Can Fitness Aid in Cancer Treatment?

Today's entry is from a guest blogger. There is a good chance that disease can strike someone close to you at one point or another. Cancer in specific has affected out family. We found this article that Liz Davies has so kindly shared to be insightful and informative.

The American Cancer Society has done studies that show how important for individuals who are fighting diseases to stay in shape, maintain a healthy weight, stay positive and eat a healthy diet. These things have revealed to improve the recovery time and lead to fewer health problems. In the case of cancer is improves treatment symptoms and lessens the risk of cancer reoccurrence.

One of the main symptoms that can arise from cancer treatment is exhaustion. The treatment as well as the disease puts a big emotional burden on the patient and it can often be very hard to handle. Exercises and physical activity tends to be low on the to-do list but exercise can increase energy levels and make coping with the disease easier to handle.

Cancer an emotional burden and therefore causes a lot of stress and unfortunately, stress is connected to a decrease in health. Exercise tackles this issue in multiple ways. “Feel good” chemicals, or endorphins, are released during exercise that leads to a better emotional state. Physical activity also creates better circulation and blood flow throughout the body which helps the immune system combat cancer and recuperation. It also supplies a distraction from other intense matters.

The immune system is increased when there is a daily exercise program in place due to the features of the lymphatic system. The lymphatic system echoes the vessels of the cardiovascular system and depends on it to deliver fluids to every part of the body. Activity allows the immune system to work at the optimal point.

Battling exhaustion is a stress that a sick person should not have to deal with in addition to the therapy and the actual disease; exercise is a natural way to curb this fatigue. It is well known cancer treatments, whether that is chemotherapy, surgery or radiation, can be painful. Staying active leads to better pain tolerance.

When discussing exercise for cancer patients it is important to understand that no one expects anyone to be running marathons. Everyone is different and has a different fitness level. Engaging in tai chi, walking, yoga, gardening, or even putting groceries away is enough daily activity for some people while others might need to go running or take a kickboxing class. Whatever the case is, it is important to discuss an exercise routine with a doctor or personal trainer who is versed in cancer treatments. It is necessary to find the appropriate amount of activity whether the cancer patient is receiving treatment for breast cancer or mesothelioma.

Liz Davies is a recent college graduate and aspiring writer especially interested in health and wellness. She wants to make a difference in people’s lives because she sees how cancer has devastated so many people in this world. Liz also likes running, playing lacrosse, reading and playing with her dog, April.

Final Results of P90x

We want to apologize for not getting the final results and pictures up for the end of our P90x program. For the last four months, we have been relocating from West to East coast. It has been a wild ride and we are pleased to say that the office is setup and ready to go! There are several projects we anticipate for the new year and hope to work on asap. #1 on the list is to redesign www.veganproteins.com and to do that we need an investor and a good web designer/programmer. If anyone is interested in either, let us know. We'll be on the lookout. Here are some pics of the new digs. It is our first actual storefront and we are absolutely thrilled about it. There is more work to be done however the foundation is laid out :-D

1 WEEK LEFT!!!

Almost at the top of Dog Mountain. This hike was intense.

Oh blog, how it seems as though you've been forgotten! Well, I haven't forgotten about you. I have just been EXTREMELY busy and even more overwhelmed with my life lately.

I think that Giacomo and I underestimated how much this upcoming cross-country move was going to impact our training. It has been very trying to get our workouts in, and pack up our belongings, and sell our belongings in several different venues, and find a house back east, and make sure we take as much advantage of beautiful Portland as possible before we go, and say goodbye to all of our friends, and the list goes on and on.

I am VERY proud of us though. Although we have switched a few cardio days around, we have not missed more than maybe 5 workouts total throughout the whole p90x program, which is awesome. I injured my hip pretty badly around week 7, and lost my ability to do, oh you know, anything that had any impact on it. :-/ So for me, plyo has been out of the question, as has running which was something I was trying really hard to learn how to do. Cycling has been ok though, and I have been hitting up the ole elliptical at the gym again. I feel like as boring as it is to stand in one place for an hour, I can go hard on the elliptical without worrying about my hip getting hurt again. I have also been a walking machine. Giacomo and I sold one of our cars, so we have been a one car family, which is fine with me because I have always been a walker. I will walk anywhere...seriously, and although it isn't "cardio" by any stretch, the fact that my body is moving more hours of the day than not is just fine by me.

My original goals were to get to 130 pounds, and to do an unassisted wide grip pullup. Lets check in on these. This morning I weighed in at 132 pounds, and last week when I tried to see how close I was to a pull-up, I could do one with 12 pounds of assistance....so 12 pounds away!

