# Why is diet important to treating and preventing cancer? What we eat drives who we are, physically and mentally. Our physical strength, energy, immune system, moods, digestion, body fat, bone strength — all connected to the food we eat. If you ask many standard care doctors why you've got cancer, they will tell you "oh it's genetics". Luck of the draw. Not many will tell you it has to do with the food you eat. But I'll bet every dollar I've got left in my pocket that food is a contributing factor—in some way—to every person in the world fighting cancer. Whether it was the root cause (directly eating carcinogenic foods), or if food just made it easy for the cancer to take hold, grow, and spread, food is in the mix somehow. To ignore this connection is unwise, and will certainly reduce your chances of a full recovery. So it's important to look at the foods you're eating every day, and find ways improve. Because optimizing your food is guaranteed to tilt the playing field in your favour. Along with the actions listed below, I highly recommend you buy and read the book [Eat to Beat Disease](https://drwilliamli.com/book-li/) by [Dr. William Li](../5.%20Resources/People/Dr.%20William%20Li.md). It's essential reading. If you need a bit of convincing, watch his [TED talk](https://www.ted.com/talks/william_li_can_we_eat_to_starve_cancer). It's only 19 minutes long, and if it doesn't get you thinking seriously about food and its relation to your cancer, I don't know what will. So here are some things you should consider to begin improving your diet, and some free tools to go along with each of them: ## 1) Do a 3 day food assessment. This will get you started on being more aware of what's going into your body each day. It doesn't have to be overly detailed to start, just get down on paper everything that goes in for three days, and I guarantee you'll be in for a few surprises and learn a lot! >[!info] >Free tool: Use this simple log template to record what you're eating > [Foods assessment - 3 day log - Google Docs](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1WQThYtJzPQgaX9arY9oyyPtQlLzoV9z8WB5GMrL24LQ/edit#) [Food log instructions](../5.%20Resources/Tools/Food%20log.md) ## 2) Identify your calorie and macro benchmarks All this means is that you'll use your log to understand and benchmark what your average calorie intake is each day, and what the breakdown of macros (carbohydrate / protein / fat) looks like. These will be your starting points in determining what your *ideal* benchmarks should be. You can't improve what you don't measure. ## 3) Target your optimal calories and macros Once you've got an understanding of what you're consuming each day, you'll want to assess whether any of those "macros" levels need to be adjusted to match your objectives. Of course there's a whole lot of nutritional expertise that can go into figuring that out if you want to go deep into macros. But you can easily get a basic understanding on what ratios are generally regarded as healthy, and what ratios might serve your particular needs. ## 4) Use a diet tracking tool to document and better understand what you're consuming each day. See the [Food log](../5.%20Resources/Tools/Food%20log.md) for more on these. ## Managing blood glucose levels Once you're under way understanding what's going into your body, one thing that will likely be inevitable is finding ways to regulate and manage your blood glucose (sugar) levels. Because cancer's favourite food is glucose, part of your strategy will be how to begin to starve the cancer of its food source. Unfortunately the things that spike your blood glucose are the fun things to eat. White rice, white bread, white sugar, all the highly processed carbs. Cinnamon buns, anyone? But these are feeding your cancer, so you've got to find ways to reduce them, without taking all the fun out of life. I love the bad carbs. LOVE them. But several years ago (2016-2017) I experimented with the ketogenic diet, and I learned a lot during that time about how carbs worked in my body. And now that I'm trying to starve cancer from my body, all that learning has come in handy. So in order to bring your blood glucose in line—and reduce the food supply to your cancer—here's what you'll need to consider doing: - Eliminate the worst sources of carbs from your diet - Reduce the other carb sources you decide to keep - Find alternates for the fun carby foods you like - Take supplements that help you moderate and manage your blood glucose Let's break those down a bit more: **Eliminate** - the easiest way to think about what to eliminate is by colour. Get rid of the white stuff in your diet. That means white rice, white bread, white pasta, and of course, white sugar. And any other highly processed carbohydrates. These things will spike your blood glucose like nothing else! **Reduce** - Fruits and vegetables are good for you, but some of them are highly glycemic, which means they quickly turn into glucose in your bloodstream. Knowing which ones are highest and lowest will help you determine where you might want to moderate intake, and where you can be a little more relaxed. I'll get some more resources here shortly on which foods fall into those categories. **Alternatives** - There are a lot of really good alternatives to some of those "fun" carbs we all love. The whole keto trend has brought a ton of cool products to market that let you enjoy the taste of many of them without all the extra glucose in your system. We've spent a ton of time trying low carb versions of everything we like. Breads, granola, grains, even ice cream. Some are better than others, and there will be a list here shortly on the ones we've found to be best. **Supplements** - there are a few supplements you can take that will help moderate your blood glucose levels. I've tried a few, and the one that worked well for me was [Alpha lipoic acid (ALA)](../3.%20Treatments/3.3%20%20Supplements/Alpha%20lipoic%20acid%20(ALA).md). It's relatively cheap, effective, and doesn't seem to have any significant side effects or other considerations. Some others to consider are: - [Berberine](../3.%20Treatments/3.3%20%20Supplements/Berberine.md) - Cinnamon - Vitimin D - [Gymnema sylvestre](https://anticancer360.com/gymnema-sylvestre-why-this-herb-may-be-so-beneficial-while-fighting-cancer/) - I just learned about this one recently, and will be digging into it a bit more. Seems really interesting.