Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Nutrition and Chemo - How not to gain weight - Part Two




Before my first chemo session I typically was eating a lot of salads. So on day one I came home from chemo feeling fine and made myself a big salad to eat, and I ate every bite of it. Huge mistake. I got so sick that night that I couldn't even look at a salad for several weeks.
Chemo was a different kind of sickness for me. I did not constantly feel like I was going to throw up. Instead I constantly felt like I had just eaten a huge meal and I was stuffed full. But then my stomach would growl. So I would feel full and yet hungry all at the same time. And it's true that when you feel like this you want to curl up with some mac and cheese. But other things can help and are much healthier for you. My top five picks are:

Oatmeal
Baked potato
Bananas
Grilled Chicken
Apples

It's important to keep nutrients going into the body. The chemo is killing everything, and so food is one of the best ways to keep your body humming. If you eat bad foods with no nutrients, you are just going to feel even worse. A whole sleeve of saltines has very little nutrients, but a banana sliced into some oatmeal has a lot of nutrients! And oatmeal has a lot less calories.

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