Hi, me again!. Hope I'm not annoying anyone with all my posts but I'm relatively new, reasearching anything and everything and just have so many questions.
So now I have loads of juicing ideas from my last post - thanks for that, it really helped me - now I'm looking at incorporating fasting into my regime too. I've been reading Radical Remission and it's really piqued my interest. I already do intermitent fasting - usually 16/8 if I can last that long but minimum 14/10. I'm thinking about doing a 1 day fast, possibly just once a month to start with. I'm not asking my Onc about it because I know she'll not advise me; my experience so far is that anything other than convential isn't taken very seriously. Not complaining, it's just a fact (for me so far anyway). And anyway, since I joined this group, I've had more constructive and useful advice from the ladies on here :).
I've been thinking about when would be the best time to do it in conjunction with my meds - Ibrance and Letrozole at the moment, about to start Denosumab soon (Xgeva I think it's called in America).
I can't do it straight away because the other day , at Day 15 I was told my neutrophils were at 1.2 which doesn't mean an awful lot to me but I'm guessing that's low because I was told not to have an invasive LLETZ procedure (because I've not got enough going on, I got a smear test back which was positive for abnormal cells - sigh!). Hence the interest in juicing to try and give me a quick boost.
Once my wbc is up though, I'd really like to have a go at this.
Any thoughts on when best time would be? During cycle (end of week one??) or during week off?
Thanks.
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Mindysooty
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I do 13 hour intermittent with the approval of my oncologist and primary care physician, who is plant based. So maybe do run it by your onc., just for the record.
There's pros and cons to long term fasting. I do not want to lose more weighr, but for someone needing to lose weight it should be ok what I read about it. There's tons of scientific studies and it seems you follow those as well. Even ongoing clinical trials. There's some great interviews by Dr. Rhonda Patrick on YouTube on the subject with Salk institute.
I would struggle to do this but maybe I could skip breakfast and fast from 8.00 pm to 12.00 am which would be 16 hours..I do suffer from migraine though and if I don’t eat for long periods it can trigger an attack
Is there any proper evidence that fasting is beneficial?
I dont think there have been any proper trials its more anecdotal ; there seems to be more studies with promising results rather than long term monitored trials conducted over years but I guess that's true of a lot of the things we're trying. Im coming at it from a spritual as well as physical point of view too. Ive far too much stress in my life and Im just trying to dig deep for some inner peace. Not sure if starving myself will do that but seems to work for some and my thoughts are Ive gone days without eating before when Ive been sick and Im still here 😆.
I am on a continuous intermittent fasting. I stop eating no later than 8 pm and don’t eat again until normally noon the next day. My attempt is to eat for about 5 to 6 hours and that’s it. But it gets complicated with a family. With this said, I eat kite than my husband and son eat even though I eat in a shorter time frame . We do need to be careful if not getting enough protein while in treatment. I am 5.2.5’ and weigh 116 so I don’t want to loose any more weight at 69 years old. But I don’t loose eating this way
Thats true, when youre cooking for others it can interfere. To be honest, we never eat the same as each other anyway so its not much of an issue for me. X
In my opinion you should not take advice from this board and try something that somebody suggests because they seen it on a youtube video or read about it. Every day an article comes out about what to eat or not eat to avoid cancer. If you suffer from migraines when you do not eat, that should enough for you not to fast.
A lot of things that people try are because of something they've read about, that's why we share things on here so people can make their own decisions and do what we feel is right for them. Quite possibly some of the things we hear about, will have no substance but I guess we cling to whatever hope there is. If there's a tiny percent chance something could give me some extra time with my family, then I'm going to at least look into it.
I get that part that people offer up with works for them but we are all so different which is why Ibrance for some works and they feel no side effects. For me it was awful and put me in a deep depression thinking I dont want to live like this. Now, I am feeling almost normal on the 50 mgs. of Verzenio. I have had no progression. I don't take supplements, juicing, fast. Life is too short. I continue to eat what I like.
Thats great, I genuinely hope you live a long and happy life with your choices. You're right we're all different with different approaches, its what makes life interesting 😆
Ive never had breakfast I think thats why Im managing to do it. I do eat too late though often at 10pm which means i then cant eat until 2 the next day. I really need to address that and change my ways.
I've been doing intermittent fasting now for a few months and I love it! I set up an app on my phone which tracks it called Zero. If you do a search you can find it. There are a lot of articles about it on there as well on the "learn" tab. I set it up for a minimum of 13 hours, but I'm averaging 17. As I've noticed any time I change my eating habits, the first week is the toughest. There's a few moments when I'm really hungry, but if I keep myself busy and let that pass, I can stretch out the fasting. Initially, my goal was 2-3 days per week, but I kinda jumped in and do it every day now. I have lost weight, which I really didn't need to, but I asked my doctor about it and she said it was fine. I"m seeing a nutritionist tomorrow, to make sure I'm getting enough of what I need. And, I am on IV chemotherapy.
Here's some research:
"A recent study analyzed data from the Women’s Healthy Eating and Living study and found that breast cancer survivors who didn’t eat for at least 13 hours overnight had a 36% reduction in the risk of recurrence and were 21% less likely to experience breast cancer related mortality.13 The proposed mechanism for this finding is thought to be related to better glycemic control resulting in protection against carcinogenesis. Each 2-hour increase in nightly fasting was linked to progressively lower hemoglobin A1C levels. This research is particularly interesting because it is a dietary strategy that most people could implement.
Protection from Treatment-Related Side Effects
Fasting may also protect patients against the harmful side effects of chemotherapy or radiation therapy. Fasting for up to five days, followed by a normal diet prior to treatment may reduce side effects from treatment, without causing chronic weight loss or interfering with the therapeutic effect of treatment.14 Older cancer patients (n=10), who voluntarily underwent short-term fasting before and/or after chemotherapy reported fewer side effects.15 A small study (n=6) reported a reduction in fatigue, weakness, and gastrointestinal side effects, compared to receiving chemotherapy without fasting.5 As shown in Figure 2, the trend for a reduction of many additional side effects was also reported by the group of patients who always fasted before chemotherapy."
Thankyou that's really informative. There does seem to be a lot of discussion around it and - particularly with the intermitent and 1 day fasting - I just figure it wont do any harm. Id be more cautious about attempting anything longer but for now this will do for me. I just wasnt sure when the best time in my meds cycle would be to attempt the 1 day. Thanks for this. Take care. X
Hi, After reading up on intermittent fast I opted for the 16/8 fasting time as I have less time to cheat and my blood sugar does not take such a dive. The last thing needed is more fatigue. There are some really good online articles on "autophagy" and fasting.
Well your onco is the one who is in charge of your treatment so I do not know why you would do something and not tell her/him about it if you feel they would advise against it. If they do not have all the information, they cannot fully determine if any issues come up. Kind of curious. What do you expect a one day fasting to do?
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