NUTRITION IS THE KEY TO HEALTH

It's Time To Take Back Your Life

Month: December 2023

I have already lost 14 pounds

December 30, 2023 /

Nutrition is the Key to Health Podcast

Just two weeks on a plant-based diet

Two weeks into transitioning to a whole food plant-based diet, has yielded tremendous results for me already. I have already lost 14 pounds and that was with a few cheat days, and no exercise at all. I am almost on a 99% plant-based diet. I have a few hold outs, but I am working on letting those go.

One of those holdouts was cheese. I had the last cheese last night, so no more. Now, I have to concentrate on the splash of half and half, with my morning coffee. My goal is to transition to a morning green tea, higher in antioxidants and lower in caffeine. If I can accomplish that, I will not need the half and half. I will just have my green tea with a squeeze of lemon. It’s hard trying to tackle everything at once. Overwhelming one could say, I am very accustom at starting new diets. I usually go all in.

How have I lost the weight? Learning and prepping to change your diet from the Standard American Diet (SAD) to a WFPB diet is no easy task, I am not going to lie. With other diets, the foods were restricted but not taken away, so it was easy. With a WFPB diet, you have to find substitutes for those favorite go to items like oil, eggs, beef or chicken stock and so on. It takes hours of research and reading, to gain knowledge and get ideas for your new recipes. So, give yourself a bit of a break.

Caloric warning

I would urge caution here. All your replacements for diary are generally cashew-based and cashews are loaded with calories and fat. You can eat 1000 calories of cashews in a day quickly. Then, incorporating a great many seeds in addition blows your caloric intake for the day, and both contain oil.

Prevent and Reversing Heart Disease

You might be leaning toward a whole food plant based diet due to a cardiac or vascular disease diagnosis. If that is so, then your menu gets a bit more difficult for substitutes. In his book, Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease, Caldwell Esselstyn, Jr., M.D., restricts this diet even further. Dr. Esselstyn says you must be on a WFPB diet with no oil, no nuts, no seeds and no avocado. Also, you must eat greens 6 times a day with a light steam and chew. So, smoothies don’t count. It is strict, but he has gotten results like you wouldn’t believe. His patients were heading into by-pass surgery, and had severe blockages. He put them on this strict diet, under a physician’s guidance and the disease reversed itself. So, you cannot really argue with his results.

Spoiler alert – shopping takes twice as long

Shopping is an ordeal now. You must pay attention to all leafy greens and fresh produce in the fridge, and make sure they don’t go bad. This was like being in a dark unfamiliar room and trying to find the light switch on the wall, a little luck and a lot of hunting. You have to learn to coordinate meals and times with expiration dates. You also have to read every label!!!!! I cannot stress this enough. Just because you find it in Whole Foods, doesn’t mean it’s healthy! They have the same amount of highly-processed foods that every other store does. They just charge more.

You’ll be surprised what you can find under the Kroger store brand, Simple Truth Organic. A word of caution, read the front. The Simple Truth sign, on both the conventional and organic, look the same. There will only be one small word, “organic”. So, make sure it says organic! Especially on your soy and nut milks.

I hit some snags

I did start to eat far more potatoes and pasta than I would normally eat. I haven’t worked in the rice yet. I am a bit hesitant due to the arsenic load in brown rice. I am also attempting to go oil-free and low sodium. Like everyone else, I was always under that assumption that extra complex carbs were stored as fat. In recent studies, they have found data that disproved that theory.

I was cranking along losing about 1.5 pounds every day or two. Then, I noticed some acne on my face, bloating and my schedule was off. This wasn’t due to the bean intake, because I love beans and my system was already used to them.

As far as the blemishes go, I do not generally have acne, so I was trying to find the culprit. I also noticed various spots on my chest and arms that itched. When I would eat whole grain pitas or breads. I would develop an instant stuffy nose, and a bit of a butter-fly rash that would come up immediately on my face, and would last a few hours. I knew it was something in my diet. I suspected it might be the increased gluten.

Although I am not gluten intolerant, I do now think I might have a gluten sensitivity. I have switched everything over to 100% whole grain, specifically wheat. I began eating far more bread bread products than I would normally eat, and my body was not used to it. So, I think this is probably the culprit, only time will tell. For now, I will be cutting back on the wheat products.