Do I think I am going to hit my goals in the next week? I can and probably will drop 2 pounds this week, but I don't think I'll be able to increase my pullup strength by 12 pounds in one week....maybe 4 pounds? Still, that's pretty damn close. :-) I won't sell myself short just yet though.

These past couple of weeks have been crazy! In a good way? :-) Giacomo had I celebrated our third anniversary by going to an amazing-oh-my-god-this-tastes-so-good-it-isn't-even-right dinner at Portabello Trattoria, an all vegan Italian restaurant. We also got tattooed at Scapegoat, the vegan tattoo parlour in the Vegan Mall (I bet you're wishing you lived in Portland right about now!!!) We are also hoping to go up to Seattle next weekend and see a bodybuilding show that 2 of our vegan friends are in!!! There will be lots of pictures to come. In the meantime, enjoy these ones!

Giacomo's dinner of Eggplant over polenta with a hazelnut stuffing and braised kale.

My potato gnocchi with ragut. For the record, I enjoyed every drop of that olive oil ;-)

Carrot Walnut Raisin Muffins

My vegan tattoo! No bone char here!

Giacomo's cruelty-free bunny!

In case you didn't know.... ;-)

DAY 71!!!! ~dani

Grrrrr! Being silly after our workout.

So yesterday I tried my hand at my pullup 1 rep max. Being able to do an unassisted wide grip pullup is one of my p90x goals. I have been training using the gravitron machine at the gym, because I feel like when using a chair, it is way to easy to cheat, but that could very well just be me. ANYWAY....I set the gravitron to 18 pounds (which is how much "help" it gives you) and was able to do a pretty decent one, which means I may have even been able to go a little lower, but I was REALLY, REALLY happy with 18 pounds! I only have 19 days to go, and I don't know if I will actually be able to do an unassisted one in that time, but the amount of progress I've made in 71 days is unreal. I have been working on this goal on and off for yeeeeaaaarssss, withou ever making it. Needless to say, this makes me happy.

Also I am pumped at the number of pushups I am capable of doing now, and I mean real pushups, with my chest to the floor. Giacomo was kind of stunned by me during our last chest/triceps workout :-) I do however feel that my triceps are my weakest point, so doing things like narrow pushups, I still drop to my knees about halfway through. I feel like this is partly due to the fact that my left elbow is pretty fragile....which brings me to my net point.

My hip is friggen killing me. Some days it's ok, but other days I am limping. This really sucks because I was making some serious headway with my cardiovascular endurance, which as I've mentioned before is one of my biggest weaknesses. :-/ Doing cardio now is a pain (quite literally) so I have been taking it as easy as I can. I have been walking a LOT and I can't tell if it is helping or hurting me. For the most part I am still able to do the full leg routine except the side to side lunges are just too much impact for my poor hip, so I have been using the abductor and adductor machines in their place. In place of running (which I was finally getting the hang of :-( , I have been cycling)

My diet has been working for me I think. The veganized version of p90x was not working for me AT ALL. I was constantly hungry, but I still always felt bloated and gross. Ick. So I have been doing my own thing, which feels better to me anyhow because it feels more like a "lifestyle change" than a diet. I stick within a 1400-1650 calorie range, making sure to get at least 80 grams of protein a day. This keeps me feeling satisfied, strong, and not quite as crazy as typical diets make me feel! Also, I am down to 135 pounds, and am starting to be able to see my top abs, so WOO! My goal originally was to get to 130 pounds and 18% bf. I have no idea what my bodyfat is now because our scale is clearly a liar as it says I have a higher bf than when I started which is clearly untrue. 130 pounds still seems possible, but I am not going to freak about it if I miss it by a couple of pounds.

Overall, it has been a lot tougher to be as motivated about workouts since we are so busy getting ready for our HUGE cross country move. But I am SO proud of us for keeping up with it, and I am pretty sure that I am going to start p90x again when I am done with it this time. Yeah, it's that good. ;-)

Sun, Summer and gettin shredded.. -Giacomo

Happy Fourth of July!!!

(Yes, that is a vegan hot dog!)

Phase III aka the final stretch is underway.

Leaving our home for 10 days somehow only helped us. We slacked during our recovery week and did our best to stick to the diet. I came back home expecting to be behind on progress and that was not the case. I hopped on the scale and realized more weight was lost. Our training sessions had a spark to them as well. After the forced break, we both had a fire to get back to it. My goal weight was to be at or below 180lbs and I weighed in at 177lbs. I've reached my goal!! Dani has been getting leaner herself and is now clocking in at 136lbs, down from 143 at the start. I'm proud of us.

