If you’ve been diagnosed with osteoporosis or osteopenia after breast cancer, it’s important to understand why your oncologist may have recommended a bone medication.
⭐️Bone loss after breast cancer treatment is often very different from age-related bone loss. Treatments such as aromatase inhibitors, chemotherapy-induced menopause and ovarian suppression can accelerate bone loss, which is why many women are advised to start medication alongside lifestyle changes.
⭐️Strength training is one of the most powerful things you can do for your bones, but it takes time to learn good technique, progressively increase load, and build enough strength to provide a meaningful stimulus for bone.
For many women, it’s not bone medication OR strength training.
⭐️It’s bone medication AND strength training, with each playing a different role in protecting your long-term bone health.
If you’re unsure why you’ve been prescribed a bone medication, or you’re trying to work out how to exercise safely with osteoporosis or osteopenia after breast cancer, that’s exactly what I help women navigate in my 1:1 consultations.
⭐️Learn more here below or comment: BOOK for the link
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Farah Dutson - Personal Trainer & Nutrition Coach
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Personal Trainer, Nutrition Coach and Consultant Optometrist
Empowering you to live your best life through exercise and nutrition.
Strengthen microbiome and anti inflammatory profile, regulate hormones, lose weight and gain muscle
28/06/2026
For years, the conversation around osteoporosis focused almost entirely on improving bone density.
Bone density still matters.
But today we understand much more about what contributes to fracture risk.
A DEXA scan tells us about your bones.
It doesn’t tell us about your strength, balance, reaction time, mobility, power, or physical resilience.
Those qualities influence how you respond when you trip or lose your balance and they can affect whether a fall results in a fracture.
That’s why I don’t believe exercise should be one-size-fits-all.
Your programme should reflect your medical history, fracture risk, spinal health, breast cancer treatment (if applicable), medications, and your current physical capacity.
If your T-score hasn’t improved but you’re stronger, moving better, lifting heavier, and feeling more confident, don’t overlook that progress.
You’re building resilience and that’s worth celebrating.
Follow for science backed, realistic breast cancer recovery, osteoporosis and menopause help
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Tell me, have we moved on from just the T score?
If you’ve had breast cancer and been prescribed a bone drug, your situation may be very different from someone with age-related osteoporosis.
Many women assume they’re simply dealing with “normal” bone loss after menopause.
⭐️But breast cancer treatment can create additional challenges for bone health.
Aromatase inhibitors such as Letrozole, Anastrozoleand Exemestane dramatically reduce oestrogen levels.
Chemotherapy can trigger early menopause.
Ovarian suppression can accelerate bone loss.
Together, these treatments can increase the rate of bone loss beyond what we’d typically expect from ageing alone.
This is why bone drugs such as Zoledronic Acid (Zometa) or Denosumab (Prolia) are often recommended.
Depending on your situation, they may be prescribed to:
✔ Reduce treatment-induced bone loss
✔ Treat osteoporosis
✔ Reduce the risk of cancer recurrence in bone
✔ Reduce complications from bone metastases
⭐️But medication is only one piece of the picture.
These drugs primarily work by slowing down the cells that break down bone.
They do not build strength.
They do not improve balance.
They do not improve muscle mass.
They do not improve reaction time.
That’s where exercise comes in.
Progressive resistance training places load through bone and stimulates bone adaptation.
It helps maintain muscle, improve strength, increase balance and reduce fall risk - all which contribute to reducing frailty.
⭐️Frailty measures your body’s ability to cope, recover, and bounce back starts to decline.
For many breast cancer survivors, the goal isn’t medication OR exercise.
It’s understanding how medication, nutrition and strength training work together to support long-term bone health.
⭐️Follow for breast cancer recovery, osteoporosis and menopause
21/06/2026
Weight gain after breast cancer treatment, osteoporosis and endocrine therapy can make you feel like your body no longer responds to exercise.
This client was 42 years old.
Taking Zoladex and anastrozole.
Living with advanced osteopenia and receiving Denosumab (Prolia).
She was exercising regularly.
Watching what she ate.
Trying hard.
Yet her body composition wasn’t changing.
One of the biggest frustrations she shared with me was this:
“I keep reading stories about women reversing bone loss, building muscle and losing weight. Why isn’t it working for me?”