Also, the last three days, I have not incorporated any greens into my meals. That was when I noticed my weightloss came to a complete stop. So tonight, I will have potatoes, greens and veggies and see how I fair tomorrow.

Plate construction

My plate looks a lot different these days. I can honestly say that I am NOT hungry at all. There are times I have to make myself eat my morning oatmeal and fresh fruit. I have switched to Allulose instead of sugar with my coffee. I could be that. I think I read it had some appetite suppressing functions as well.

For the make up of my plates, I am trying to shoot for 45-50% veggies, 20-25% starch, 15-20% fruits, and 5-10% fats, depending on what I might be eating for the meal. Sometimes this is difficult due to the nuts and seeds. They add more fat and calories. I am trying to get protein, carbs and fats in each meal or snack, so it is a zone method.

With that said, there are some nights where you just want to consume something without thought and get into bed. I think getting used to time and building of this diet definitely comes with a learning curve. For now, it is plant-based yogurt with some cinnamon granola. Be careful with the granolas! Most are not healthy and loaded with calories.

Oil is my nemesis

I did try and remove all oil from my diet in the beginning, and literally went down a rabbit hole with the “make your own sour dough bread, pizza crusts and tortillas.” This requires a great deal of kitchen utensils I do not have currently, so this will have to come in stages. It can be costly and very time consuming. I am still working on this. More research is needed.

But for now, I am trying to get bread and tortillas that have the fewest ingredients, with the least oil. I am not typically a big bread eater but tortilla chips and dips are my weakness.

The most difficult conversion I have, is my homemade salad dressing. It was a simple olive oil, balsamic vinegar, garlic, salt and pepper dressing that I adored. I could eat two salads a day on this. I could use it for a marinate, or dip for bread. It was so versatile.

I am still struggling to find something that replaces this taste. I have tried lemon juice, dijon mustard and many more, but it is just not the same. I refuse to buy bottled dressing. I haven’t bought bottled dressing for years since I discovered my dressing, but now, it is off limits. Not a happy place to be. I have stopped eating salads. I have to find something fast!

Your one requirement

Going to the store now, will take you more time than you ever thought possible. First, you have to read every label, until you get used to all the new products. Second, you tend to go to multiple stores to get all the things you need. There is CostCo, Kroger, Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods and Sprouts. I have found I get different things at each store. Crazy, I know. Then, you might have to resort to Amazon to get those hard to find items.

I hope you are gearing up for your New Year’s Resolution and whatever diet you choose, I wish you the best of luck! We are approaching New Year’s Eve. So, if you find yourself at home, now would be a great time for some lifestyle change research for the new year! Going on a WFPB diet takes a bit more time to adjust, in my opinion.

Alicia

Disclaimer

The following article contains affiliate partner links.  I could earn a small commission, at no cost to you, for any qualifying purchases.  

This blog is for entertainment and informational purposes only.  The information contained within this blog is not intended to diagnose or cure any medical condition.  I am not a physician, licensed dietician or physical therapist.  This blog is the result of my personal experiences and what I chose to do for a healthier lifestyle.  As always, before you begin a diet, exercise program or add supplements, please consult your healthcare professional.

Breast Cancer: A personal journey

December 20, 2023 /

Check out my podcast, Nutrition is the Key to Health at the link below. You can find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google and RSS Feed.

https://www.buzzsprout.com/2340649/14766031-a-personal-journey.mp3?download=true

You might be wondering, why all this interest in diet? Well, I am on a journey. A journey to try and reclaim my health. I found that if I put it out to the world for all to see, it holds me more accountable. So, this is my journey.

In 2019, I was unexpectedly diagnosed with Stage III Metastatic Triple Negative Cancer. I didn’t even find it, my cat did. The diagnosis was a shock. No one in my family had ever had a history of breast cancer. Where did this come from? Why me?

The doctors told me this was an extremely aggressive cancer. I was thrust into the conventional therapy wormhole. I was given multiple chemotherapies, radiation, and surgeries, but fell short, and could not finish either therapy due to complications. This was before I knew about a plant-based diet, and the effects it can have in assisting cancer patients overcome their disease. It didn’t matter, I didn’t want to eat anyway, not even with all the steroids.

By the grace of God, I am still here to write this blog and I don’t know how. There were ten women I met when with my diagnosis of TNBC. Some had lower stages than I, and some were bouncing from trial to trial due to their Stage IV diagnosis. 

