Michael J. Ormsbee is the editor of Fast Lose Fat. He is an Associate Professor in the Department of Nutrition, Food, and Exercise Sciences and Interim Director of the Institute of Sports Sciences and Medicine in the College of Human Sciences at Florida State University.
Losing Weight After Cancer Treatment: Causes, Diet, Exercise, Considerations
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Written by
Michael J. Ormsbee
- LAST UPDATED September 22, 2023
Weight loss or gain is common during and after cancer treatment. Losing weight after cancer is an important goal to regain strength and improve outcomes. This comprehensive guide covers causes of cancer-related weight changes, getting to a healthy weight after treatment, proven weight loss strategies, and maintaining weight long-term.
Losing Weight After Cancer: 12 Causes of Weight Fluctuations During Treatment
Losing weight after cancer can be quite challenging for many people. Cancer and its treatments can have profound effects on weight, leading to fluctuations throughout the treatment process. Here are 12 causes for these changes, helping you understand why weight loss after cancer treatment may be difficult.
Appetite and Eating Challenges
The struggle with losing weight after cancer often begins with appetite and eating challenges. Cancer itself or cancer treatments like chemotherapy and radiation can lead to a loss of appetite and difficulty eating. Nausea, changes in taste and smell, mouth sores, constipation, or diarrhea make eating unappealing. This reduces calorie intake, leading to malnutrition and unwanted weight loss. Ensuring adequate nutrition becomes a challenge, making weight loss after cancer treatment both demanding and complex.
Metabolic Effects of Cancer
Cancer can directly alter metabolism, which further complicates losing weight after cancer. The way the body processes calories and nutrients can change, with some tumors releasing factors that impact appetite and nutrient metabolism and storage. This can lead to unhealthy weight loss or gain.
Impacts of Cancer Treatments
Losing weight after cancer becomes even more challenging due to cancer treatment effects. Treatments like chemotherapy, radiation, and surgery all exert significant physical tolls that influence weight. Chemotherapy impacts appetite and digestive health, while radiation only treats localized areas, leading to weight imbalances. The invasive nature of the surgery and the recovery required often reduces physical activity; all these treatments contribute to weight fluctuations and make losing weight after cancer harder.
Medication Effects
Medications used alongside cancer treatment further impact weight, adding to the difficulty of losing weight after cancer. Steroids like prednisone stimulate appetite and cause the body to hold on to fluids, often leading to noticeable weight gain. Other medications used for nausea or pain can also change eating patterns.
Decreased Physical Activity
Fatigue and low energy levels are common side effects during cancer treatment. Losing weight after cancer can become more difficult as patients may struggle with finding the energy to exercise. This lack of activity leads to muscle loss and slowed metabolism, causing unhealthy weight loss. Exercise is a key component for maintaining a healthy weight during and after treatment.
Emotional Eating and Stress
The emotional toll and stress of a cancer diagnosis can significantly impact one’s ability to maintain or work towards losing weight after cancer. Many patients turn to emotional eating as a coping mechanism, seeking solace in comfort foods and overeating. This emotional eating leads to gains in excess fat and hinders progress in losing weight after cancer.
Hormonal Changes
Cancer treatments, such as chemotherapy, can lead to hormonal changes that make losing weight after cancer more difficult. Some treatments can cause temporary or permanent menopause, leading to weight gain, especially around the abdomen.
Sleep Disturbances
Sleep disturbances during cancer treatment can affect weight and contribute to difficulties in losing weight after cancer. Insufficient sleep leads to increased hunger, fatigue, and decreased impulse control, making it harder to maintain a healthy weight.
Fluid Retention
Cancer treatments can cause fluid retention and edema, making it appear as though there’s weight gain. This complicates the process of losing weight after cancer, as it becomes difficult to determine actual weight changes.
Changes in Muscle Mass and Body Composition
Cancer treatments can cause muscle loss, leading to a decrease in metabolism and making losing weight after cancer challenging. Patients undergoing cancer treatment need to focus on maintaining muscle mass while losing fat to improve overall health and body composition.
