Optimising care: a program supporting women with metastatic breast cancer to be active and eat well

All participants will receive a 16-week exercise and dietary program, tailored to their individual needs. The exercise program will focus on increasing aerobic-based and resistance-based exercise. Women will have eight supervised exercise sessions with an accredited exercise physiologist (AEP) based at their local gymnasium, their home or another location convenient to the participant. The target dose of exercise will be for participants to complete 150 minutes of moderate intensity activity per week, including two sessions of resistance exercises. The data collected as part of the baseline assessment will be used to inform and guide the initial exercise prescription. The exercises will be progressed and adapted as appropriate, with a tapering of frequency of contacts with the AEP over the course of the program. The dietary program will focus on ensuring adequate consumption of protein, increasing diet quality and managing nutritional impact symptoms (e.g. nausea/vomiting, constipation/diarrhoea), which will be common in women undergoing chemotherapy. Women will have an initial one-on-one face-to-face session with an accredited practising dietitian (APD), followed by seven telephone sessions. The dietitian will also discuss participants' goals and preferences in relation to dietary intake and will use this to tailor the content and focus of sessions. Women will complete three study assessments over a 10-month period: baseline (T1/pre-intervention), 16-weeks (T2/end-of-intervention) and 10-months (T3/6-months post-intervention).