Avoiding Weight Gain

Not everyone loses weight during cancer treatment. Some people actually gain weight. This is surprising to many people. Weight gain may occur for a number of reasons, including a lack of exercise, hormonal treatments, and eating more than you need as a way to soothe and comfort yourself at a stressful time. Regardless of why a person gains weight during cancer treatment, it is important to address this issue. Studies tell us that being overweight is not good for the health of cancer survivors.

If you find that you are gaining a lot of weight during treatment, it is important that you talk to your health care team about this. They can guide you on ways to take care of yourself and limit the amount of excess weight that you gain during treatment. In addition to this, use the following tips to help yourself eat well and limit excess weight gain.

Tips for Preventing Excess Weight Gain 

• Talk to your doctor first for approval and then move when you can. Lack of activity (exercise) during cancer treatment can contribute to gaining excess weight. Always talk to your doctor about what exercise plan is right for you before you start any new activity. Once your doctor gives you the OK to exercise, keep in mind that to get moving, you don’t need fancy equipment or a difficult exercise plan. Simply taking a walk each day can improve your energy and help prevent excess weight gain.
• Focus on high nutrition/low calorie foods. This includes vegetables, fruit, whole grains, and legumes. See our information on Eating Well and Healthy & Delicious Recipes for more ideas on how to add these healthy foods into your diet everyday.
• Eliminate high calorie/low nutrition foods. New research suggests that certain parts of our diet may be worsening the rates of overweight and obesity. One potential “obesity contributor” is high fructose corn syrup. Eating and drinking a lot of high fructose corn syrup may be contributing to obesity.
• High fructose corn syrup is a sweetener found in many commonly eaten foods and beverages. To cut back on the amount of high fructose corn syrup in your diet,
  • drop the pop habit. Soda pop is nearly pure high fructose corn syrup. This includes both “brown” and “clear” regular sodas and colas. When you switch from regular soda pop to water, decrease the amount of soda that you drink slowly. This will help prevent symptoms of caffeine withdrawal, such as headaches.
  • If you do not like plain water, try unsweetened, carbonated water that does not contain high fructose corn syrup. Chose a brand of carbonated water without calories. Plain, flavored, or carbonated water does not contain calories or corn syrup.
  • Small amounts of diet sodas are OK, but they do not add anything of nutritional benefit to your diet. Remember, for better health, you should replace soda with water.
  • Other sources of high fructose corn syrup include fruit punches (100% fruit juice is OK in small [6 ounce] portions); baked goods, such as doughnuts, cookies, cakes, candy bars, hard candy, and other desserts; jams; jellies; sauces and dressings; and many other highly processed foods, such as instant meals, microwave meals, and baked snack foods.
• Make dessert an occasional treat. There is nothing wrong with having a sweet treat now and then. Just make sure “now and then” means only a few times per week, not after every meal.
• Add a handful of frozen blueberries, strawberries, or blackberries to your cereal. These can help you stay full longer and add a healthy serving of fruit to your diet.
• Eat a high-fiber, whole grain cereal, such as All-Bran, Bran-Buds, or Raisin Bran. Fiber keeps you full longer. Chose a cereal with at least 6 grams of fiber per serving.
• Snack on baby carrots and humus. This is a low-calorie option that is easy to prepare, tastes good, and will keep you full between meals.
• Eat bean or lentil soup for lunch; it's quick, convenient, low-calorie, and very filling.
• Try canned beans. For example, rinse beans well and sprinkle them on salad to add protein and fiber to your meal. This will help you stay full longer and keep your "snack attacks" under control.
• Use whole grain pasta instead of plain, white pasta. The added fiber will fill you up without extra calories.
• Try to have three-quarters of your plate covered by vegetables, fruit, whole grains, and legumes. These foods are filling and naturally low in calories and fat.