Nutrient Absorption Issues
Cancer treatments can affect the body’s ability to absorb nutrients efficiently. Malabsorption contributes to weight fluctuations, making it harder for patients to work on losing weight after cancer.
Immune System Suppression
Cancer treatments can suppress the immune system, leading to an increased risk of infections and illness. This can further impact weight, as the body needs additional energy for healing, making losing weight after cancer even more problematic.
Understanding these factors can help patients and their healthcare team address weight fluctuations during and after treatment. With a comprehensive approach and consideration of personal circumstances, effectively losing weight after cancer can be achieved.
Achieving a Healthy Weight: 10 Considerations for Losing Weight After Cancer Treatment
The journey towards achieving a healthy weight doesn’t end at the last chemotherapy or radiation session. In fact, losing weight after cancer treatment takes dedication, perseverance, and guidance from professionals. Here are ten essential considerations for setting and reaching healthy weight goals post-treatment.
Improve Strength and Function
When one focuses on losing weight after cancer treatment, the benefits extend beyond aesthetics. Shedding excess weight enables patients to regain the core and muscle strength needed for daily activities, significantly enhancing their quality of life. This is particularly important as excess weight can perpetuate weakness and fatigue associated with cancer treatments.
Enhance Immune Function
Obesity has been linked with blunt immune function and increased inflammation. Losing weight after cancer treatment can help restore your immune system to its full capacity, ready to fight off any potential recurrence of the disease.
Increase Treatment Efficacy
Being overweight can decrease the effectiveness of certain therapies such as chemotherapy drugs and radiation therapy. By focusing on losing weight after cancer treatment, you can optimize these treatments and increase their efficacy.
Create Structured Nutrition Plans with Doctors
Healthy weight loss after cancer is often achieved by following a structured diet plan. Oncologists, dietitians, and nutritionists work in synchronization to create customized diet plans for each patient, ensuring proper nutrient intake while maintaining a calorie deficit conducive to weight loss.
Stay Hydrated
The importance of staying hydrated while losing weight after cancer treatment cannot be overstated. Treatments like chemotherapy and radiation can dehydrate the body; keeping a high water intake not only rehydrates but also helps boost the metabolism.
Incorporate Regular Exercise Routines
Regular physical activity is a fundamental component of losing weight after cancer treatment. Once your doctor gives you the green light, incorporating cardio and strength training exercises into your daily routine helps build lean muscle and increase metabolism, promoting healthy weight loss.
Use Apps and Trackers to Monitor Progress
Technological tools like fitness apps, smart scales, and activity trackers have revolutionized the journey of losing weight after cancer. These applications provide a convenient platform to log food, keep track of exercises, and monitor weight, offering tangible insights into progress over time.
Collaborate with Dietitians on Meal Plans
Losing weight after cancer treatment is a lot more achievable when you collaborate with registered dietitians. They provide expert guidance in creating structured meal plans tailored to your specific needs and preferences, ensuring nutritious meals while maintaining a calorie deficit.
Foster Positive Attitudes and Mindsets
The psychological aspect of losing weight after cancer is just as important as the physical one. Cultivating a positive attitude and mindset can significantly affect your weight loss journey, making it important to find joy in the process whenever possible.
Check Regularly with Healthcare Professionals
Regular check-ins with healthcare professionals play a crucial role in healthy weight loss after cancer treatments. They can provide necessary adjustments to diet or exercise routines based on your progress, helping to ensure losing weight after cancer is a safe and effective process.
Losing weight after cancer treatment can be challenging, but by focusing on these ten key areas, you can set yourself up for success on this journey towards a healthier life. Remember, it’s not just about losing weight, it’s about gaining health.
Strategies for Losing Weight After Losing Weight After Cancer Treatment
Losing those extra pounds gained during cancer treatment can be challenging. Here are 15 research-backed strategies to safely and effectively shed weight after cancer:
Take a Gradual, Steady Approach
Aim to lose 1-2 pounds per week maximum to give your body adequate time to recover and adjust. Losing weight after cancer shouldn’t feel like a crash diet. Aggressive calorie restriction stresses the body and can cause rebound weight gain. Expect the process to take several months with persistence.