All the women have passed within about a year and a half except me. So, I am currently trying to educate myself on transitioning to a plant-based diet to see if I can overcome some of my health hurdles. I have found Dr. Kristie Funk MD on YouTube via Physician’s Committee for Response Medicine (or PCRM.org), and have gotten a lot of information from her and the channel. So, she, along with the others I have listed in my resource page on this blog, has helped me in my quest to further educate myself on diet and exercise.

I will say that chemo and radiation are the gifts that keep giving. For any of you who have gone through it, you will understand what I am saying without any explanation. All cancer therapies come with great costs, some more than others. When I say costs, I am speaking of financial costs and health costs. The drugs that save your life, can eventually kill you. They are not without risks.

When I was diagnosed, my cancer had already metastasized to my nodes. I had a tumor in my axillary region (under my arm), that was larger than most women’s tumor in their breasts. The primary tumor in my breast was large. Triple Negative is the second most aggressive breast cancer, taking a back seat only to Inflammatory Breast Cancer.

When I was in chemo, I would talk to the other people next to me and I would always ask what kind of cancer they had. They would return the question, and I would say Triple Negative Breast Cancer ( or TNBC), the next words out of their mouth were always the same, “I’m so sorry.” That wasn’t a warm feeling. I felt like I had a death sentence and everyone knew it but me.

All the other women I was there with that had Triple Negative, did not make it. They all passed within a year or two. So, I feel a bit guilty that I am still here. For some reason, God didn’t think it was my time, I still have work to do. 

Triple-negative is a disease that likes to return quickly and when it does, it is always at Stage IV and has metastasized to all organs, brain, and bones before they find it. I would call that, a point of no return.

The therapies after that are, in my opinion, for the forward movement of science and science only. At this point, they are throwing every drug and trial at you that your body can stand. I am not sure if there is a TNBC Stage IV survivor in this world. I am going to have to do a bit of research. I am sure there might be, but very few. 

For those that have more troubling diagnoses’, I am just wondering if conventional oncologists would use strict vegan diets along with conventional therapies if the survival outcomes would be greater? But then, will they ever do that due to cancer and their therapies, being “big cash cows” and financially huge for the doctors, facilities, and big pharma? That is food for thought. 

We all hear of those stories of curing cancer and beating it back in submission. First of all, you never “cure” cancer. Cancer is living in our bodies all the time. It is just activated into a disease state when our bodies can no longer fight and the cancer replicates or divides faster than our cells can. Then we lose all hope of keeping it under control. 

Second, I truly believe if I had refused the conventional therapies at my current disease state, and attempted a “diet only” approach, I would be dead within six months. When I came out of my fog after the diagnosis, I asked my oncologist, if I didn’t do anything, how much time would I have. He came back with “6 to 8 months, hard to say really.” 

I believe that there are certain times when we have to intervene with conventional therapies, and then follow with a diet to achieve a successful outcome. I also believe that each human being is different, and what might work for one, doesn’t work for all.

You and I have much different meanings of the word “success”, than the doctors. For instance, success to us, is a cure, and we get to live. Success to a doctor is an extension of the patient’s life of 3-6 months beyond what the patient would have without any treatment. 

There were a lot of things I wish I had known before going into my journey with breast cancer. I had a lot of sleepless nights on all the steroids and in pain, so I tried to put my time to good use. I wrote, and self-published Your Journey Through Breast Cancer, What You Don’t Know, Can Hurt You. In case you or your loved one have recently received a diagnosis, it will help you navigate the storm. 

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I have also created a matching corresponding lined blank writing Journal, to accompany the book. One of the things that got me through this difficult journey was journaling. It was a lifesaver. 

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Regardless of your lot in life, the nutrition you choose to put in your body, is the key to your health, whether you are battling diseases or not, “you are what you eat!”

Welcome to my journey. 

Alicia

Disclaimer

The following article contains affiliate partner links.  I could earn a small commission, at no cost to you, for any qualifying purchases.  

This blog is for entertainment and informational purposes only.  The information contained within this blog is not intended to diagnose or cure any medical condition.  I am not a physician, licensed dietician or physical therapist.  This blog is the result of my personal experiences and what I chose to do for a healthier lifestyle.  As always, before you begin a diet, exercise program or add supplements, please consult your healthcare professional.

