nothing beats being outside. Our dog walks are more sedate and shorter these days, I found it really frustrating at first but have changed my mindset and just enjoy the moment. Well done on the plank, pert bottom to follow!

xx

As I was reading all the answers I was trying to remember what had stopped me from exercising in the first place. In my head I knew it was mostly around treatment side effects, but I wasn't pinpointing it. Then I remembered the day I was shooting a wedding and was moving furniture for the group shots and had to go outside to be sick - then I remembered lol. The physical exertion, to the point where you'd be out of breath, would make me physically sick. I'm currently in the bubble of feeling really well after a short treatment break - so that's what I need to remember - that's my cut off point I think. Working on stamina and strength (particularly core) are probably more important to me than excessive cardio work.

what is re-bounding please? 

I've been using a phone ap for my steps and it's surprisingly encouraging to review. Maybe a fitbit for the pool would be a good encouragement too.

- your 45 sec plank reminded me that a friend has recently done an online yoga class for 30 days that started with absolute basics. He really loved it, so maybe something I could look at too.

Thank you all so much for your replies I really appreciate them.

yep, remember that feeling too, and that the breathlessness made me anxious after treatment.

Rebounding is bouncing on a mini trampoline. It's been around for ages, NASA studied the benefits when trying to find the most effective way of helping astronauts recover and gain muscle mass and bone density after being in space. It's considered twice as effective as treadmill running.

xx

Hi

The short answer to your question about how much exercise I do is that it depends. If all I can manage is a 100m walk with several stops, then that’s what I do. But if I can manage more then happy days! Yesterday I walked an hour with the dog. My legs ache now. 

I was pretty fit before the cancer diagnosis in February 2014 and I used to aim to get that level back. But I’ve been in treatment continuously since November 2016 and both the treatment and the cancer have taken their toll and I don’t think it’s a realistic goal. I don’t have the strength or the stamina anymore. 

So I focus on doing something each day. Walking is so great and the dog really helps to get me out of the door and moving. I did enjoy riding my electric bike last summer and hope to get back to that this summer but I’m not sure how possible it will be. I’m going on a yoga retreat in March. 

xx

Hi , I found when I was trying to build up my fitness I started with ‘walking for health’, back then I couldn’t manage the hour long walk , and someone with a walking stick was faster than I was, but someone stayed with me at the back of the group and we could take a short cut back for a cup of tea if they or I felt I was flagging. They also had enough people to split into a longer faster walk for the fitter people. The link is below to find a walk near your post code. Some allow dogs to go to, I found it useful to get to know my local area and interesting routes as they varied them each week, I could then do them on my own another day, and still go separately with a friend I met there.

I find an hour is my limit before a rest, in a week where I am expecting to get fatigued I do a circular walk, so I’m never far from home or the car, and when I know I’ll have lots of energy I will do a hour walk out to a cafe, stop for lunch and walk back.

https://www.walkingforhealth.org.uk/walkfinder

Looking through the in my area button can find Macmillan exercise programmes, locally mine showed a programme but it was 20 miles away but doing the health walk I found by chatting with others another more local gym that offered something for people with health conditions. Reading a Macmillan booklet that mentioned Walking Netball, I googled it and found a group 10 miles away and I do that regularly, and the weeks I can’t manage it all I either just do the warm up, or watch and have coffee with them afterwards. 

I think your dog is a motivation to go out for walks, (I haven’t got a dog so for me playing Pokemon Go has been my motivation to go out for a walk everyday)  but if you are finding 1&1/2 hours too much just tone it back to what you can manage or take breaks along the way. If you do to much and it means you have to skip a day it might be best to do less everyday but build up to more later. My walks are measured in steps and I usually find that if I’ve done 14,000 steps or more I’ve pushed myself too much, between 5,000 and that magic 10,000 steps is what I feel happiest with but after treatment I’m down to 500 for a few days.

Wishing you many happy hours out with your dog.

I think I might look into yoga.  The online course sounds good but I’m not sure I’m disciplined enough! I’ve never done yoga and even in my youth and fitness I was never very supple! 

Pilates is great and it's relaxing too. I walk as much as possible. In the summer gardening is my favourite exercise. Not found anything yet to replace it in the winter months. It's good to hear the various exercises everyone is trying.

Xx

Hi all

I have only been getting notifications of the End of life sub group for a few days, not one word from the incurables, it was like you were all silenced by something.  Well, eventually I found you, I know you lot of chatterboxes couldn't keep quiet for that long!

I'm back home in Northern Ireland again but on my journey home my cold started to deteriorate to the extent that for the last 2½ days my eyes have been constantly streaming water as well as a yellow fluid from both sides of each eye. I think I've got conjunctivitis now. The whites of my eyes are a kind of pink, and yes, they're itchy.

I had to send a text yesterday morning to the MacMillan girl who runs the exercise class that I go to each Tuesday to let her know I wasn't coming. The class is called Move More and most council areas here run a class on one or more days a week. I think the Move More initiative is only over here, or is there something similar in GB? The class lasts about ¾ hr and there are about 8 posts at which we exercise different muscle groups and afterwards most people go to the café in the centre for a chat, get to know each other, what our medical problems are.

Away from there, at home, I try to get a little gardening done but it's so darn cold and of course I'm sniffling non stop and! We have an exercise bike which I jump onto occasionally, well more like slowly creep onto lol. Then there's walking the dog, I can take Conan for a 4 mile walk and come back without a bead of sweat shed, of course the motorised scooter bears the strain!

Hope to get a talk later todaywith the bus company in Cambridgeshire that doesn't like scooters or as soon as I'm well enough because I'll be wanting to use their buses in the future so I need to know if they have implemented training (I say that because there doesn't seem to have been any) and also I expect them to have set up an approval scheme for motorised scooters that are able to easily negotiate a path to a disabled bay on board. It would be good also to see a sticker on the front of each bus that would match a sticker on an Approved Scooter.

It's good to be back, unfortunately though the same problems and difficulties are still around. No panacea yet!

Tvman xx