Reduce Calories Modestly
Cutting calories too severely backfires long-term. Work with a dietitian to reduce calories by about 500 per day through proper portions of protein, whole grains, fruits, veggies, and healthy fats. This creates a moderate calorie deficit for weight loss without deprivation.
Increase Physical Activity Gradually
Once approved by your doctor, implement exercises like walking, swimming, or cycling to burn extra calories. Start slowly and increase duration and intensity over time as your strength builds. Add strength training 2-3x/week to build metabolism-boosting muscle.
Eat More Fiber and Protein
Fiber and protein are filling nutrients that help curb hunger. Getting 25-30g of fiber and eating protein with each meal makes losing weight after cancer easier by keeping you satisfied. Choose whole grains, vegetables, beans, nuts, and lean proteins.
Prioritize Sleep
Poor sleep decreases leptin and increases ghrelin, hormones that regulate appetite. Aim for 7-9 hours nightly for optimal weight control. Maintain a consistent bedtime routine and limit screen time before bed. Manage cancer-related insomnia with your doctor.
Manage Emotional Eating
Identify triggers like stress, anxiety, or boredom that cause emotional eating. Keep focused on making positive long-term behavior changes versus short-term quick fixes. Foster a healthy relationship with food.
Control Portions Carefully
Portion control is key after treatment. Use smaller plates, weigh and measure foods, and don’t eat directly from containers or bags. Be mindful of serving sizes and calories. Stop eating when full.
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Choose Healthy Convenience Foods
Have on hand grab-and-go healthy snacks like Greek yogurt, cottage cheese, fruit, nuts, and hard-boiled eggs. Rely on pre-chopped veggies and frozen fruits for quick nutritious meals. Pick healthy convenience foods to prevent drive-thru stops.
Don’t Drink Your Calories
Limit sugary drinks, juices, coffee drinks, and alcohol which are high in liquid calories. Quench your thirst with water, sparkling water, unsweetened tea, and coffee instead. Getting nutrients from whole foods helps with losing weight after cancer.
Create Meal Plans
Planning weekly meals and grocery lists helps set yourself up for weight loss success after cancer treatment. Cook ahead on weekends to have healthy homemade options on hand when you’re pressed for time. Meal prepping prevents poor choices.
Keep Healthy Snacks Accessible
Have prepared snacks like veggies, hummus, cottage cheese, nuts, apples, and hard-boiled eggs readily available. When hunger strikes, you’ll reach for these rather than chips or cookies. Convenience promotes healthy choices.
Master Meal Timing
Eat more earlier in the day by shifting calories towards breakfast and lunch. Our metabolism is faster in the mornings, so we burn those calories more efficiently. Eating larger dinners later more often leads to weight gain.
Seek Support and Motivation
Share your goals and plans with family and friends for extra support. Having people to remind and motivate you makes losing weight after cancer feel less daunting. Join a cancer support community for inspiration.
Monitor Your Progress
Weigh yourself weekly and track progress in a journal or app like MyFitnessPal. This provides insight into what’s working and helps identify small lapses before they escalate into large regains. Be accountable to yourself!
Make Lifestyle Changes
Don’t view losing weight just in terms of short-term diets. Make sustainable lifestyle adjustments to eat healthier, control stress, sleep more, and exercise regularly. These habits support maintaining weight loss long after cancer.
With persistence and support, implementing these research-backed strategies makes it possible to achieve your weight loss goals after cancer treatment and get back on the path to optimal health.
Maintaining Healthy Weight Long-Term After Losing Weight After Cancer
The Road to Lasting Weight Loss After Cancer Treatment
For cancer survivors, achieving and sustaining weight loss after cancer treatment is an important part of the recovery journey. Losing weight after cancer can be very challenging, but with commitment, proper nutrition, and consistent lifestyle changes, long-term weight management is certainly possible. Making weight control a priority and adopting a mindset focused on maintaining good health is key to staying motivated over the long run after losing weight after cancer.
