Episode 55: Kelly Lutman's Guide to Nourishing Health: Uniting Nutrition & Nature in Healing From Cancer to ADHD

Embark on a transformative journey with Kelly Lutman from Pursue Wellness For You https://pursuewellnessforyou.com/, as she brings her wealth of knowledge on nutrition's power to heal & manage conditions like ADHD and cancer. Throughout our candid discussion, Kelly unveils the often overlooked connections between what we consume, how we deal with stress, and our overall health. We navigate through a plethora of invaluable insights, from the critical role of nutrient-dense foods to the surprising benefits of mushrooms and green tea, handing you a treasure map to guide you on a path towards recovery & resilience.

Feel the embrace of nature's healing touch as I recount my personal breast cancer adventure, where setting boundaries and finding solace in the natural world were my companions through recovery. Kelly and I sift through lifestyle choices that have profound effects on our health, from the grounding practice of connecting with the earth beneath our feet to the essential habits of proper hydration and restful sleep. Moreover, we illuminate the significance of vitamin D and magnesium in our well-being, sharing how to combat taste changes during chemotherapy, and emphasizing the importance of quality sources for your supplements.

Kelly@PursueWellnessForYou.com

985-768-8898

Kelly Lutman-Pursue Wellness on Facebook Kelly Lutman on Linkedin Kelly Lutman on Instagram

Resources:

Thriving Through Cancer: A Whole-istic Approach For Your Body

Chemo Toolbox 

Are you loving the Test Those Breasts! Podcast? You can show your support by donating to the Test Those Breasts Nonprofit @ https://testthosebreasts.org/donate/

Where to find Jamie:
Instagram LinkedIn TikTok Test Those Breasts Facebook Group LinkTree
Jamie Vaughn in the News!

Thanks for listening!
I would appreciate your rating and review where you listen to podcasts!

I am not a doctor and not all information in this podcast comes from qualified healthcare providers, therefore may not constitute medical advice. For personalized medical advice, you should reach out to one of the qualified healthcare providers interviewed on this podcast and/or seek medical advice from your own providers .

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Welcome to Season 2 of Test those Breasts podcast. I am your host, jamie Vaughn. I am really excited to continue this journey and mission into 2024 to help shorten the overwhelming learning curve for those who are newly diagnosed, or yet to be diagnosed, with breast cancer. It has been such an honor and a privilege to be able to connect and interview many survivors, thrivers, caregivers, oncologists, surgeons, nurses, therapists, advocates and more, in order to provide much needed holistic guidance for our breast cancer community. Breast cancer has become such an epidemic, so the more empowered we are, the better. By listening, rating, reviewing and sharing this podcast, it truly does help bring in more listeners from all over the world. I appreciate your help in spreading this knowledge. My episodes are released weekly on Apple, spotify and other platforms. Now let's listen to this next episode of Test those Breasts. Now let's listen to this next episode of Test those Breasts. Well, hello, friends. Before we get started on the next episode, I want to remind people, in case you don't remember or you just don't know about it, but the 37th Annual National Cancer Survivors Day Celebration of Life will be held on Sunday, june 2nd 2024. Celebration of life will be held on Sunday, june 2nd 2024. And on this day, people across the globe will come together to acknowledge cancer survivors, raise awareness of ongoing challenges cancer survivors face because of their disease and, most importantly, celebrate life. National Cancer Survivors Day is more than just a party. It is a day for everyone who is living with the history of cancer to connect with other cancer survivors, celebrate milestones, share their stories and thank those who have supported them along the way. It is also a day to draw attention to the ongoing challenges of cancer survivorship, with the aim of promoting more resources, research and legislation to improve cancer survivors' quality of life. So mark your calendars and make plans to celebrate National Cancer Survivors Day with cancer survivors in your community. If you are in the Reno area, we are holding an event at the Reno Elks Lodge at 597 Cumley Lane in Reno and it is from 1 to 3 pm and it is put on by Cancer Community Clubhouse and there are all kinds of people who've come together to make this a successful event and we hope that you can come and join us. It is free and it is an 80s theme. The theme is bold, bright and brave survivorship and we will have a great band called New Wave Crave and we'll have fun gifts and we will have a raffle and a silent auction, and so we hope that you make it Again. It's from 1 to 3 pm, sunday, june 2nd, at the Reno Elks Lodge, and we just hope to see you there.