I have been sticking to the game plan with the diet (which I don't feel is sustainable for the long term). Dani has been tossing around the proper caloric intake at the proper macros for the long term and finding success with it now. Once this concludes at the end of July I would like to relax a bit on monitoring everything I take in with a fine tooth comb and enjoy the food in Portland for a little bit before we leave and be as sensible as possible with food choices. With our metabolisms revved up, it should be easier to keep fit now while continuing to train. Will be interesting to see how this works itself out while we're on the road for September and camping out.

Four weeks left for this program and about seven weeks left until we head east. There is sooo much going on right now that it is overwhelming. Here's a list of the most pressing:

-Selling most of our things on craig's list, ebay and amazon is a lot of work
-We are going to try and buy a home because we can't find a decent space for us and the doggies where we will be living
-Three year anniversary of our relationship this month
-Preparation for a one month camping cross country trip for the move
-packing and shipping the essentials
-searching out for new part time jobs before we arrive as we cannot sustain ourselves yet with our own endeavors.

It may not look like a whole lot but it is a big change for us and a ton of work to get there which is a bit stressful.

During this time, it is a true test of our commitment to an athletic lifestyle to keep up with training and nutrition. Especially since a busy lifestyle has got in the way the last 2 years. So far, so good.

Check out our progress pictures that were taken on day 60, as compared with day 1:














I stopped eating clif bars because I never felt they were a viable substitute for whole foods. They were simply included to show you can consume vegan protein bars instead of the ones that were suggested by the p90x program and still achieve great results. Instead, I now add an extra serving of protein powder and a piece of fruit. It's SUMMER, how could I not have fresh local fruit in season?? Dani stopped supplementing with them awhile back also.

It has been nice to go for some outdoor cardio sessions now that the weather is better as well. We use www.runkeeper.com to track our progress and enjoy the scenery. There are some terrific trails out here. 1-2 hr cycling sessions and 30min running sessions. Usually, we get 1-2 cardio sessions in a week.

Almost there.. let's do this!!

Got a little sidetracked there.....

Hello folks! Sorry we have been so sparse lately. We were on a 2 week trip to the east coast to visit our families in NYC and Boston. And WHAT A TRIP IT WAS!!!
We tried really hard to plan out our vacation so that our workouts and eating did not get neglected and I would say for the most part we did a damn good job, and both of us made significant progress while we were home which was something neither of us were expecting!!!! I can't write everything that happened while we were there, but I will give you some of the highlights and things we did to prepare!


BE PREPARED:

-We loaded all of the p90x workouts onto our laptops so we could watch them no matter where we were.

-We invested in a good set of exercise bands so we wouldn't need to rely on a gym to workout.

-We scheduled our workouts out on a calendar, so we wouldn't lose track of what we were supposed to be doing.

-We had our families buy the food we have been eating so we wouldn't be forced into eating things we didn't want to, and explained to them beforehand that we were on a fairly strict regimen so they wouldn't be disappointed or surprised.

-We packed jars of our favorite protein powders.

Bands from hell.

PROBLEMS ENCOUNTERED:

-I (dani) forgot my sneakers in Portland....DUH!!! I ended up having to buy new ones, but Giacomo and I both wanted Vibrams anyway so we made the investment, which is awesome, but you can only do some much with them before you're really used to them.

-That said, trying to do full workouts with my new shoes, led to me injuring my hip, kind of seriously, to the point that I was limping while I was just walking.....not good. So for the "rest" week, I literally, just rested, stretched and walked. No jumping around for me.

- Our good exercise bands, turned out to be not so great. I got smacked right in the face with the two heaviest bands (equaling approx 70 lbs) while trying to do wide pulldowns on a door. This led to me crying, thinking I had two black eyes, and icing my face for a half an hour to discover that I had a HUGE welt in an upside down "V" that crossed right across my face and nose....2 days before the wedding. Ohmygod I was so upset....luckily it went away before the wedding but what the hell!!! I felt like Marsha Brady in that football episode....

- Then, for the next workout that required bands, one of them just straight snapped in half.....seriously. So the bands were out from here on in.

-By the time we got to Boston, our second destination, I was drinking caffeine daily, something I havent done in about 6 months. I think that the caffeine made me lose my appetite quite a bit, because I ate like a bird. Seriously, one day I think I ate like 1000 calories and I had to force that down. Overall, I'd prefer this to the opposite, which is just scarfing down food as I see it, and what usually happens when I go home. Giacomo did a beautiful job sticking to his diet. I was very proud of him. :-)

Vibram FiveFinger Sprints!!!