Commit to Healthy Eating for the Long Haul
Cancer survivors who have lost weight after cancer need to commit to lifelong healthy eating habits to keep excess weight off for good. This means emphasizing a nutrient-rich, balanced diet high in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, lean proteins, and healthy fats. Limiting the intake of processed foods, refined carbohydrates, sugary foods, and beverages is also important. The primary focus should be on eating whole, minimally processed foods as much as possible. Portion control is also key to preventing overeating.
While allowing for occasional treats, the mentality has to be a long-term dedication to proper nutrition rather than viewing dietary changes as temporary fixes. Maintaining weight loss requires permanent sustainable adjustments to how and what cancer survivors eat. Small lapses in eating behaviors should not derail overall progress. With renewed commitment, getting back on track is achievable after occasional indulgences.
Stay Active and Exercise Consistently
Along with nutrition, exercise is the other fundamental pillar of lifelong weight management after losing weight after cancer. Cancer survivors need to maintain consistent cardiovascular and strength training exercise routines to keep their metabolism high and prevent weight regain. Trying to incorporate regular activity into daily routines makes exercising more sustainable. Having family or friends provide support and accountability for sticking to workout schedules also helps greatly with consistency.
Even after reaching target weight goals after losing weight after cancer, survivors cannot become sedentary or lapse with workouts. Regular vigorous exercise has to remain a top priority in order to sustain weight loss results over the long run. Starting exercise regimens slowly and gradually increasing duration and intensity helps prevent burnout as well. Celebrating milestones and rewards for progress may enhance motivation too. The key is making regular physical activity an indispensable piece of life after cancer.
Monitor Weight and Caloric Intake Consistently
Another important habit for maintaining weight loss long-term after losing weight after cancer is consistently monitoring weight and calorie intake. Cancer survivors should consider weighing themselves at least once per week to catch any creeping weight gains early before they escalate. Keeping food journals and continuing to track nutritional intake – even after reaching the target weight – is also beneficial. This allows survivors to assess how caloric needs may evolve over time and make appropriate adjustments to prevent regain.
Be Flexible and Adapt Plans as Needed
An essential mindset for lifelong weight management after losing weight after cancer is flexibility and adaptability. Survivors must closely monitor their progress and be prepared to modify dietary and exercise approaches as needed if weight loss stalls. Working with nutritionists and physicians to adjust caloric intake and update workout regimens helps get weight loss efforts back on track. The path to lasting weight control rarely follows a straight line. Cancer survivors have to expect setbacks and be ready to correct when challenges arise.
Special Weight Loss Considerations for Certain Cancers
While general nutrition and exercise principles for weight loss apply broadly, certain types of cancer survivors face added struggles that warrant special consideration:
Breast and Ovarian Cancer Challenges
Chemotherapy treatment often triggers menopause and significant hormone changes in breast and ovarian cancer patients. These hormonal fluctuations make losing weight after cancer more difficult. Following tailored plans to help manage the effects of hormone changes is important for supporting weight loss among these survivors.
Obesity Risks for Prostate Cancer
With strong links between obesity and prostate cancer, shedding excess weight after treatment provides major benefits for prostate cancer survivors. Limiting intake of fatty foods, and refined carbohydrates and adding regular exercise improves prognosis and survival outcomes. Maintaining significant weight loss is vital for this group.
Higher Protein Needs for Lung Cancer
Lung cancer patients undergoing treatment tend to lose lean muscle mass and need higher protein intake – generally up to 1.5 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight daily. Consuming adequate high-quality proteins helps maintain muscle even during weight loss. Monitoring protein consumption is key for these survivors.
Support Networks Help Provide Motivation
Maintaining major lifestyle changes is challenging for any cancer survivor after losing weight after cancer. Constructing strong support networks is invaluable for motivation and inspiration to persevere during difficult times. This can involve joining cancer survivor groups that encourage healthy lifestyles or finding workout partners. Even following social media accounts focused on healthy living after cancer treatment can provide helpful ideas and positive reinforcement. Surrounding themselves with the right influences assists greatly with lifelong behavior change.
