Breast cancer blog: Dietary facelift abandoned, the foodie in me resurfaces
The appetite came roaring back. I’m supposed to be losing weight with radiation (supposedly the body needs more calories for cell regeneration), but once again I am back to grazing and chomping away two months post-surgery.
After the lumpectomy I swiftly had a dietary facelift out of fear - slashing out all artificial sweeteners, avoiding bread after hearing that anything with gluten was bad for the health, and limiting myself to celery sticks and apples.
The pounds melted away without me having to lift a finger in a totally foreign way.
The foodie in me has resurfaced and I’ve spent a good portion of recovery time noshing. I snack and sleep (exhaustion is one of the side effect), and snack again.
When a good friend came to visit me for a week, a big chunk of time together was spent on eating too. The trip to Disney took up a pattern: Jungle Boat Cruise, stop and eat, spin on the Alice in Wonderland Tea Cups, and stop and eat, go on “It’s A Small World Ride” and eat more. The ride to eating ratio was 1:1. Apparently I’ve gained enough spunk and gumption to once again occasionally treat myself to French fries and fizzy drinks with funky colors.
To be sure, I need to cut myself some slack because being a patient is exhausting. It includes a daily commute along with the mentally taxing reality of being surrounded by fellow patients who in many cases are worse off than me.