During treatment when a loss of appetite can plague you it’s still vital to get essential nutrition in. Sometimes treatments can affect your appetite causing you to skip meals and opt to not eat, but it’s essential to still get what you can in order to maintain protein and fluid intake.

It’s important to not overly stress about food, keeping a healthy positive relationship to food, and not add stress to your life. It’s always important to talk to your doctor about guidelines you should follow, however, some great tips to follow to help improve eating are:

• Schedule mealtimes- if you are never hungry it’s important to schedule out times to actually eat.
• Smaller meals more frequently- If you feel too full after a usual meal, prepare yourself just little small meals and schedule to eat more frequently to get it in, including a bedtime snack
• Take advantage of when you actually do crave food or are hungry- try to allow yourself a little more food in those times you are hungry.
• Avoid smells and food that make you sick or cause nausea- pay attention to what foods excite or deter you from wanting to eat.
• Keep snacks handy- especially more nutrient-dense snacks with extra protein
• Cheese, lunch meats, dried fruits, nuts, muffins, peanut butter, ice cream or chocolate milk, shakes and instant drink mixes
• Regularly exercise to increase appetite
• Make fresh smoothies- combine fruit and veggies with yogurt or ice cream.

I’ve seen many trying for weight loss and fat loss during treatment and I know it’s a huge desire to lose weight or gain back fitness, but it’s important to remember when battling an injury, illness or during treatment the need for calories increases to allow healing.

Putting a focus on getting or staying active, doing the activities you can and eating whole foods should be most important. If you or your loved one are battling a lack of appetite it can be easy to add extra calories to your cooking.

Protein is important for the growth, health, and repair of your body especially during times of healing. After surgeries, the recommendation is always to increase protein intake for improving healing. Don’t be afraid of adding a little extra protein to your meals in the form of cheese, cottage cheese, beans, nuts, fish, eggs, and yogurt.