Good nutrition is vital for cancer patients. Cancer and cancer treatments can change how food tastes and smells. They can affect how hungry you feel or how much nutrition you get from food. You can end up with a condition called malnutrition where your body becomes weak, tired, and unable to fight illness or complete your cancer treatment. The risk of malnutrition increases where there’s too much fat in the body.
If you're a cancer patient, it's important to manage your fat intake while eating the right amount of protein and calories. Good nutrition will give you more energy, help you heal, fight infection, and help you finish your cancer treatment. There are several ways you can manage your fat intake along with eating the right foods in the right amounts.
Identify your ideal weight. Calculate your body mass index (BMI) using any of the free BMI calculators available online. Your BMI is a score based on your height and weight measurements. If your BMI is under 25, you're in the healthy weight range. If you're overweight, following healthy eating guidelines and adding exercise can help you manage your weight.
Follow healthy eating guidelines. Record what you eat for a week in a diary. Review where you can make changes to eat more healthy and reduce portion sizes.
- Eat more fresh vegetables and fruits, beans, and whole grains. Aim to get as much color as you can in the vegetables and fruits.
- Use fish, poultry, or beans as sources of protein. Avoid frying or charbroiling your protein. Cook it by baking, broiling, or poaching. Avoid red meats like beef, pork, and lamb and processed meats like bacon, sausage, luncheon meats, and hot dogs.
- Avoid soft drinks, sports drinks, and fruit drinks that have a lot of sugar.
- Avoid high-calorie foods like chips, ice cream, donuts, sweets, and French fries. When eating out, control your portion sizes. Restaurants often serve large portions. You can pack up leftovers and eat them the next day.
- Reduce store-bought sauces, dressings, and dips.
- Avoid or limit your alcohol intake. You should not have more than two drinks a day if you’re a man or one drink a day if you’re a woman. One drink is equal to 12 ounces of beer, 5 ounces of wine, or 1½ ounces of 80-proof distilled spirits or hard liquor.
Get moving. Becoming more active can help you manage your fat intake better so your weight stays under control. Adults should aim for 150 to 300 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise per week. This means exercise that can make you breathe hard as you do it, like brisk walking or biking. Or you can aim for 75 to 150 minutes of vigorous-intensity exercise like jogging or running, where your heart gets a stronger workout and you’re working out large muscle groups.
Avoid sitting or lying down for long periods of time.
