Putting on weight post cancer

[TartanEagle]

Hi Robert,
I'm at 49 year old male. I've been training for about 12 years, when I first ran the SS NLP. I was diagnosed with head and neck cancer (orophangeal squamous cell carcinoma) in February of this year and I completed radiation/chemotherapy in June. I'm not currently in active treatment and my recent scan was very good.

The radiation treatment was to my neck and was very harsh severely impacting my ability to eat and drink. I lost 60 pounds during treatment, going from 198 pounds to 138. I'm just back to training and have managed to get my weight up to 151 as of this morning. Body fat is about 15% (navy method).

The only limitation I have is my ability to produce sufficient saliva. I can eat just about anything, but eventually I run out of saliva and can't break food down in my mouth. Therefore, I tend to avoid starchy foods, as these dry me out pretty quickly. Fatty meats are easier than lean meats, so I've been eating a lot of beef and dark meat chicken. Consequently, on a daily basis fat is making up 40% to 55% of my diet. I'm really only focused on my protein intake, which I am targeting at least 200 g/day.

My bodyweight goal is 185 and then reassess to perhaps 205. Do you have any recommendation for targeted calories and macros? Should I be concerned about the high fat content of my diet?

Thanks,
John

[Robert Santana]

Glad you had a successful recovery. I'm not worried about fat intake right now because you need to get out of that severely underweight status. That said you will need more carbs if you are going to train. You haven't mentioned this yet though, what is your training situation right now?

[TartanEagle]

I've just started back with the novice linear progression. I've only gotten 4 workouts in, starting pretty light. But I'm not limited in any way, other than my lack of strength. I'm doing the typical 3x per week. Last workouts were squat 115x3x5 (3 sets of 5), bench press 115x5x3, press 65x5x3, deadlift 165x5.

[Robert Santana]

You are going to have to figure out a way to put down some carbs as that gets heavier. May need to go liquid or puree for some of it. Not ideal but if you have trouble swallowing we gotta figure something out. Work in things like Halo Top ice cream, instant mashed potatoes, and other soft easy to swallow foods that are high in carbs.