Be Compassionate But Stay Resolute
Cancer survivors striving to sustain weight loss after losing weight after cancer need to practice self-compassion and stay patient on difficult days. But the mindset has to remain resolute in the commitment to weight control and good health. Lapses happen, but they are learning opportunities, not excuses to abandon progress. With support and renewed focus, survivors can get back on track. Maintaining weight after cancer treatment is an ongoing journey, but with the right lifestyle habits and determination, lasting success is absolutely achievable.
Finally
Cancer and related treatments exert complex effects on weight by impacting appetite, metabolism, emotions, and activity levels. While some fluctuations are inevitable, implementing proven diet, exercise, and lifestyle strategies tailored to individual needs makes it possible to achieve and maintain a healthy weight after cancer. Losing weight empowers survivors to maximize health and quality of life. Working closely with oncologists, dietitians, and nutritionists is essential for safe, successful weight loss.
FAQs about Losing Weight After Cancer
Is it normal to lose weight after cancer treatment?
Weight loss is very common after finishing cancer treatment. Up to 80% of people report unintentional weight loss in the months following treatment. This is caused by a variety of factors including loss of appetite, altered metabolism from the cancer, fatigue limiting activity, and the effects of medications or treatments like chemotherapy, radiation, or surgery. It’s extremely common and normal to drop pounds immediately after completing treatment. Focus on eating nutrient-rich foods every 2-3 hours, drinking nutritional supplements if needed, and slowly increasing activity. Most are able to regain weight once treatment effects resolve.
At what stage of cancer does weight loss occur?
Weight loss can happen at any stage of cancer. However, moderate unintended weight loss is more common in the early stages of cancer, while rapid and uncontrollable weight loss is likely to occur in advanced or later-stage cancers. Early-stage cancer patients may lose some weight gradually due to the side effects of treatments. Late-stage cancer can lead to a dramatic weight loss of 10-20 pounds quickly due to malnutrition from digestive issues, systemic effects of cancer, rapid wasting of muscle, and reduced mobility and activity levels.
Why do cancer patients lose so much weight?
There are many factors that contribute to cancer patients losing significant amounts of weight: Loss of appetite, nausea, and difficulty eating due to cancer effects or treatment side effects resulting in taking in fewer calories. Cancer's direct effects on metabolism lead to improper processing and storage of nutrients. Cancer treatments like chemotherapy and radiation exert harsh metabolic and digestive effects. Medications, decreased activity and rapid muscle wasting also accelerate weight loss.
Can cancer patients regain weight?
Yes, it's absolutely possible for cancer patients to regain weight after treatment if that is a goal. Focus on getting adequate protein and calories by trying smaller, nutrient-dense meals and snacks every 2-3 hours. Incorporate nutritional shakes or supplements if needed. Rebuilding muscle through activity and strength training helps stabilize weight. Working with a dietitian can help create the right plan to regain weight healthily.
Why do end stage cancer patients lose weight?
Severe weight loss often occurs in end-stage cancer patients due to extremely high calorie needs the body cannot keep up with. As cancer progresses, metabolic rates rise dramatically, but reduced appetite, inability to eat, and malabsorption make it impossible to consume enough calories. The body breaks down fat and muscle at accelerated rates to obtain fuel. Inflammation and insulin resistance also contribute to rapid wasting. Aggressive nutrition therapy is often unable to compensate.
What cancers cause rapid weight loss?
Cancers like pancreatic, stomach, esophageal, lung, and liver cancer are most likely to lead to rapid, unintentional weight loss. This is because they tend to disrupt the digestive system directly or cause systemic inflammation that sharply reduces appetite and nutrient absorption. Ovarian, breast, and colorectal cancers may also contribute to weight loss, but generally more gradually. The location, progression, and treatments for the cancer all impact the degree of weight loss experienced.
