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Nutrition and Breast Health
Nutrition for Breast Cancer Prevention
Changing your relationship to food and eating involves a major shift in thinking, feeling and doing. The goal of this shift is to create a lifestyle change, not to temporarily lose weight on a diet.
Choosing, making and eating food with an "Abundance Model" includes the pleasures of eating when hungry.
This is in contrast to the more common "Deprivation Model" where rules of "do not" and "should not" leave us feeling bad or guilty with unmet hunger and cravings. Cycles of stress and depression-related eating are common with this model. A shift from "I can't eat without feeling bad and guilty" to "I enjoy an abundance of healthy, delicious food" often results in a better-nourished and healthier self.
Here are some recommendations followed by examples:
- Lower dietary fat to between 10% to 20% of calories (Low or Non-fat Foods)
- Suggested minimum daily servings of:
- Grains: 6 per day
- Vegetables: 3 – 5 per day
- Fruits: 2 – 4 per day
- Beans: 1 – 2 per day
- Soy: 1 – 2 per day
- Drink 8 to 10 eight-ounce glasses of water a day
- Limit caffeine to no more than 1 to 2 cups a day (Herbal Tea)
- Drink alcohol in moderation (Consume no more than 3 servings a week)
- Limit nitrates and cured foods (Hot Dogs)
- Decrease food additives (Artificial Flavors)
Please discuss with your primary care physician the personal goals for changes in behavior you want to make. Some changes are better made gradually and with support (for example, quitting smoking, lowering alcohol or caffeine intake).
For more information on nutrition and breast cancer prevention, click here.