The answer wasn’t a lack of effort.
⭐️The answer was that her situation was different.
Breast cancer recovery.
Ovarian suppression.
Endocrine therapy.
Advanced osteopenia.
These aren’t small details.
They change what your body needs from exercise and nutrition.
⭐️Many women compare themselves to people whose physiology is completely different from their own.
The goal isn’t simply to lose weight.
The goal is to preserve muscle, support bone health, improve body composition and build a stronger, more resilient body for the future.
After 8 months she had:
✔ Lost over 3kg and maintained it
✔ Improved her body composition
✔ Become significantly stronger
✔ Reduced aches and joint pain
✔ Built confidence in her body again
No extremes.
No punishment.
Just the right strategy for her circumstances.
⭐️I’m opening 3 places in July for my bespoke 1:1 Change Your Trajectory Programme.
Comment or DM: RESET for details
For many women after breast cancer, the first sign their training isn’t working isn’t weight gain. It’s muscle loss.
⭐️The women I work with aren’t lazy.
They’re usually doing more exercise than everyone around them.
⭐️The problem is often training dosage, exercise selection and recovery.
If you’re on endocrine therapy and your strength is declining despite exercising regularly, that’s a pattern worth paying attention to.
⭐️Comment:Ready and I’ll send you the next step.
Programs are 13 weeks, 1:1 bespoke to your individual health and exercise history with both exercise and nutrition, to lower inflammation, build muscle, improve bone strength and help with fat loss.
Never too late to change your trajectory📈
16/06/2026
The women I work with in breast cancer recovery and/ osteoporosis are rarely under-exercising.
They’re often over-exercising while under-stimulating the tissues that matter most.
Muscle and bone respond to specific signals. Those signals diminish when the stimulus remains the same.
When those signals are missing, progress stalls.
Follow for breast cancer recovery, osteoporosis and menopause.
Never too late to change your trajectory 📈
10/06/2026
No one prepares you for this part of breast cancer recovery.
The part where you realise your body may never look, feel or respond the way it did 5-10 years ago.
The weight gain after breast cancer.
The changes that come with menopause, Zoladex and or aromatase inhibitors.
The pressure to “bounce back” to the version of yourself you were before treatment.
⭐️ But what if healing isn’t about getting your old body back?
What if it’s about metanoia, the beautiful process of outgrowing who you once were.
Your body has carried you through treatment, uncertainty and recovery. It deserves more than punishment in the pursuit of being smaller.
⭐️After breast cancer, I believe the goal should be bigger than simply losing weight.
1.Building muscle to support independence and metabolism.
2.Protecting bone health, especially if you’re living with osteopenia or taking endocrine therapy.
3.Using sustainable nutrition, resistance training and cardio to reduce inflammation and improve long-term health.
4.Creating habits that help you lose weight and maintain it without extremes.
⭐️Being skinny won’t protect you if life throws another challenge your way.
Strength matters.
Bone health matters.
Resilience matters.
⭐️And perhaps finding peace means accepting that you have changed and choosing to honour the body that brought you here.
⭐️If you’re navigating weight loss after breast cancer, menopause after breast cancer, or trying to rebuild your health after treatment, you don’t have to do it perfectly.
You just have to start building the future version of you, one small choice at a time. 🤍
⭐️Have you found peace with the changes in your body, or are you still learning to trust it again?
Comment below ⬇️
Trying to improve bone density but not seeing results?
One of the biggest mistakes I see in people with osteoporosis or osteopenia is staying in a calorie deficit while expecting stronger bones.
Bone is living tissue that requires adequate calories, protein and nutrients to rebuild and maintain strength.
If you’re underweight or not eating enough, your body may not have the resources needed to support bone growth, muscle development and healthy aging.
Even if you’re taking calcium, vitamin D, or exercising regularly, chronic under-eating can make it harder to improve bone health.
⭐️Remember: the goal isn’t just weight loss.
The goal is building stronger bones, preserving muscle, reducing fracture risk and creating a healthier body for the long term.
⭐️Follow me for osteoporosis, breast cancer recovery and menopause evidence led support.
Never too late to change your trajectory 📈
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