Speaker 1: 3:04

Hey friends, welcome back to this episode of Test those Breasts. I am your host, jamie Vaughn, and today I am interviewing someone I ran across that I'm so excited about and I'm very, very passionate about what she does. Her name is Kelly Luttman and she's with Pursue Wellness For you, and Kelly has been fascinated by the power of food ever since she helped resolve her son's ADHD by simply changing what he ate. A health coach certified in applied functional medicine, kelly firmly believes that symptoms are the body's cries for help and that the body can heal when it's provided the building blocks it needs. She meets each client where they are, helps them understand what is happening in their body and guides them in identifying the changes that will help them experience the vitality they were missing. Well, welcome Kelly. It's so great to finally get to talk to you and have you share your knowledge with our audience. How are you doing today?

Speaker 2: 4:06

I am doing well. It's been a really rainy day, but I'm inside where it's dry, so all is well when are you? I'm located outside of New Orleans, in Slidell, louisiana.

Speaker 1: 4:15

So down south. I've been to New Orleans a couple of times for my breast surgery. Lovely place, actually. I was supposed to go there for a vacation back in 2020. And then, of course, covid hit, and so I never got there actually for vacation, I got there for breast surgery.

Speaker 2: 4:34

Yeah, if you came just for surgery, you didn't really experience New Orleans.

Speaker 1: 4:39

I will say that I did get there. Actually, I kind of did. I got there a few days early and I was able to visit the garden district and the French Quarter was not like super party time at all, which is fine with me, but I did get to visit a couple of times with the understanding that I could actually go out and see some things. So I actually did get to really enjoy it.

Speaker 1: 5:01

So I'm really excited to have you on, because nutrition has been a really big deal to me, really truly throughout my entire life, because I grew up in a family. My dad had five gardens in his you know, our house and one of our chores I don't think I told you this before, but one of our chores was to water the gardens.

Speaker 1: 5:23

And I remember thinking to myself at the time. It's like, oh chores, you know, but it was honestly pretty soothing to be able to do that to water the tomatoes, water the carrots and the strawberries and everything that my dad had been growing. And that's how we ate as kids, and so we were not one of those families that ate a bunch of crud. That was really bad for you. Every so often, my mom would bring us to McDonald's and that was like a huge like wow, but we never had sugar cereals or anything like that.

Speaker 1: 5:58

So I grew up understanding the importance of nutrition. That is not the case with so many different families, especially here in the United States. That being said, when I was diagnosed with breast cancer in June of 2022, of course, many of us think to ourselves what did I do to myself? What did I feed myself, what could I have done better or whatever. And I will say and you know there's so much research out there that food is key and to healing our guts. I just learned that back in 2016, when I was diagnosed with Hashimoto's as well, and there were certain things that I just could not eat and things that were better for me to eat, right. So I'm happy that you're here to talk to us about how nutrition plays a role in our health, and you have a story to tell that we'll talk about in just a minute, but I just want to let our audience know who Kelly Luttman is Like. Who is this lady? Who are you know who Kelly Luttman is? Who?

Speaker 2: 7:05

is this lady? Who are you? I'm a mother of three grown and married sons, grandmother to eight, with one more on the way. I grew up as a military dependent. My dad was in the Marine Corps. I married an army officer. We traveled with the army, including stationed in Germany, where the joke with the military was, when you're stationed in Germany, you either come home with a cuckoo clock or a baby. I'm not real keen on cuckoo clocks, so we went the baby route instead. That's hilarious. So one of my sons was born there.

