Nutrition, exercise, lifestyle - what changes have you made?

tpup

To the other LCIS women, I am recently diagnosed. I will be stopping my birth control pills, having MRI this week and excisional biopsy next week. Right now all they see/found is the LCIS but I know that can change with the above procedures. I want to make some lifestyle, eating changes now.

What have you done? Any books on nutrition that can be recommended? I am looking to prevent BC but also start stopping it in case I do have a more invasive kind. Unfortunately nutrition wise, I am, and have been, a complete sweets-aholic. Even though I am of healthy weight, exercise and cardiovascularly am extremely healthy (very low blood pressure & heart rate from running), I eat ALOT of candy, sweets, etc. I will be STOPPING that as I heard cancers feed on sugar. (not sure if that is true). I will be adding green tea, tons of berries.

I have heard of women going completely vegetarian AND organic - that meat protein "can be bad".

I don't want to go too crazy, but do know there are things nutritionally that I can do. And regarding the protein, I do eat higher amounts as I do weight train (egg whites, whey powder in smoothies).

For now I am kind of looking for a "top 10" - either top 10 to eat, stop eating, or add in (vitamins, supps). What about red wine? I don't drink alot - just an occaisional glass of white wine - like twice a month if that , but if red wine is helpful, I'll switch to red.

Any guidance? Thank you!

leaf

Since the ideas of 'what is healthy' change (at least somewhat) over time, as the scientific community learns more, its sometimes hard to give specifics.

I don't know of anyone who lives a 'perfectly healthy' life.

I think there is a lot of scientific evidence that supports :

For 'general health'  (since very few women with LCIS and nothing worse die of breast cancer):

1) Maintaining a healthy weight (which is not an issue for you, but it is for me.)

2) Eating  9 servings of fruits/vegetables per day.  I try to eat organic for the 'dirty dozen' fruits and vegetables http://www.ewg.org/foodnews/  (but I don't always do this.)  I like to follow Nutrition Diva, because she tries to communicate when a topic is controversial, and tries to back up her opinions with studies. http://nutritiondiva.quickanddirtytips.com/categoryindex/all/Page/1/sortbyalpha/  Obviously, this is a highly personal subject, and can be very controversial.

3) Regular exercise (which helps #1) I started going to a personal trainer about a year ago to be more committed to exercising, since I was advised I should not jog anymore.

For breast cancer risk reduction :

4) I avoid alcohol, but that's no biggie for me since I don't drink anyways.  (There is a lot of alcoholism in my family.)

5) While on tamoxifen, I avoid soy.  This is controversial.

6) I try to increase my flax intake; this, too is controversial.

7) I think its good to avoid refined sugar if possible, not because I think there's a lot of evidence that sugar 'feeds' cancer, but because it adds empty calories, may promote diabetes, etc.   All human cells get their energy from glucose (and under some circumstances fats and proteins), but the immediate energy source is glucose. I'm not very good at avoiding sugar either, which contributes to#1.  So sugar not only feeds cancer cells, it feeds normal cells too.  (Eating lots of refined sugar can do other things like blood glucose and who knows what else.)

8) I of course avoid estrogen.  My LCIS was ER+ (as most LCIS is.)  I think there is a reasonable body of evidence that estrogen helps to put more women at risk for breast cancer.

9) Vitamin D to keep my level near 50.  (I take 5000 international units/day in addition to the vit D in my Calcium tablets. (This may be controversial too.) http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/  (This website cites, and has on its board, many world-famous vit D researchers - peer reviewed, on Pubmed, of course.)

DocBabs

IMHO, there is nothing that you can or cannot eat to stop you from getting breast cancer.I would say that what you've been doing, exercising, maintaining a healthy weight,are all good things for healthy living in general. If it were that easy, this board would be empty. I was diagnosed with LCIS 3 years ago then this past April with IDC.I too have spent my life trying to eat healthy and get lots of exercise.The only change that I've made and actually because of my age (67) and the fact that I'm on Arimidex, I've added VitaminD and calcium to my daily pharmaceutical arsenal.My bone density has always been very high but this medication is nortorious for bringing it down.I continue to drink my red and white wine.I love fruits and veggies but I will confess that lately I've been springing for the organic stuff .I have a new grandchild so he's also the reason for this. We share lunch frequently.Whatever little things that I can include in my life without going crazy , I do. More importantly, I've started to live more "in the moment", enjoying each day . My grandson also has a lot to do with that. Enjoy yourself.