New Study From Stanford University – Vegan vs Omnivore Diet in Identical Twins

December 19, 2023 /

Nutrition is the Key to Health Podcast

According to ForksOverKnives.com, there was a groundbreaking randomized clinical trial, that Stanford University just completed. The findings were published in JAMA Network Open on November 30, 2023.

Research Scientists took 22 pair of adult healthy identical twins (which inherently possess the same DNA) and put one on a vegan diet (plant-based only), and one on an omnivore diet ( a diet that included meat, eggs, dairy and fish) for 12-weeks.

You can find the article in the link below-

ForksOverKnives

The outcomes were such, that the study was picked up by Netflix, and a docu-series will be airing covering this groundbreaking research on January 1, 2024, called, You Are What You Eat, A Twin Experiment Here, and the trailer can be found at the following link, You Are What You Eat Trailer

According to Forks Over Knives (FOK),

“With the help of identical twins, a team of researchers at Stanford Medicine have uncovered some of the most compelling evidence yet that a vegan diet can significantly improve heart health in as little as two months.”

For the study, they took baseline blood tests and recorded their initial weight of each participant. Researchers then placed one twin on a vegan diet, while the other ate a diet that included meats, eggs, dairy and fish. At the halfway mark, they again took more blood and body weight. They switched the participants. So, those that the one on the vegan diet, was now on the omnivore diet and vice versa. At the end of the trial period, more blood and body weights were taken from each participant.

“The researchers ensured that both diets were as healthful as possible, with both the vegan and omnivore diets containing ample vegetables, beans, fruits, and whole grains and minimal sugar and refined starches. The omnivorous diet additionally included chicken, fish, eggs, cheese, and dairy. For the first four weeks, breakfasts, lunches, and dinners were provided via a meal-delivery service seven days a week for all participants. For the final eight weeks of the study, they prepared their own meals.”

Results

“The findings suggested that a healthy plant-based diet offers a significant protective cardio metabolic advantage compared with a healthy omnivorous diet.”

Specifically, the researchers found, “that, at the halfway point, the twins eating vegan had already seen significant improvements in their cardiometabolic health, with lower LDL cholesterol, insulin, and body weight. By the completion of the study, the vegan group had reduced their LDL by around 14% and their fasting insulin levels by 20%. They’d also lost, on average, 4.2 pounds more than the omnivorous group.”

This is definitely food for thought as we head into the new year!

Alicia

How to make a New Year’s Resolution-

December 19, 2023 /

Nutrition is the Key to Health Podcast

What is your New Year’s Resolution?

With the holiday’s almost behind us, and large quantities of food and beverage consumed, everyone is thinking about those pending New Year’s Resolutions. After all, they are just around the corner.

How do you even make a resolution and set yourself up for success? Well, here are a few tips and tricks to get you started.

First, you must find a quiet moment and sit down with a piece of paper and pen. Take a serious inventory of your life in the areas areas that are important to you (feel free to add other areas if you wish).

  • Work
  • Finances
  • Spiritual
  • Health
  • Family
  • Friends
  • Relationship

Next, in each of those areas, and list how happy you are on a scale from 1 to 10 (with 1 being the least happy and 10 being the most happy). Look at your numbers. Are the results where you want them to be, or is there room for improvement? Be honest, this is the only way it will work!

Then take a look at those that are low scoring or which areas might be most pressing for you. Maybe your health is catapulted to # 1 because you just had a heart attack, or diagnosis of cancer. Maybe your marriage is heading for divorce. Next, ask yourself what are three to five things you can do to help you reach your goals for the end of the year. Write those down under each category. Remember, this is your inventory not others in your life.

Also, you need to write down realistic goals for each category you choose. Please do not say that you want to loose 100 pounds in six months. While that is a lofty goal and something you might want to achieve, is that really healthy? Keep this simple.

Keep in mind what you want the end result to be. Maybe you want to loss thirty pounds, or reduce your debt by $5,000 dollars. Maybe you would like to find a relationship, or say goodbye to one that is not working. How about doing nightly readings on scripture or watching motivational channels on YouTube? How about vowing to increase your exercise by 4 times a week for just 30 minutes. These are all small changes that can greatly impact your goals in the right direction over the course of the next 12 months, and have a positive effect on your outlook on life, as well as your mood.

Getting buy in

Now that you have your category list and three to five things in each category to help you reach your goals, you need buy in from friends and family. This is where you have those frank conversations, and ask for a little support.

Maybe it’s telling your friends or coworkers, that on your girl’s night out, you will be abstaining from alcohol. Instead of ordering that glass of wine or margarita, you can choose to replace it with a virgin margarita, virgin Bloody Mary, or even water. They need to support you and not give you grief. If it becomes a big issue time and again, maybe you need to take a step back from that friend(s) or family member for a while.

Remember, this is your life and you are choosing to improve it, by making these small changes, you are helping redirect the outcome. If they cannot support your goals, well then, I think you have your answer. You don’t need to be around toxic people when you are trying to inject positive changes in your life.

Blocking time for your resolutions

It is important that you look at your schedule and add small blocks of time during the week for the things you need to do (say 15-30 mins). This will help you keep on track. If you want to get four walks in a week, then add those thirty minute blocks to your schedule and try to stick to them. Understand that life happens, and we all get off track. The important thing is that we don’t stay there. The next day, get back on that horse!

Small blocks work best, say under 30 minutes. If you try and block hours at a time, you most likely will not do well at achieving your goals. After all, we all have responsibilities, but make sure you are making a bit of time for you and those things that are important to you.

Some things you can do to increase the joy in your life

  • Journaling
  • Gardening
  • Woodworking
  • Reading
  • Meditation
  • Walking
  • Biking
  • Swimming
  • Prepping meals/cooking
  • Writing
  • Listening to music
  • Playing an instrument
  • Playing with your pet or children
  • Church
  • Volunteering
  • Learning a new language/software program or instrument
  • Birdwatching
  • Hiking
  • Take a relaxing bath and practice some deep breathing
  • Yoga

The list is endless. We are all unique and have different thing we like to do, but keep in mind your goals, and make sure you are moving in the direction of those goals.

Happy New Year and may all your goals be achieved!

Alicia

A day in the life of you

December 18, 2023 /

What is your why? Let’s take a look. Grab a journal and let’s get started. I am going to ask you to take a serious inventory of what you eat on a daily/weekly basis. Write everything down. Don’t worry, this is only an initial exercise for the first week. You will not have to log your intake past this point unless you want to. The one thing is you will need to be is totally honest with yourself or this will not work. I want every stick of gum logged.

I am going to write a scenario and I want you to see if you recognize any of these hamster wheel behaviors.

The routine

You wake after a not so good night’s sleep. You’re already tired. You put on the coffee while you take a shower. You have a cup of coffee while getting ready for work. You head out the door and swing into either you neighborhood Starbucks or fast-food drive-thru. You grab a Frappuccino and a morning combo meal. As you are sitting in traffic you consume both.

When you get to the office you have another coffee/soda before you head to a meeting. Everything is gone off the rails at work, and now you and your team are in crisis mode. Your stress level just increased even more. You head to the vending machine for a RedBull/Soda. You are hungry, so you grab a candy bar or chips too.

At lunch, you drive thru another fast-food line and get another combo meal with a soda or head to a restaurant. You down that and get on with your day.

Around 3:00 pm, you feel like your tank is running on empty, so you grab another soda/coffee/RedBull, and some more goodies from the vending machine.

You’re heading home from work and traffic is terrible. While you are sitting in traffic, you think to yourself, “There has to be more to life than this.” Once you get home, you are so tired, you just want to order DoorDash or a Pizza and call it a night.

You get in bed on your cell phones or tablets. You can’t sleep well for thinking about life’s little problems, like living paycheck to paycheck (or hand to mouth). You are worried about how you are going to pay for those mounting student loans, medical debt or credit cards. Each of those are big green monsters living under your bed. You get up sometime during the night and grab whatever you can find and begin stress eating. Maybe it’s cookies and milk, chips or something else. By the time you stop, half the bag is gone.

You go back to bed and finally fall asleep around 2 or 3 am. When your alarm goes off, you wake so tired and unrested, you head for the coffee pot, get in the shower and rinse and repeat the day. This is your life. This is a hamster wheel that I cannot seem to get off. This is a freight train that is about to hit a wall going 80 mph. How do I stop the madness? Does any of this resonate with you?

The outcome

Now, let’s say you logged your food and beverage intake for the entire week. Looking back on what you logged, what nutrients do you think you actually ingested? Nutrients that fuel your body so it can repair itself, and provide you with the daily requirements to make sure everything is working properly? Most likely, not many. In fact, wouldn’t you say that you did more harm than good with the high-fat, highly processed, sugary and sodium bombs you consumed that were layer is caffeine? Ask yourself, how is your body supposed to recover from that, day after day, year after year. At some point, it just cannot.

You body screams for help and breaks down. This is when diseased starts to occur. Things like high blood-pressure, diabetes, depression, GI issues, sleep apnea, heart, vascular, cancer and autoimmune. They mount one after one and you cannot see to get off the disease freight train.

You have now added more medication, procedures and diagnosis’ to your life. This means more missed work time, and expensive dangerous medications the doctor tells you that you will take for the rest of your life.

Remember those CDC stats I mentioned? Almost 75% of Americans are obese or overweight. As well as 50% of Americans have been diagnosed with high blood pressure and are on medication. There are now twelve year old children are being diagnosed and put on medication for high blood pressure. What do you think their future holds? After all, we most likely began our journey in our thirty’s or forty’s and they are starting at pre-teen ages! If case you missed the stats, here is a link..

CDC Stats Link Home

Welcome to your WHY! Why, you should want to change these habits and create a better plan for what you give your body. Our body is like a temple, and this is how we treat it. We only get one, and it’s not too late to change your course. I don’t care how old you are. Change starts with you and only you. Let’s turn this train around!

Commit to the change and let’s get started.

Alicia

Which is the healthier diet?

December 17, 2023 /

Vegan vs Keto, or somewhere in the middle?

I don’t know about you, but this is the most confusing part of trying to decide which eating plan to follow in my new journey to a healthier lifestyle. I have been on both a vegan diet and a keto diet, and achieved significant weight loss on both. My concern comes with a high fat Keto diet and what effects it will have on my systemic health, especially my cardiovascular system. Then, there is the concern of some limiting factors on a vegan diet like like B12, protein, not to mention increased fructose intake.

If you look at the photo above, you realize the animals in that picture are notably some of the strongest (if not the strongest) animals on this earth, and they don’t eat meat. That’s right, they are fully powered by plants! Common sense would tell you they ALL can’t have it wrong. Right?

I looked up vegan plant-based athletes to see what I could find. What I found were some jaw dropping stories. Some of the world’s greatest record holders in every sport are vegan, and their stories are incredible. Below are just a few of those stories. You can find them in weightlifting, skiing, surfing, race car, cycling, swimming, NFL, NBA and NBA and just about every sport you can think of.

Just a few vegan athletes

Ruth Heidrich – Is one of the most impressive stories I’ve read. She was a marathon runner who was diagnosed with Stage IV Breast Cancer. She was given a death sentence. She refused all chemo, radiation, and hormone blockers and sought the guidance of Dr. John McDougall, MD.

McDougall is a functional medical doctor, who placed her on a strict vegan diet and exactly two years from the date of her diagnosis, she not only beat her cancer into submission, but she completed her first Kona Ironman Triathlon, becoming the first vegan and cancer survivor to do so.

At 86, she went on to complete five more Ironman competitions. She holds over 900 trophies, 8 gold medals in the U.S. Senior Olympics. She has competed in 67 marathons to include Boston, New York and Moscow, and all while powered by plants!

Fiona Oakes – British runner and vegan since the age of six. She has completed 50 marathons and holds four world records. She holds the world record in an event where she ran 7 marathons on all seven continents, and took the fastest aggregate time. All, powered by plants.

Carl Lewis – is a track and field superstar and has been vegan since 1990. He won eight world championships titles and nine Olympic gold medals. It is difficult to deny the power of plants when you look at his story.

Pat Reeves – British runner, turned power lifter. At age 32, she was diagnosed with a terminal genetic cancer (14 brain tumors). She adopted a vegan diet, and her cancer went into remission, there was no evidence of tumors remaining.

In 1982 she took up powerlifting and began to compete. In 2019, she was told she had three months to live, due to a car accident that left her with crushed lungs and pulmonary fibrosis. She has refused to submit to the disease, still power lifting at age 76 and still breaking her own records.

Scott Jurek – Named one of the greatest runners of all time. Scott eats a plant-based diet and has given it credit for some of his greatest wins. Although there are too many to list, he holds the world record for running the 2189 mile Appalachian Trial Run. Not a run for the faint at heart. Scott has won over twenty-four marathons to date.

A personal account

I spoke with a woman that was diagnosed with terminal metastatic cancer from a prominent medical facility in California. The doctors told her she had just months to live and to get her affairs in order. She moved back to Texas to be closer to family. She refused all treatments, went fully vegan (specifically 100% organic) and exercised 8 hours a day as a spin class instructor. She only drank Fiji water and changed to all natural products in her environment.

After six months, she went to an area oncologist to get additional scans. She wanted to see if her efforts were paying off. The doctors could not fine a trace of any tumors left in her body. The doctors looked on with disbelief and asked her what protocol she was using to cure her cancer. Her response, “I am vegan”. They all scratched their heads in disbelief. Plant power once again.

I don’t know about you, but I am seeing a common thread in these accounts.

Cancer + vegan + exercise + positive attitude = cancer remission (in some incidents)

Not all people find these kind of results. I lost my mother to cancer, so I understand not all stories have happy endings. There are an estimated 2 million new cancer diagnosis each year, and over 608,570 deaths that are attributed to cancer alone. For some, it’s a second chance. For others, it is a death sentence.

My personal journey

In 2019, I was diagnosed with Stage III Metastatic Triple Negative Cancer. This was an extremely aggressive cancer. I was thrust into the conventional therapies of multiple chemotherapies, and radiation, and surgery, but fell short and could not finish either therapy due to complications. This was before I knew about a plant-based diet and the effects in can have assisting cancer patients overcome their disease. It didn’t really matter, I didn’t want to eat anyway, not even with all the steroids.

By the grace of God, I am still here to write this blog, and I am currently trying to educate myself on transitioning to a plant-based diet. Chemo and radiation is the gift that keeps giving. For any of you that have gone through it, you will understand what I am saying without any explanation. All cancer therapies come with a great risks, some more that others.

When I was diagnosed, my cancer had already metastasized to my nodes. I had a tumor in my axillary region (under my arm) that was larger than most women’s tumor in their breast. The primary tumor in my breast was large. Triple Negative is the second most aggressive breast cancer, only taking a back seat to Inflammatory Breast Cancer.

When I was in chemo, I would talk to the other people next to me and I would always ask what kind of cancer they had. When they would ask me, and I would say Triple Negative, the next words out of their mouth were always, “I am sorry.” That wasn’t a warm feeling.

All the women I was there with that had Triple Negative did not make it. They all passed within the year. So, I feel a bit guilty that I am still here. For some reason, God didn’t think it was my time.

Triple negative is a disease that likes to return quickly and when it does, it is always at Stage IV and in all organs, brain and bones before they find it. I would call that, a point of no return.

The therapies after that are, in my opinion, for the forward movement of science and science only, I am not sure if there is a TNBC Stage IV survivor in this world. I am going to have to do a bit of research. I am sure there might be, but very few.

We hear these stories of curing cancer and beating it back in submission. First of all, you never “cure” cancer. Cancer is living in our bodies all the time. It is just activated into a disease state when our bodies can no longer fight, and keep it under control. Second, I truly believe if I had refused the conventional therapies before me, and attempted a “diet only” approach, I would be dead within six months. When I came out of my fog after the diagnosis, I asked my oncologist, if I didn’t do anything, how much time would I have. He came back with 6 to 8 months.

I believe that there are certain times which we have to intervene with conventional therapies, and then follow with a diet to achieve a successful outcome. I also believe that each human being is different and what might work for one, doesn’t work for all.

You and I have much different meanings of the word “success”, than the doctors. Success to us, is a cure and we get to live and go on with our lives. Success to a doctor, is an extension of life, 3-6 months beyond what the patient would have without the treatment.

There were a lot of things I wish I knew before going into my journey with breast cancer. I had a lot of sleepless night, so I tried to put them to good use. I wrote and self-published this book in case any of you might have recently been diagnosed or you have a loved one that got the news. It is on Amazon and I will put the link below, just click on the book.

Regardless of your lot in life, the nutrition you choose to put in your body, is the key to health.

Welcome to my journey.

Alicia

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