Nutrition during treatment

I think it really depends on what your treatment regimen is. Both my neoadjuvant and adjuvant chemo treatments left me with taste changes and gastrointestinal issues that limited what I could eat. Fresh vegetables, like salads, were a huge no-no because they made me throw up. I ate a lot of easily digested "white" foods like mashed potatoes, cheerios, toast, etc. I could eat vegetables that were very well cooked such as canned green beans or baked beans. I could eat applesauce but not apples. I drank Orgain Protein shakes and gatorade. Now that I am finally finished with active treatment (14 1/2 months later), I am able to re-introduce more nutritious foods.

For me, changing to a mostly vegan diet with eggs while living with active cancer has been good. During the 6 months I was not active with cancer though I sometimes ate chicken and fish). Being mostly vegetariean has helped me feel good and manage side effects with foods. I'm a book learner/lover and these helped me enormously:

Your Life In Your Hands by Jane Plant, PhD. Love this book, I have read it 3 times and refer to it often.  This is the one I recommend for you to take a look at, I think you'll like it. It guides everything I eat and do! Has scientific articles and research which underpin the narrative, plus the author's personal story after 5 instances of cancer, and her journey to being healthy and cancer free. My go to book. And I love these Cookbooks: for foods and nourishing teas:
The Cancer-Fighting Kitchen: by Rebecca Katz and Mat Edelson helped so much during the rough chemo times. I started here. And Forks over Knives by Del Sroufe is wonderful for a full variety of plant based recipes. These all have tasty recipes and when I have appetite - yummy!. And if you are interested in playing with vegan, the Physicians for Responsible Medicine Committee has a 21 day vegan challenge which I loved! Which led me to The Vegan Kickstarter app and recipes which were amazing.

Hope this is helpful, happy to share specific recipes if you are interested as well. Just let me know.

I'm just about to start meds (as of tomorrow) so I don't know how my tastebuds or bowels might be affected, but I do know to avoid grapefruit and pomegranate since I'm taking ribociclib. Which is too bad - I used to love them both!

Otherwise, I'll be filling up on fruits and veggies, and staying hydrated. Meat in moderation. But I've been trying to stick to that for over a year. I lost around 30 pounds last year, deliberately. Dieted all spring and summer. I've been stable at 170 pounds and want to keep myself from creeping back up there.

Also, no more alcohol now.

My plan right now is to take meds in the morning, with food. I think I'll be eating more scrambled eggs to get protein in there.

I hope the starting of your meds has been relatively easy for you! I too lost weight, 20lbs when I switched to the vegan + eggs diet (fish in moderation) that I am on now. I also gave up alcohol, was a red wine drinker for years, and the decreased calories from the wine also contributed to slimming down I'm sure. I loved the ritual of it, but I'm ok without it.

Love my vegies, and love cooking. Am very glad my taste buds are still relatively functioning, just a slight metallic taste in my mouth from the Enertu.

Something I just started (in addition to making the juices in the morning) is making Ginger tea. This tea recipe comes from the Cancer Fighting Cookbook:

Boil 4 cups of water

Slice peeled fresh ginger into 1/4 slices, about the size of half your thumb. Boil/simmer covered for 10 minutes

Then add peppermint and green tea - tea bags and steep covered for 10 minutes.

I make a Granny Smith apple, celery and fennel juice combo, and find it be a really good energizer. It is also really good for your hair to keep it thick and growing well after chemo.

I love lentil curries and baked tofu. Anyone have good marinades they love for baked tofu? My go to is soy sauce or tamari, olive oil and garlic and then baked covered for 40 minutes. Simple but yummy. Would love to hear what you do and love!

I did change my nutrition somewhat but not a lot. I don't juice but I try to eat very healthy and limit sugar and dairy and processed food. The only thing I completely gave up was alcohol but almost have given up processed meats. The biggest change for me was exercise. I exercise every day. It may be light but I always do something physical now.

That smootie sound good, thank you!

I also try to eat ealthy, a bit of everything, mostly veggies and legumes, nuts, whole cereals. Some fruit but not too much. Some eggs and fish. No dairy products because I just prefere not too, and no meat.

Try to keep low in folate because of Xeloda, I had my feet at a point that were like sun burned! But not anymore.

A lot of exercise too!

Your quite welcome. Back when this forum was bigger and better, many knew about this website and would refer to it from time to time. I still do. When I was first diagnosed I found it extremely helpful and interesting.

Hope you find the 5+5 smoothy as helpful as I have.

Kale is my other helper. Found that steaming sweet potatoes with kale and some onion a real treat. The sweet potato counters the bitter kale for a very nice side dish but I am still testing. May add mushrooms next time to make it a meal.