Adopting a Healthy Approach

The key is to recognize that implementing dietary changes does not mean giving up things you love and that exercising does not mean spending additional time that you don’t have. The key is to see your life in a new way — with a new set of lifestyle changes all designed to turn you from a prostate cancer survivor into a prostate cancer thriver.

1. Lose the body fat
Losing fat is a simple equation: eat fewer calories per day than you burn. This can be done by changing your dietary pattern away from high fat foods, sweets, fast foods, and savory snacks and eating more colorful fruits and vegetables, low-fat proteins from poultry, fish, and seafood, and fewer refined carbohydrates. Here are some practical examples of places you can cut calories:

Substitute white meat of turkey or chicken for high-fat red meats and farmed fish
Substitute colorful fruits and vegetables for rice, pasta, potato, and breads
Substitute mixed berries and fruits for ice creams, cakes, pastries, snack chips and highfat, high-sugar desserts
Substitute non-fat and low-fat dairy and soy products for cheese and full-fat dairy products
Substitute water for soft drinks
Reduce the use of added fats, oils, margarine, butter, and salad dressing

2. Maintain muscle mass
In order to maintain muscle mass as you age, it is important to take in adequate amounts of protein and to exercise muscles adequately to maintain them. As you age, the body’s metabolism slows down due in large part to the decrease in muscle mass that is seen with inactivity. It is harder to build muscle as you age and it breaks down more quickly with inactivity than in younger individuals. However, it is possible to build and maintain muscle mass well into your 90s by simply eating adequate protein and doing muscle building exercises.

Also, building muscle mass is one of the most effective ways to change your metabolism: build 10 extra pounds of muscle, and you will burn an extra 140 calories per day. However, to maintain that muscle you need to do more than simply provide the extra 140 calories per 10 pounds; you must also supply the right amount of the right kinds of protein to nourish the muscles.

Your lean body mass determines how much protein you need each day. In fact, it’s about twice what was recommended by government advisory groups until recently, when the Institute of Medicine broadened its recommendation to 10% to 35% of calorie intake. It takes about 1 gram of protein per pound of lean body mass or 29% of resting energy expenditure, which is the number of calories you burn at rest to build and maintain muscle. For example, a typical man with 150 pounds of lean body mass will burn 2100 calories at rest per day and will need about 150 grams of protein per day.

Here is a list of some low-fat, high protein choices you can make:

7 egg whites: 25 g protein and 115 calories
Chicken breast (4 oz): 25 g protein and 140 calories
Ocean-caught fish (4 oz): 25 g protein and 140 calories
Canned tuna in water (3.5 oz): 25 g protein and 110 calories
Two veggie burgers: 28 g protein and 180-220 calories
Soy protein shake with fruit: 25 g protein and 200 calories

3. Exercise every day
Regular exercise will help you lose fat, build muscle, and improve your outlook overall. A combination of cardiofitness and weight lifting will not only help to round out the benefits, but the variety will help make it more interesting. This is key to sticking to a regular routine: choose an exercise you like and/or one that you can do with friends to make it more enjoyable. For example, walk 30 minutes every day at a comfortable pace and lift weights three times each week, alternating different body parts and allowing a day of rest between weightlifting days. If you work on your chest muscles and triceps one day, switch to your back muscles and biceps on the next, followed by leg muscles and shoulders on the third day.

Most important, obtain professional instruction on how to perform exercises for each of these muscle groups and consult with your doctor before starting the exercise program to be sure it is safe for you. A certified fitness instructor, exercise physiologist, or physical therapist can provide exercise instruction and ensure that you are maximizing the benefit from your workouts.

4. Eat colorful fruits and vegetables
The USDA recommends eating 9 servings of fruits and vegetables every day, equivalent to about one cup or 100 grams per serving. Why is this important? A typical serving of vegetables has about 50 calories and a typical serving of fruit has about 70 calories, making them some of the least calorie-dense food ounce per ounce. So by simply increasing the amount of fruits and vegetables you eat each day, you will be decreasing the number of calories per bite of food even while packing in high levels of nutrients. Also, fruits and vegetables are rich in fiber, so five servings of fruit and vegetables can easily get you to the recommended 25 grams of fiber per day.