Prehabilitation and Rehabilitation: Nutrition and diet

Nutrition has a real impact on your body’s ability to manage health and resilience for treatment

It is important to eat well when preparing for, during, and after treatment, and when you are living with cancer.

Choosing a wide variety of foods and well-balanced meals can help you feel better and optimise your energy levels. Trying to lose weight is generally not encouraged.

‘Eating well’ means choosing a wide variety of foods, which provide enough nutrients to maintain a good nutritional status and maintain your weight. Eating well will also help you to keep up your strength and energy levels, support your immune system, and improve your general well-being.

General advice on ‘eating well’ can be found here:

Difficulty eating and unplanned weight loss

You may have difficulty eating before, during, and after treatment for a variety of reasons including:

Dry mouth.
Taste and smell changes.
Nausea and vomiting.
Diarrhoea.
Constipation.
Swallowing difficulties.
Poor appetite.
Fatigue.

Managing at home

These pages have some information about how you can manage difficulty eating and unplanned weight loss at home, including how to boost calories and protein in your diet to

If you are having difficulty eating, let your doctor or nurse know, as they may be able to help with symptoms or refer you to the dietitian.

Referral to a dietitian

You can refer yourself to a dietitian who can help with the following:

Eating well to support your future health.
Managing weight after finishing of cancer treatment.
Coping with a poor appetite, or unintentional weight loss.
Nutritional support for cancer/treatment related side-effects.
Altered texture diets due to swallowing difficulty
Making dietary changes because of cancers affecting the gastrointestinal tract.

There are some referral criteria which will be discussed with you.

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