Tips for having more calories and protein in your food

Losing weight can be caused by problems with your digestion. If you have lost weight or have a small appetite, you might need more calories (energy) and protein in your food to help you put weight back on. This is called a build-up or fortified diet. Your dietitian can help you to make changes to your diet.

• Have high calorie foods, such as full fat milk, yoghurt and butter. You can also enrich your food to increase the calories and protein.
• If you are eating a higher fat meal, you may need to take more pancreatic enzymes.
• Try to have a pint of whole milk every day.
• Try to eat more foods that are high in protein, such as meat, fish, milk, cheese, eggs, beans and lentils, nuts, and yoghurt. Try to include protein in at least two of your meals each day.
• Try to have snacks between meals. These can include sweet things like cake, fruit, teacakes and malt loaf. Or savoury things like crumpets, samosas, cocktail sausages, cheese and crackers. High protein snacks such as yoghurts, cheese, nuts or cold meats are particularly good. Have a snack instead of a main meal if this is easier.
• Have a pudding once or twice a day – for example, yoghurt, ice cream, sponge pudding, or ready-made desserts.
• Drink about eight cups of fluids a day. Try having nutritious drinks such as milk, fruit smoothies (made with yoghurt, ice cream or whole milk), hot chocolate and fruit juice. If you find that drinks fill you up at mealtimes, it may help to have your drinks in between your meals.
• Look at food labels when you’re shopping to help you choose foods that have more calories. Avoid low fat or ‘diet’ food.
• Eat what you feel like and try not to worry about ‘normal’ meals. It’s fine if you fancy breakfast cereal for supper, your pudding before your main course, or soup for breakfast.
• Have some fruit and vegetables every day – but don’t fill up on these if it means you can’t eat foods that are high in calories and protein.

There are vegan options available if you need them. For example, Quorn®, tofu, hummus and dairy-free milk, cheese and yoghurt products. Dairy alternatives, such as soya or oat milk, often have fewer calories and less protein than dairy.

Speak to your dietitian, doctor or nurse for advice on getting as many calories and protein into your diet as possible if you have a vegan diet.

If you have other health problems, such as heart problems, you may have been told in the past to reduce the amount of fat in your diet. But if you have lost weight because of pancreatic cancer, eating some types of higher fat food can help you put weight on.

If you are still struggling with eating, or you are still losing weight on a build-up diet, speak to your dietitian. They may suggest nutritional supplements. If you haven’t seen a specialist dietitian, ask your doctor or nurse to refer you to one.

Macmillan Cancer Support has ideas for meals that you may find helpful in their booklet, The building-up diet.

Updated January 2020

Review date January 2023