Tag: Diet

Body changes over time

This page will identify changes over time to physical attributes like my weight.

Weight Changes

  • Jul 29, 2019: As stated in other posts, I’ve been trying to bulk up prior to commencing treatments. That’s been fairly successful. It’s weird, though, to see how much my weight varies. I’m sure the variability reflects the time of day at which I took my weight, how much I’ve eaten prior to weighing, and how much water I’ve sweated off through outdoor activities.
  • Aug 23, 2019: Bulking up is over. Now I’m just trying to keep my weight up.
  • Aug 31, 2019: As you can see, my weight’s bouncing around like crazy. Part of the reason is that some days I weigh when I’m wearing my jeans, and some days I’m wearing lighter-weight shorts.
  • Sep 9, 2019:Weight continues to fall. Food tastes bad, cancer suppresses appetite, while tissue is being re-generated. But, I’m still above my normal weight, and I’ve only 4 doses left, so I’m hopeful this weight loss trend won’t last long.
May 22, 2019: Diagnosis Day
August 1, 2019: First Radiation Treatment
September 13, 2019: Last Radiation Treatment

Other Changes

Bulking up 2

I’ve got base of tongue cancer (T3 N1 MO).  I start treatment in a week and a half.  Expecting that I’m likely to lose 20-40 lbs, I’ve been trying to bulk up as much as possible, focusing on adding muscle mass, rather than fat, ‘cuz your body prefers to get energy from muscle when it’s undergoing chemoradiation.  To that end, I’ve started eating more (a lot more!) and exercising more (again, a lot more!).  I’m focusing on building up my big muscles (quads, glutes, lats), because that’s the easiest place to put on more muscle relatively quickly.  If I look misshapen, it doesn’t matter; in three weeks, when I start to lose my appetite, I won’t be going to the gym anymore, and my muscles will start to atrophy, hopefully back to where they started a month ago.  So, 13 km bike ride followed by an hour in the gym.  Exhausting, especially at age 64.

I went to https://www.calculators.org/health/weight-gain.php to figure out how many calories I’d need to eat to attain the weight I wanted in a given period of time.  Then, with My Fitness Pal (available on Google Play, or at https://www.myfitnesspal.com/), I’ve been able to see how many calories I’m eating for each meal, and how many more I need to eat to hit my target.  I’ve gotta say, I’ve never eaten so much in such a short time, and it’s not as fun as I’d like it to be.  But I REALLY don’t want a feeding tube, so I chow down.

Another benefit of My Fitness Pal is that it tells you how many nutrients you’re getting, including things like potassium, Vitamin C, sodium (yikes, there’s a lot in the things I eat!).  As I’m going along, I’m starting to make better choices about my calorie, fat, protein, and nutrient sources.  The bread we’ve been buying has an astonishing amount of sodium in it.  I’ve got a really good protein powder, but it too contains more salt than I’d like, given the quantity I’m eating.  My wife, though, has found a dry cottage cheese that’s high in protein and very low in sodium. 

Bulking up

My team at the Victoria Cancer Clinic includes a dietitian. I’ve called her a couple of times now to inquire about “bulking up”. This is the process of putting on mass now that my body will later burn up later when I’m not able to eat as much as I need.

Everything I’ve read (thanks all you bloggers out there) indicates that I’ll lose 20-40 lbs. My dietitian thinks that I should put on 10-15 lbs, based on me being 6’1″ and 169 lbs. She also confirmed something that Dr. Pite (the clinic’s dentist) said: although our bodies normally go to our body fat to get needed energy when we start a diet, our bodies go first to muscle mass when we’re in radiation treatment. So, it’s good to put on weight in advance of treatment, but it’s best if that we put on muscle mass rather than fat.

My wife picked up a great big jar of 100% natural whey protein powder from Costco. It’s vanilla flavoured, and tastes just fine when blended (I use a Magic Bullet) with milk.

My dietitian had me check to confirm that the powder does not contain any antioxidants. It turns out that, although antioxidants are really good things to eat, and that although they do fight the growth of cancer, our consumption of them is counter-productive when undergoing cancer treatments. That’s because antioxidants fight the processes that result in cells being damaged (a good thing, normally), but when we’re undergoing treatment, our treatments are actively trying to damage cancer cells. By consuming significant amounts of antioxidants during treatment, we fight the treatments’ effects.

That being said, the amount of antioxidants that are normally found in the food we eat isn’t sufficient to significantly counteract radiation and chem therapies. So, eat well, eat antioxidants, but don’t take the large doses of antioxidants that are found in many protein powders.

My dietitian says that, under normal circumstances, a male my size should be eating around 77 gm of protein a day. But, in advance of treatment, I should be eating about 110-115 gm per day. According to what I remember her saying, the human body can absorb about 80% of whey-based proteins, but only 40-60% of plant-based proteins. So, for the money, whey-based proteins are a better source for those of us trying to bulk up.

But protein ingestion isn’t enough; one needs to exercise in order to have the body store protein as muscle mass rather than fat. The more protein we eat, the more exercise we need. For the past couple of months I’ve been riding my bike about 12.5 km each morning, and my legs are showing improvement for that. I’ve also, as of today (Thursday June 27), registered myself at the Oak Bay Recreation Centre to get three one-on-one sessions with a personal trainer. It appears from an email that I got that I’ll be assigned to a trainer who is a practising, and winning, body-builder herself. I’m hoping that she can help me add about 20 lbs of muscle over the next 6-8 weeks (i.e. before I can no longer eat and become too fatigued to work out anymore). I’m expecting that some of that 20 lbs will come from existing fat.

Unfortunately, I won’t be able to start training immediately. I’m going up to Kelowna to visit my aging parents this coming Canada Day weekend, and I’m having two molars removed on Wednesday July 3. After the extractions, I’ll have to keep my exertions low, so I don’t pop any clots. With luck, soon.

Fingers crossed.