So confused about what to eat during chemotherapy

It seems no one knows for sure what diet is ideal during and after cancer treatment. I read a paper titled 'Dietary Recommendations During and After Cancer Treatment: Consistently Inconsistent?' that compared the nutrition advice from the top cancer centers in the country and showed how inconsistent the information is. I personally find the theory of ketogenic diet and how it can help with low grade inflammation, blood glucose and insulin levels elegant. Just because a theory sounds good (cancer cells love glucose, normal cells can adapt to use ketone as their primary source of energy while cancer cells cannot adapt. so by eliminating carbs from your diet maybe you can starve cancer cells) does not mean it works. Scientists were able to show tumors do shrink through calorie restriction and ketogenic diets in mice. But of course not all findings in mice translate to humans. There are very few and very small studies where actual cancer patients were asked to be on a ketogenic diet. This paper does a good job summarizing the history and potential mechanism. 

Obsessing over my blood glucose and ketone levels has been helpful in my case. These are actionable numbers! If I eat right, drink lots of water, and exercise more the numbers move in the right direction. That gives me a sense of control. Everything else about cancer is hard/infrequent to measure.  So evolo, you are absolutely right. It does boil down to how the diet makes me feel. And this diet makes me feel in control.

Pinky, when I was first diagnosed, I also wondered if I lived wrong somehow. I have no history of cancer in my family, am 44 years old, have a child, had my first period when I was 15 - not early -so I should be low risk. Yes, my BMI was 27 which puts me in the overweight category, yes I have a stressful job and did not get enough sleep. But there are many people who make the same and even bigger mistakes and do not end up having cancer. We simply don't know enough about this disease. I really suspect that there is some connection between diabetes / insulin resistance and uterine cancer. So glad to hear you are on metformin. I am too! I hope you will never experience another recurrence. 

Amatullah said:

My dr. told me to eat what

My dr. told me to eat what appealed to me, but to make sure I got plenty of protein, because it takes a lot of protein to heal the body after radiation and chemo.  I take the supplements that help with inflammation and neuropathy mostly.  I've lost close to 50 pounds, but not on purpose and I needed to.  I just stopped liking sweets and I used to drink over a thousand calories a day in Dr. Pepper, but it doesn't taste good anymore.  Most food just doesn't appeal to me, but I force myself to eat anyway.  I'm not sure what we eat matters as much as what we end up not eating because we've filled up on empty calories.  I pay attention to what I crave because I think our bodies give us hints.  I've been craving fruit and nuts, cottage cheese, cheese and eggs and a few other things.  Proteins that I'm sure I need.  We can figure out how to balance things if we use common sense.  It doesn't have to be as hard as we make it.

Great to hear about your weight loss, Amatullah. Also great to hear that your body started craving the right kind of food. My weight loss was not intentional either though I am happy that it happened because I want to eliminate any source of estrogen. I still don't understand whether fat cells store estrogen previously produced by ovaries or have the ability to produce new estogen and whether or not while losing the weight if there is any release of estrogen to the body but I feel eventually having a normal weight and body fat percentage might help me.