Speaker 2: 7:38

But I have been through so many different phases in my life. I started with my original training was in accounting and I was a CPA, but then chose to come home from the office because my family was growing and I really felt I needed to be with them instead of putting them in someone else's care and hoping they did okay through the day while I was working. So I came home as a stay-at-home mom for a while and then I became a homeschooling mom. One of my sons obviously was hungry to learn. Even at age four he wanted to learn to read and taught him to read and then thought they're not going to know what to do with him in kindergarten, coming in reading completely. You know reading fluently and so I continued homeschooling. And it was in the process of that homeschooling that I realized with one of my sons that he was ADHD. He'd never been in a classroom so I didn't have a teacher saying we've got an issue here. But I was listening to a Focus on the Family episode on the radio. It was a panel discussion of parents with ADHD at kids and they were describing my son. It's like okay, what am I going to do with this information? I didn't really want to take him to the doctor to be diagnosed and put on medication. So this was before the internet.

Speaker 2: 8:57

Quite a while ago I went to the library and I found a book by Dr Benjamin Feingold why your Child is Hyperactive. Dr Feingold was a pediatric allergist whose theory was that a lot of hyperactivity in children was because of allergic reactions to artificial colors and flavors in our foods. And it made sense you know it wasn't this way out there oddball thing. And so his protocol was for two weeks to completely eliminate all artificial colors and flavors. And you'd be amazed where they're hiding. Yellow cheese is artificially colored. We know about Froot Loops and Skittles and Kool-Aid and things like that, but there were a lot of things that I had to be careful of that I wouldn't have realized was artificially colored. But at the end of that two weeks, and we changed our food as a family I wasn't going to short order cook and limit the one to not be able to eat it, but his brothers could. So in two weeks time though, he was a different kid I mean night and day difference in his behavior and so we continued with the protocol.

Speaker 2: 10:03

The artificial was out in our family, probably eating more like you did when you were growing up, with your parents having such a big garden and such, but we just a lot more homemade food and being very careful of the ingredients.

Speaker 2: 10:17

And yet he could go down the road to visit a friend for the afternoon and play, and as a seven, eight year old, he wasn't policing his food. So he would likely get a snack that was fruit roll-ups or something that had artificial colors, and as soon as he walked in the door I could tell it was that big a reaction in him. And of course I'm not going to attack him and say what did you have, but I just start talking to him about gee, what kind of snacks did you have at so-and-so's house and do you notice you feel a little more jittery and you know? Just trying to help him realize the difference in the way his body felt based on what he was eating, it was such, oh my goodness, all we did was change our food and look at the reaction. We didn't need Ritalin. We didn't need the medications that are so heavily controlled. We just need to get rid of the stuff that we were eating that was not necessary in our food.

Speaker 1: 11:18

Yeah, so that was the next question. I was going to ask you this too. First of all, at seven years old, when you would ask him that question, did he actually notice that he was more jittery? It took a little while.

Speaker 2: 11:30

It took a little process for him to begin to see oh, oh, that's what it is. And when I would just help him remember. Remember, we took all these foods out of our diet, so we're not doing those foods at home. There's a reason. And I wasn't going to say you can't ever have those things or you can't go to those friends, no, but just helping him take control over his choices and realize that there was a price.

Speaker 1: 12:00

So it's so interesting when you're raising kids, when you tell them they can't do something, they'll want to do something right. But if you give them the tools to be able to make their own decisions and help guide them, I feel like that's probably the best way to go. So I was a teacher for 20 years and I cannot tell you how many students I've had who have had ADHD, and some of them, you know, worse symptoms than others. A lot of them were on medications. So I'm sort of like one of those people who, if I go to the doctor, I kind of expect I want to expect that my doctor is going to look at this sort of more natural or even Eastern medicine before Western medicine, and Western medicine absolutely 100% has its place in society, in our you know, whatever. But trying other things, like changing the diet, is so important to try first, and so I really love that you had the understanding that that is what you would try first instead of medication. Kudos to you. I love that.

Speaker 2: 13:09

I was really thankful for Dr Feingold's book and now parents can find the information online. You know, you just have to research or search Feingold protocol and you can find all the information that I had to go through a book to get, including recipes and guidance and support and things like that. So it's out there. But I will say mom and dad have to be willing to make the change themselves. For some they aren't willing to set up that battle initially, to take a stand for it and hold their ground and help their child recognize the benefit it brings in the change in their diet.

Speaker 1: 13:50

And it's not easy. You know. We want to let people know that it's not easy. Raising a child is not easy and a lot of parents are. They do things because it's easier. We know it's like raising a puppy. If you're going to do all just the easy things and let them go ahead and just wreak havoc and do whatever, you're probably not going to reap the rewards of a really calm, wonderful, trained puppy.

Speaker 2: 14:19

Same with a child.

Speaker 1: 14:20

It takes consistency, it takes loving consistency to be able to have that child grow up and have the tools for when they do move out of the house and take on their own lives. Then they can choose what foods are best for them. You have a book that you wrote and I'm so excited about it. I know that you can get it on ebook and physical copies. Can you tell us about that book and what inspired you to write that?

Speaker 2: 14:45

Sure, the book is Thriving Through Cancer A Holistic Approach for your Journey, and it was prompted by an email that I received from a friend of mine who I'd known for many, many years and I knew she was beginning breast cancer treatment. She'd already had the surgery and I was anticipating that she would be soon starting the chemo and radiation etc. And I got an email from her one day that said Kelly, I have a binder almost two inches thick that's full of all the details of my treatment protocol, what to expect, what's going on, all the things. And I was kind of impressed because I've known other patients in different clinics. I guess that didn't have that kind of information. Known other patients in different clinics? I guess that didn't have that kind of information.

Speaker 2: 15:27

But she said all it says for nutrition is drink, ensure and Carnation, instant Breakfast. Yep, just reading that just made me squirm. But she followed that with I've known you long enough to know there's so much more and I need you on my team. And so I coached her and we would meet as often as she needed Usually my coaching I meet with my clients every other week, but for her she already had a handle on a lot of things and so we just met once a month and she did fabulously. I learned from her and she learned from me. But I couldn't let go of that visual of clients you know, cancer patients being told to drink Ensure Incarnation Instant Breakfast as though that was nourishment. That is not nourishment. It is chemicals, it is sugar, it is synthetic. Your body doesn't recognize it, even for hydration. It's not nourishment.

Speaker 2: 16:26

And so I set about writing the book. Initially I was just going to write the nutrition part of it and then I thought no, the whole person goes through this cancer treatment and I needed to incorporate guidance for body, mind and spirit to be able to really my focus is how do you support the rest of your body that's going through the treatment, because the medical team is usually pretty good at dealing with the cancer itself, but you get. I interviewed over 25 people that were currently in cancer treatment before I started writing the book and finding out what they were told, how they were guided, what information they wish they knew, and I was shocked at how few received true guidance for how to support the rest of the body, because the whole body gets the treatment. Yeah, and it's intended to hit the one or two percent of you that's got cancer. But the whole body gets the treatment and if you don't support that whole body, it struggles.

Speaker 1: 17:30

Yeah, from what I remember, I think they have you drink those because of the protein. They want to make sure you're getting enough protein. I'm primarily plant-based. I eat some things like some fishes and things like that Fish, not fishes, mm-hmm but I eat a lot of plant-based type stuff and I remember when I was going through chemo I had developed this anemia and.

Speaker 1: 17:54

I didn't know much about anemia other than this iron deficiency type anemia. I didn't realize there were other types of anemia, so in the end it turned out to be a completely different. It was aplasia anemia. I can't remember exactly what it's called, but it's when another tumor was putting off antibodies that thought that my red blood cells were dangerous and were attacking them as they were being produced. So I had a ton of blood transfusions, starting from it was like around September during my treatments and then forward, and I think the chemo had tipped it off. I think it made it start doing that.

Speaker 1: 18:31

But my oncologist kept telling me to go home and eat a big steak. And I looked at her and I said but I'm plant-based, I don't eat steak. And she goes you need to go home and eat a big steak. And I thought to myself you can't tell someone who's plant-based to go home and eat a big steak. And it turns out that you can actually get the nutrients that you need from plant-based foods and things like that. But it turned out it wasn't that kind of anemic anyway. But so what I do know is that doctors, those kinds of doctors, usually get a like a semester of nutrition education, if that hours.

