Adopting Healthy Eating Habits

For many people, food is as much about the pleasure of eating—the flavors and smells—as it is about nutrition. When thinking about what you eat, it’s important to find foods that do both. The more you enjoy your food, the more likely you are to keep eating healthy.

We understand it can be hard to change your eating habits. You don’t have to change everything at once. You can make gradual shifts towards a healthier, more plant-based diet. Small changes can add up over time.

Think about these ideas for starting new healthy eating habits:

• Try a new recipe. Visit www.mskcc.org/nutrition for ideas.
• Practice mindful eating. Make a point to taste, smell, and use all your senses when you eat. Take your time with meals as best as you can.
• Find ways to manage stress that don’t involve eating so food isn’t your first go-to.
• When dining out, be mindful of portions. Most restaurants offer much larger portions than most of us need to eat during one meal.
• Know what’s in the food you’re eating. Learn how to read and understand food labels. Claims made on the front of the packaging are often misleading.
• You can have structure without being rigid in your meal planning. Try to stick with a routine most days, but don’t let unexpected schedule changes derail you.
• Try to include at least one vegetable or fruit with every meal or most meals. Organize your kitchen to encourage better food choices. For example, try putting fresh fruits and vegetables or individual yogurts at the front of the top shelf in your fridge.
• If there are foods or drinks you know you don’t want to eat, don’t bring them into your house. We tend to eat what we see and what’s easy to get.
• Remember that healthy eating happens over a lifetime, not in a week or a day. Long-term sustainable eating patterns work better than quick fixes.

About nutrition during cancer treatment

Good nutrition is very important for people with cancer. There may be some changes you can make now that will help you during treatment. Start by following a healthy diet. This can make you stronger, help you stay at a healthy weight, and help you fight infection. It may even help you prevent or manage some side effects of treatment.

Once you start treatment, it may become hard to follow your usual diet. You may need to liberalize your diet (add different types of foods and drinks) to get the nutrition you need. There currently isn’t enough research to know that restrictive diets (diets that avoid certain foods or nutrients) are safe for people who have cancer.

The most important thing is to make sure you get the calories and protein you need to keep your body strong during your treatment. Because of that, some of the information in this resource may seem very different from diet guidelines you usually follow. If you have questions, talk with your clinical dietitian nutritionist.