Follow your doctor’s advice! The hive mind isn’t qualified to tell you what to do in your situation. Ask for a referral to a nutritionist as part of your treatment. The odds are good it will be covered by insurance. But even if it’s not, that’s a splurge that is 100% worth making.
I work with cancer-care, and I should definetley advice you to follow doctors “orders”.
However, I see no reason as to why you should not ask the doctor why they think you should lessen your fasting. Have a conversation with them and talk about pro’s and con’s.
There are many claims that fasting can help slow cancer, some even say it can cause recession, but these claims should be taken with a big grain of salt. Modern medicine is wonderfull, breast cancer has a very high survival rate and treatments will only get better from here.
Good luck and keep fighting!
Read Dr Fung book - The Cancer Code
The last chapters talk about more helpful therapies they’re doing now for cancer and how fasting just before/after chemo can make chemo more effective on cancer and less harmful to healthy tissues.
All the best on your journey!
Here is what I do as a medical provider when I seek medical care outside of my own expertise:
I don’t have any knowledge on IF and cancer, but my guess is there will be patient testimonials but limited scientific evidence. I hope you find the guidance you need and wish you the best on your healing journey.
Look into Autophagy. Do some research and watch videos, there’s plenty on YouTube. Try to work with a GOOD doctor and use every resource you have. Don’t believe everything and don’t dismiss anything. People who mindlessly following just any doctor’s advice are no better then people who follow charlatans. There’s a lot of doctors who are very uninformed, under educated, ignorant or only in it for the money and to sell whatever big pharma pays them for. Don’t be a sheep like many here and believe that all people with power or authority are always right and watching out for you. Only you watch out for you. Don’t trust anyone blindly.
I have a great respect for doctors, but I would try to exercise a healthy level of skepticism when following the advice of just one doctors just because they are a doctor. Is this doctor an oncologist with a lot of experience in the type of cancer you have? Have you validated the advice with another or multiple doctors? From my limited knowledge, while you’re not going to cure your cancer with fasting. Fasting does promote a process called autophagy which, among other things, facilitates the removal of defective cells. The thing is, when you have cancer you probably don’t want to seriously stress your body out; perhaps that’s where your doctor is coming from when they are suggesting to lessen the fasting window. If I were you I’d speak with an oncologist about the fasting and include it as part of a plan along side chemo, light exercise and if required surgery.
I’m sorry you’re experiencing this and agree with others here who have said stick with your doc’s direction. In case you’re interested, Dr. John McDougall, a doctor of internal medicine who also approaches food as medicine, offers what he would tell a patient who had received a diagnosis of breast cancer - https://www.drmcdougall.com/education/lectures-all/john-mcdougall-md-the-facts-about-breast-cancer/. I read this and felt relief knowing I had other options if I ever received a diagnosis of breast cancer (I haven’t). I participated in one of Dr. McDougall’s 10-day on-site programs, and I believe in him as a practitioner of medicine. This doesn’t exactly answer your question about IF and the diagnosis you’ve received but just wanted to share this in case additional info would offer comfort (secondary, of course, to that of your doc’s).
Are you familiar with Valter Longo and the Fasting Mimicking Diet? He has done a ton of research on fasting to fight cancer. It’s not IF but still might be of interest to you and equip you with some talking points to discuss with your doctor.
I would go to a holistic doctor or nutritionist who will work with you on finding and determining the root cause. You don’t just get cancer out of nowhere so something in your lifestyle or diet needs to be changed.