The FastDay Forum

I had my first fast day yesterday, and am doing another one today as it was the only way I could fit in 2 this week because of commitments.
I have decided to eat my 500 calories in one shot in the evening.
After 5 months of chemotherapy and not being able to eat or drink hardly at all I know I'm not going to die without food. Lol
I find if I eat in the morning it makes me hungry, so I'm quite happy with just drinks in the day.
I have to admit that I can't wait for my dinner around 5.30 when my hubbie gets home!
Looking forward to getting to know you all.
My weight post Christmas is 73 kg which is too heavy for me.
Ideally I'd like to be around 65kg.
I'm mainly doing it for hopefully better all round health....although I'm fine now, but to lessen the risks of health problems in the future.
Hopefully together we can achieve our goals.

Good luck with the diet and continued good health

xxx

Welcome to the forum! I'm just the same, I think, I can go ages without eating but then if I have a little it's really difficult to stop. Good luck with the regime...

Hi Bellalou, welcome along!

one word of caution, i have been trying to get everyone i know to give this a go (not in that annoying preachy way - merely by directing them to the horizon program on youtube and letting them make up their own minds). The only person i havent tried to get into this is my mother, she has also recently finished a course of chemo, and i read somewhere that fasting with the big C lurking somewhere in the background can be counter productive. I'm not going to pretend to know a great deal about this, but have a quick look on the net for yourself and make up your own mind. Or wait for one of the more health knowledgeable posters to fill you in - as they may say i am worrying for nothing. I really hope what im saying here doesnt unnecessarily alert you, but as i said, thought it was at least worth mentioning. In fact, i am just trying to find a bit of the info i came across some 6 months ago when i started the 5:2, but now i am mostly finding stories of how fasting can actually help in this scenario. i dont know, conflicting info as with most health issues i guess, but fingers crossed none of this gets in the way of giving 5:2 a go.

Good to have the chemo behind you in any event, im sure - i hope it didnt beat you up too much, and good luck for the future - 5:2 et al.

[carorees]

Isn't there something in the book about fasting during chemo? Any evidence in humans is anecdotal though.

Certainly weight loss can help reduce the risk of cancer particularly hormone-driven cancer in women.

The Horizon programme made much about the theory that, if you reduce your IGF-1 levels this will reduce your risk of cancer (if! and we only have one man's experience to know that the 5:2 regimen does reduce IGF-1). The idea is that this will act to push the body into autophagy and out of growth. Tumour cells do not do autophagy but they do do growth so they tend to suffer with the low IGF-1 levels. IGF-1 acts through a particular metabolic pathway that has been targeted by certain anti-cancer drugs (e.g., everolimus). These drugs have been tested in breast cancer, lung cancer and endomeetrial cancer at least (maybe more, I don't know). Tumours treated with these agents respond but may later find a way around the blockade of this metabolic pathway that they were relying on to be able to multiply. Unfortunately, some tumours are good at finding ways of circumventing our treatments (just as bacteria, viruses and parasites are too). Not all tumours do this and many patients have had sustained responses. Also bear in mind that because these drugs are fairly new, they still tend to be used as a last resort in patients with advanced disease.

So that is what you might hope to do by fasting. However, fasting has many other impacts on the body and how it affects the whole cancer story from just being at risk through early stages, during and after chemo, we don't know. There is work being done by Michelle Harvie in Manchester on fasting and risk of breast cancer and she attributes the benefit to weight loss. There is also some evidence that fasting makes chemo and radiotherapy more effective. I don't see anything about fasting following recovery.

I do think you should check with your oncologist before going much further along this route or if that is not possible, at least discuss it with your GP.

HTH

I've just read your posts.
I honestly don't think doctors are very well versed in fasting.
Very little research has been done on diet during chemotherapy.
I am hoping to reduce body fat, as I have carried all my weight on my abdomen since the menopause.
It is recognized that losing weight and body fat reduces the risk of breast cancer, so as long as I feel we'll I think I will continue until my waist measurement is more or less where it should be.
Thank you both for bringing this to my attention, x