In 2005, Hans Rueffert, a chef from Jasper, Ga., was selected to compete on the first season of Food Network’s The Next Food Network Star in New York City. During the taping of the show, he began to have trouble swallowing and experienced tightness in his chest but chalked it up to the stress of his environment.
After the show ended and he returned home to Georgia, Rueffert ended up at Piedmont Mountainside Hospital with what he thought were heart attack symptoms. When physicians realized Rueffert was bleeding internally, they performed an endoscopy, using a thin scope with a camera and a light to look at his digestive tract. “Sure enough, it was a tumor,” Rueffert says.
He was diagnosed with adenocarcinoma, a cancer that begins in the glandular cells, at the junction of his stomach and esophagus. After enduring seven years of treatment, 11 surgeries and several life-threatening complications, Rueffert’s medical team determined his entire stomach had to be removed for him to survive.
Life before cancer
“Whether you have a stomach or don’t have a stomach, there’s a direct connection between what we eat and how we feel,” he says. Prior to being diagnosed with cancer, Rueffert described himself as a “glutton.”
“I wasn’t happy until I was miserably full,” he explains.
“I was one of those guys who would have to get up from the table and undo my belt a notch or even the top button on my pants.”
This lifestyle left him feeling uncomfortable for days after a big meal.
Life without a stomach
“Now I literally have no stomach,” Rueffert says. “Some people think I’m joking, but there is no stomach at all.” When he swallows, food goes straight into his intestines. “If you’ve ever eaten a heavy meal, usually a few hours afterward you feel lethargic and tired because your body has to use a lot of energy to break down those foods and move them through your system,” he says.
Now that he has no stomach to slow the digestive process, the connection between what he eats and how he feels is almost instantaneous.
“I sometimes have to take a nap immediately after I eat,” Rueffert says. “If I eat heavy and stale foods, I feel heavy and stale.”
His new, healthier lifestyle
Rueffert quickly learned that eating “fresh and vibrant” foods makes him feel fresh and vibrant. The majority of his diet consists of raw or semi-raw foods, with plenty of fresh vegetables and fruit and about 10% protein. “There’s that old adage that, ‘You are what you eat,’ and I think it’s a cliché because it’s true,” he says. “When you have a full digestive system – and I was guilty of this, too – you have a buffer where you can get away with eating junk from time to time and not really feel the consequences.”
With what he calls his “Hans 2.0 digestive system,” Rueffert knows he has to eat well to feel well. He hopes his experience will inspire others to eat and feel better, and he now leads cooking classes at Cancer Wellness at Piedmont.
“I have to practice what I preach because I feel horrible if I eat horribly, and I feel great if I eat great.”
Click here for more information about Cancer Wellness and its upcoming programs.
Need to make an appointment with a Piedmont physician? Save time, book online.