If you lose more than 5 percent of your usual weight, you and your doctor should consider the loss significant. Losing 10 percent of your normal weight is a danger signal. A 15 percent weight loss may result in a further decrease in your appetite, depression, fatigue and progressive weakness that will limit your chance of recovery.
Good nutritional management and careful food selection may also be necessary to avoid gaining a substantial amount of weight. Some patients, especially those receiving chemotherapy , tend to use eating as a way of managing nausea. Some of the hormones used to manage breast cancer can also stimulate the appetite.
Guidelines for Overcoming Weight Loss
• Help ease the problem of early filling by eating smaller portions of food more frequently throughout the day
and by drinking fluids between meals instead of with food.
• Eat by the clock at regularly scheduled times. Your appetite signal may not be intact.
• Snack between meals with high-protein diet supplements, milkshakes, eggnogs and puddings.
• Add extra calories to your diet by adding cream or butter to soups, cooked cereals and vegetables and by using
gravies and sauces with vegetables, meat, poultry and fish.
• Add extra protein to your diet by using fortified milk, peanut butter, cheese and chopped hard-boiled eggs.
• Taste blindness makes it critical that you do everything you can to enhance the smell, appearance and texture
of food. So cook dishes that appeal to your sense of smell and be especially creative with desserts.
