Post-Breast Cancer Food Resentment: Do You Have It?

You know what it’s like to do something you don’t want to do? To do that thing only because you feel like you have to? We’ve all been there, me included. 

What normally ends up happening is this: you start to resent the thing you’re doing. In the world of hormone-positive breast cancer (one of four subtypes of breast cancer), there’s an awful lot of resentment happening around food.

The driver of post-breast cancer food resentment 

The driver of food resentment can often be fear, anxiety, stress, frustration, or overwhelm. 

To the uninitiated, and I truly hope that’s you, breast cancer is viewed as a disease that starts with a lump and ends with surgery, chemo, radiation, and lots and lots of pink. Those of us who’ve walked the hormone-positive breast cancer path have a different take. 

For sure breast cancer is all of that, but to the surprise of many women, while navigating pathology reports, treatment plans and (finally) post-treatment survivorship, a stealthy, low-grade anxiety can seep into their subconscious. Soon, they realize that anxiety escalates with a single bite of chocolate chip cookie or sip of wine. 

Then, there it is in all its glory; food fear. Most women don’t even see it coming (sort of like breast cancer).

The logical response to quell that anxiety? Stop eating all the foods they love and start eating all the foods they think they “should”.

That can work, for a while. But in time they find themselves mourning the way they “used” to eat, and soon they’re battling not cancer, but food resentment. 

Often they’re not really mourning specific foods, rather, they’re mourning the abandon with which they drank wine, enjoyed sugary, fatty desserts, and consumed fried food by the platter-full, their only concern being; “This is gonna make me fat.”

Post-cancer, the concern becomes: “This is gonna bring my cancer back.” 

How do you reconcile those competing thoughts and feelings? It helps to keep a few truths in mind. 

Truths to keep in mind

First, everything about a breast cancer diagnosis feels scary, and that fear doesn’t magically “disappear” once treatment is over. 

Second, micro-managing food is a way to feel in control when everything feels out of control, but it doesn’t take much for that “safe” behavior to become crippling.

Finally, there’s no guarantee that eating any one specific diet will prevent a breast cancer recurrence, but eating well for breast health absolutely supports overall best health, and can potentially reduce recurrence risk.

As for all that pink? The reality is this. Breast cancer isn’t pink and fluffy, circumvented with walks, runs, and other ancillary efforts to “save the ta ta’s”. It’s dark, ugly, horrifying, and all too common.