PLEASANT SURPRISES:
-Because I had no car to get around my hometown in Massachusetts (Giacomo had flown back to Portland by then), I had to do a lot of walking to get around, so even though I felt like I was slacking on my exercise because of my injured hip, I still got in my favorite form of exercise--WALKING!

-I went out dancing twice!!! This, I should mention, did not help my hip at all. In fact I am certain that it exacerbated the situation, but it was so fun! And, hey, exercise. WOO!

-I was kind of taken aback by how many people commented on how fit I looked. I wasn't expecting that at all. In fact most people who were commenting on my weight ( I heard the term "skinny bitch" said more than once....gotta love old friends) didn't believe me at all when I told them I weigh 140 lbs. I told them it's because I'm strong as hell. They mostly laughed...It's ok....joke's on them ;-)






Tomorrow Giacomo and I start Phase 3 of p90x, and I am psyched. I am also way excited to take progress photos tomorrow becase I just put on a bathing suit that I haven't been able to wear in 3 years, and I must say, I'm looking damn good ;-) No Giacomo 6 pack yet, but hey, I'm proud of myself!

Dani, Doubles, and Dieting!

Day 0 vs. Day 30
Would you believe there is not a single pound lost between these two photos?!


So I have been neglecting this blog a little bit, and for that I am sorry. The reason is, I got DAMN frustrated about a week and a half ago! 2 1/2 weeks of dieting hard, and training harder, and I hadn't lost a single pound. Not. One. Pound. I didn't think I had set a very lofty goal to lose 12 pounds in 13 weeks, but apparently, my body disagrees. I mean, I am a personal trainer. This is what I do for people! Help them reach their goals. So why was I so stuck with reaching my own?

There were a couple things I believe to be the reason:

1. Diet. Man, I'm just going to say it. That p90x diet sucks. I see what they're doing, and I think it's a valiant attempt at universalizing a basic "cutting" diet so that anyone can figure it out, but I don't think it is a one-size-fits-all kind of deal. The problem for me personally is that this diet has very very very few carbs, but theyre all in one serving, so for one meal of the day, I feel bloated and heavy and uncomfortable, and the rest of the day I am starved. The other thing is that they push so many of their products into the diet (i.e bars, recovery drink, shakeology etc) that don't line up with the food groups they are otherwise telling you to eat....it's kind of confusing. And overall, I found it to be too low of a calorie diet.

2. I've been getting stronger. With few exceptions, you can't get stronger without gaining muscle. So I've been GAINING muscle, which means I must be losing fat in order for the scales to stay the same. To say how much or how little is too hard, but it explains the scale not moving.


Now the scale is not my number one concern, my bodyfat percentage is, so overall, I have moved closer to my goal. Huzzah! But I still have a ways to go, and here's how I am going to do it:

I can't keep doing the p90x diet. Although it is working really well for giacomo, it was making me really uncomfortable, and leaving me with no energy to workout. I know what works for me, I've done this before. So I have changed my diet to roughly a 40/30/30 diet (carbs/fat/protein) and it is at roughly 1600 calories. All of this is divided up into 3 meals and 2 snacks, and every meal has a little carbs, protein, and fat. The fat, overall, is a little bit higher than it is when I'm not dieting, but fat allows me to feel more satiated (think PB&J Smoothie...mmmm) and makes it feel like I'm less hungry in between meals. My last meal of the day is just veggies and protein, and if I'm really hungry later in the evening, I have a piece of fruit. Oh and I'm drinking a ton of water. I record everything I eat religiously into the Sparkpeople App on my iphone, but they also have a website that is even more awesome, but less portable ;-)

The other thing that I am doing differently is that I have decided to do p90x doubles instead of p90x classic. This means that on lifting days, I am doing TWO workouts--lifting and also doing the CardioX workout, which I actually really like. The biggest pain so far has just been the amount of time it takes since cardio is in the am and lifting is in the pm. I feel like I live in sweaty gym clothes on those days, but I can feel my cardiovascular capacity increasing which is a HUGE deal to me! But I am constantly sore ;-)


Giacomo and I are flying to NY next week and we'll be visiting his family in Brooklyn, and then going to Massachusetts to visit my family for a total of 14 days (I think), so traveling and keeping this up is going to be damn tricky. We did buy a good set of fitness bands on ebay, and we're both looking into getting passes to our old gyms, but we likely won't have the best transportation, or the ability to do laundry and will have to rely on the food we are served more than we'd like to, AHHHHH!


So, we have to go into this with a plan! And that we will!