Why Eat Well?

Eating well gives your body the energy and nutrients needed for
healing, a process that continues after treatment ends. Protein, for
example, is a building block used in the new cells that replace
those lost to chemotherapy and radiation. Protein is necessary,too, during the cycles of regeneration and remodeling that take
place in the skin after surgery. Countless other nutrients found in
food play roles in healing as well. Vitamin C, vitamin A, zinc, and
carbohydrates, fats, and fatty acids are a few examples.
Nutrients that help strengthen bones include calcium, vitamin
D, vitamin K, magnesium, and phosphorus, which are found in
food and available also through a daily multivitamin and supplements
combining calcium and vitamin D. According to the
National Osteoporosis Foundation, osteoporosis—a condition in
which bone density thins out, leaving bones increasingly brittle
and thus more likely to fracture—affects an estimated eight million
women.As explained briefly in the preceding section as well
as later in Chapter 2, research suggests the loss of bone mass that
leads to osteoporosis may be hastened in women who experience
menopause induced by chemotherapy. One study suggests chemotherapy
may accelerate bone loss even when it does not prompt
early menopause.
The foods you choose may have many other healthful nutrients.
Filling much of your plate each day with a variety of colorful,
pungent vegetables and fruits ensures you of a good supply of
antioxidants, a catchall term for any compound that can counteract
unstable molecules like free radicals, which are thought to have
a hand in cancer, heart disease, and many other ailments. Paired
with these antioxidants are countless other helpful nutrients that
are not found in bottled supplements.
What about news reports that dietary fat may play a role in
breast cancer recurrence? In 2005, researchers delving into this
question through the large-scale Women’s Intervention Nutrition
Study (WINS) found that breast cancer recurred less frequently in
those who consistently ate a low-fat diet. It is important to note
that study participants who successfully stuck with the low-fat diet
lost weight (roughly f ive pounds) and sustained this weight loss
over the f ive years of the study. By contrast, during breast cancer
treatment, most women gain weight. Many scientists speculate
that it was the ability of WINS participants in the low-fat group
to achieve and maintain a more healthy weight that led to fewer
breast cancer relapses. Of course, a decrease in dietary fat and the substitution of fat calories with calories from fruits and vegetables
may have played a role, too.
Currently, there is no other scientif ic evidence that even the
healthiest diet will minimize the odds that breast cancer might
recur. Possibly research will one day show this. Meantime, a varied
diet that emphasizes vegetables, fruits, whole grains, beans and
legumes, f ish, poultry, and healthful oils (see Figure 1.1) does
offer breast cancer survivors many important benef its by helping
to ward off a variety of other cancers, diabetes, and cardiovascular
ailments like heart attacks and strokes, among other illnesses.
What’s more, loading up on vegetables and fruits can help
crowd out less healthy foods—foods that often are higher in calories—
simply because you’ll be too full to eat them. That can help
you reach or remain within a healthy weight range, which does
appear to boost survival odds and lower recurrence rates among
women who have had breast cancer. (See Chapter 2 for a full discussion
of body mass index and healthy weight ranges.)
These tips can help you set yourself up to succeed:
• Make healthy foods available. Clear less healthy options
out of your cabinets and refrigerator and restock regularly
with healthy choices. Try to have quick, easy foods such as
sliced vegetables on hand. Paying extra for shopping the salad
bar or buying baby carrots may be worthwhile if you lack
the time or energy to prepare foods.
• At the grocery store, read labels carefully and make
trade-offs that net you fewer calories and healthier fats.Emphasizing foods that deliver relatively few calories per
mouthful—romaine lettuce or carrots, for example, versus
sirloin steak, cheese, or nuts—tends to f ill you up faster at
the table while cutting down calories, too.
• Eat mindfully. Truly taste your food and enjoy texture,
scent, and visual pleasures rather than hurrying through a
meal or nibbling while reading or watching TV. Slowing
down as you eat helps in another way, too. The hormones in
your gut that are responsible for signaling satiety—the news
flash that announces that you’ve eaten enough—take about 20 minutes to deliver the message to your brain. Once that
happens, you’ll feel full.
• Don’t confuse thirst for hunger. The thirst mechanism in
humans is not well developed, and signals for both thirst and
hunger originate in the same area in the brain, the hypothalamus.
Often it is hydration our bodies crave, rather than
calories. Keep on hand a glass of plain water, low-calorie flavored
water, tea, or V8 juice. Phosphorous bubbles in carbonated
beverages may leach calcium from the bones, so
drink carbonated beverages in moderation.
• Tune in to emotional cravings that can trip off overeating
and have a plan in place for moments when
emotional hunger strikes.

Source ; THE BREAST CANCER SURVIVOR’S FITNESS PLAN