Improving Chemo: My Fasting Mimicking Experience

When I started chemo, I was nervous and eager to begin treatment. There was so much to think about and prepare for— medications to take in advance, a hair-preserving cold cap to figure out, and lots of supplies needed for infusion day.

I had heard about the Fasting-Mimicking Diet (FMD) and how it could be beneficial during chemotherapy, but I didn’t have the mental bandwidth to figure out how to incorporate it into my treatment process.

After my first infusion was in the rear view mirror, I felt I had more capacity to learn something new and began looking into a Fasting-Mimicking Diet (FMD). FMD allows cells to activate their repair functions, similar to fasting, but without the severe restriction of fasting. This short-term dietary change, I found, could be potentially increase the efficacy of my chemo and also reduce the toxic side effects. Those both sounded worth looking into.

For my subsequent rounds of chemo, I decided to use the FMD, beginning two days before my infusion and continuing for one day afterwards. I used a number of sources* to build a plan for myself— understanding that most FMDs call for restricting calories to between 600-1000 per day, and focus on high fat and low protein.

Using the FMD, I noticed less nausea during my “worst” days, and overall, tolerated chemo fairly well. I also liked having something proactive I could do that could possibly help my treatment.

I ended up doing a 4 day FMD that was 600 calories, using an avocado-berry shake in the morning, a vegetable blend soup for lunch, and a leek and cauliflower saute for dinner. I never was too hungry and could imagine myself starving the cancer cells so they’d be stressed enough to be eradicated by the chemo.

Obviously I’m not a doctor nor a nutritionist, but as a patient I found the FMD useful. I did end up having a complete response to my chemo which I attribute in part to my dietary changes that included the FMD before each infusion.

I plan to continue using FMD as a way to reset my body at a cellular level, probably every 3-4 months. I’m continuing to learn more about this and will add a post later when I have more remission experience with FMD.

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*A few of the many sources I used to learn about FMD and build my own menu: