Nutrition is critical to everyone’s well-being. It can become especially important for someone with breast cancer. Whether you are receiving active treatment for cancer or have entered the survivorship phase, nutrition counseling can help you learn about how food and certain lifestyle behaviors can affect your health. At the Dubin Breast Center, we offer a variety of nutrition services. Our goal is to help you feel and function at your best.

Personalized Nutrition and Wellness Counseling

You may know that good nutrition can improve your general health and quality of life. What you may not know is that research shows certain diet and lifestyle factors can also help improve breast cancer outcomes. At Dubin, we analyze the latest research to help guide you towards optimal wellness. We offer compassionate and personalized counseling based on your current health, goals, and life obstacles. We encourage nourishment and enjoying quality food rather than restriction or fad dieting. We want to help you form habits that you can keep up long term, not just for a few weeks. Our nutrition consultations focus on lifestyle factors that contribute to health, such as sleep patterns, diet, physical activity, and stress.

Who Can Benefit from Nutrition and Wellness Counseling?

A breast cancer diagnosis can prompt you to make lifestyle changes, and nutrition can be part of that. We encourage all our Dubin Breast Center patients to take advantage of our nutrition services. You may request a nutrition consultation due to a desire for:

• Clarifying questions about nutrition and breast cancer
• Making diet or lifestyle changes
• Fine-tuning an already healthy lifestyle
• Learning to eat for a new cancer diagnosis, management of treatment side-effects, or breast cancer survivorship

Nutrition and Wellness Services

Our dietitian specializes in cancer nutrition and wellness. She is available to talk one-on-one. She can speak with you in clinic by appointment, while you receive infusion treatment or over the phone for your convenience. She also provides educational programs. We strive to promote:

• General wellness and optimal energy levels
• Effective weight management
• Reduction of chronic disease risk
• Management of cancer or treatment-related symptoms
• Healthful cooking and meal planning

Side Effect Management

Breast cancer can cause a myriad of side effects. Nutrition can play a significant role in the managing those side effects. Our nutritionist can recommend dietary and wellness practices that can help with the following concerns:

• Bone health
• Constipation
• Diarrhea
• Fatigue
• Mouth sores
• Nausea and vomiting
• Sleeping difficulties
• Taste changes
• Weight gain

Symptom Soothing Recipes

What you eat can help with symptoms of cancer or the side effects of treatment. The following easy recipes offer nutritional benefits that may help. To prepare these recipes, you might need a Vitamix blender, immersion blender (or hand blender), good quality chef’s knife, cheese cloth, and a jelly roll pan.

• Beverages and Smoothies
• Breakfast
• Salads
• Soups
• Sweets and Spreads
• Vegetable Sides

Helpful Nutrition and Wellness Resources

• American Institute for Cancer Research
  Information on cancer research, prevention, treatment, and survivorship.
• Environmental Working Group
  Comprehensive resource on environmental issues, such as toxic chemicals in our foods, household and personal products, agricultural subsidies, public lands, and corporate accountability.
• Harvard School of Public Health – Nutrition Source
  Information on basic nutrition, the latest news, tips, and more.
• National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine 
  Reliable information to help you safely navigate medical and health care systems, practices, and products that are not generally considered part of conventional Western medicine.
• The Smart Seafood Buying Guide
  Guide from the National Resource Defense Council on choosing healthy seafood that has been caught or farmed in environmentally responsible ways.

Nutrition, Health, and Recipe Resources

• Cook for Your Life
  Healthy cooking website with recipes tailored for various stages of cancer treatment and beyond, as well as a regular schedule of healthy cooking classes taught to the cancer population.
• Cookie and Kate
• Minimalist Baker
• Oh She Glows
• Epicurious

Healthy, plant-based recipes and research-based nutrition information

Books

These books are great resources for healthy plant-based recipes, reliable nutrition news and research

• Giada’s Feel Good Food – Giada DeLaurentis
• Four Day Wins – Martha Beck
• Intuitive Eating – Evelyn Tribole, Elyse Resch
• My New Roots – Sarah Britton
• One Bite at a Time – Rebecca Katz
• The Art of Simple Food – Alice Waters
• The Cancer Fighting Kitchen – Rebecca Katz
• The VB6 Cookbook – Mark Bittman
• Weeknight Wonders – Ellie Krieger
• What to Eat – Marion Nestle

Mobile Applications

You can download these apps on any smartphone. They can help with tracking daily steps, meal and snack intake, and at-home yoga routines and meditation.

• Calm
• EWG’s Skin Deep
• Headspace
• Pocket Yoga