Positive Cancer

While not every type of Cancer will destroy your ability to eat, most will negatively affect your ability to hold, or gain weight. I am one of those few people who has not lost, but in fact gained 50 lbs of good weight, with good muscle I might add, and I am proud of that.

One of the things that helped me the most was weight lifting, specifically using free weights in heavy exercises such as bench press, squats, and dead lifts. Never mind that I could only do the bar for 4 times, it was the start of things. Like all starts you begin with nothing, but as you continue you can see the goal. In my case it was a three hundred pound bench press. I haven’t hit the goal yet, but I did do 265 lbs the other day, so that day may yet come.

I found that doing the heavy movements made me hungry, and while I couldn’t eat more than one cracker with a slice of cheese on it, I started having the urge to eat more often. I am not kidding about the portioning, one cracker, one slice of cheese on it was my lunch at one point. Even now I don’t eat much for my size, but I still eat often. I started feeling hungry, and so every hour on the hour I would eat one cracker or whatever until I started stopping the weight loss.

It was at this point that my mind said, “Mike you need to gain weight, in case you get sick again and to help you put on weight.” Inside myself, I agreed and tried to start eating every second hour. I would have eaten more frequently but I cannot eat and drink liquids at the same time, so on the off hour I would try to sip on some Gatorade, Tea, Coffee, or Coca Cola. I did not eat every second hour but I did end up eating a lot more than usual. Unfortunately I had dumping syndrome quite often, so I needed to eat and absorb you nutrients as much as possible.

I though to myself, “How do I keep the food in me longer?” This would allow my intestinal tract to absorb more nutrients, calories, protein and carbohydrates, and so became the next puzzle to solve. I started asking my wife to make very dense rice filled with potatoes, onion, and green peppers. This allowed me to have leftovers which I could eat for three days, if I ate it twice a day, which I did. Once in the morning when I woke up, and once in the evening when I went to bed, with that one being more important since I could store the carbohydrates and turn them into energy or fat.