Hello, Mal, my friend, good to see you.
Billy's post was a good one and so is yours.
I am never suggesting that people pay no attention to their diets - that's never been my position, but diet is a very important part of who we are as people, and can play an important role even in our social lives, depending and varying from where one lives.
I hear a lot of strong, dogmatic opinions here at HW about
you can't eat this or you shouldn't eat this, and men become fanatical about
food choices, almost to the point of sounding OCD about
it.
You here all this emphathis about
finding the best doctor, etc, and that is good too, but how many men here take the time to talk to a real oncology dietician? I did in 2000 and as recently as 2010, which covers all the times I have had cancer. Two different dieticians that specialize in oncology patients from 2 different hospital systems. It was interesting how common a views they had, even 10 years apart in time:
I will share the following opinions of them: (Shooters, don't shoot the messenger)
Cut back portion sizes, most people over eat and don't understand proper serving sizes
Eat slower
Stay with the new food pyramid (not sure you do that in Australia)
If you have to pick a specific diet, then most heart healthy or mederteranian diets work well
Don't avoid any one group of food, i.e. Red meat, chicken, fruits, vegetables, dairy products
Don't take supplement unless directed by your doctor
With the treats and speical foods an individual loves, learn to use moderation
Cut down on the drinking if you drink a lot
Absolutely quit smoking or chewing tobacco in any form
Drink plenty of plain old water
They basically said that a healthy body needs some of each food group on a regular basis. Its funny, whenever smoking has been brought up here at HW, people go silent, opinions vanish. So I figure we must have a lot of smokers here.
The conclusion was: moderation, don't smoke or start smoking, and exercise when you can. Both of them said that it wasn't even reasonable to expect to change the body's composition after eating wildly for 50-70 years, whatever age one is when they are dx.
This is coming from professionals, not just some obssevive opinion of any one person. They also said that men have a tendency to be control freaks, so some men get OCD about
the dietary side, because they want to feel like they are in control of something, anything, in regards to their cancer outcomes.
Just thought that was worth sharing.
Good to see you both
David in SC
Post Edited (Purgatory) : 4/1/2011 8:37:44 AM (GMT-6)