Speaker 2: 19:11

Like three hours, three hours of nutrition, not a whole semester. They get very little nutrition.

Speaker 1: 19:19

I was really excited that when I first saw my first surgeon that put my port in and everything she actually talked to me about nutrition. So I knew that she had had more education about nutrition than other surgeons or oncologists or radiologists and things like that. So it is important, I know, to bring someone in that can teach you about nutrition, and this is exactly what I did. At the very beginning, I reached out to someone he's actually out of Australia, Eddie Ennever, and I've interviewed him on this show as well and he really helped number one pull me out of the darkness mentally, because I was really struggling before I had to start chemo and I recognized that I needed help. And I also am happy to say that he helped me through the treatments nutritionally as well. He helped me through the treatments nutritionally as well and what kind of foods to eat before, during and after the actual treatment, and so I get all geeky about this kind of stuff.

Speaker 2: 20:22

But it's important, it's foundational for the body. That's what we get. The body gets the building blocks it needs through the food we eat, and if your food is highly processed and very chemicalized, that's not building blocks for the body. Your body needs nutrients in as close a form as possible to the way it grew, whether on hoof or in the ground. It's just important.

Speaker 1: 20:52

What do you suggest to people, because access to these good foods is really hard for some people. Is there any kind of advice that you can give for people like that?

Speaker 2: 21:04

There are challenges for people who live in what they call a food desert, where it's very limited. You don't have a lot of access to grocery stores where you can get the fresh produce or farmer's markets. For in that case I would prioritize ordering maybe some of the meal prep kits that are specifically whole food. You really want to be careful which prep company you're going for, and are they sending you real food or is it packaged stuff? I tell my clients if something is packaged in a box or a plastic bag or something and designed to be able to sit on the grocery store shelf or in a vending machine for an indefinite amount of time and not look any different, it's dead. It's got nothing to offer your body to make it live. If no self-respecting bacteria will eat it, why should you?

Speaker 1: 21:58

Right, I would love to be able to pick your brain about what companies out there that you would recommend. I've been ordering some things from a company called Sprinley. I don't know if you've ever heard of them.

Speaker 2: 22:13

That's one I have not heard of.

Speaker 1: 22:14

No, they're out of somewhere in the Midwest, I want to say, but every time I've gotten it, it's all been very fresh. But I would love to be able to pick your brain on that, because that's such a great idea If we know where the source is, and things like that. But I just know for some people it's like, well, I don't know how to get that, or that's too expensive or whatever. And I'm thinking to myself your body is worth a million more than a million, whatever dollars that what you put in your body is so important. So people are so good at spending money on things that they probably shouldn't be spending money on, and not spending money on what's good to put in their bodies. And so to people who actually say I can't afford that, what are you spending your money on that is not serving you nutritionally?

Speaker 2: 23:10

Yes, yes, and thinking in terms of the food that is inexpensive, the 99 cent meals at McDonald's or wherever I look at, one of the chapters in my book is talking about the colors of the food you're eating. And if you picture back in those days in your childhood when you got to go to McDonald's and you opened up that meal that you got, when you took it out of the wrapping, what color was the food? Brown and white maybe, unless you added ketchup and mustard. Then you got some extra color. But it doesn't have the colors that represent nutrients. The colors you see in the produce department of the grocery store are showing all the different nutrients that those different foods can provide, and different colors are different types of nutrients and your body kind of needs them all. So, looking at how are you choosing food, the things that we pick frequently, and you know, before changing our diet as a family, I was buying packaged meal prep things and you know stuff hungry, what was it?

Speaker 1: 24:18

Different meals.

Speaker 2: 24:19

Hungry yeah.

Speaker 1: 24:20

What is that Hungry I?

Speaker 2: 24:21

can't even think of what the name of it is. I wouldn't think of doing it now, but those are made with ingredients that are heavily subsidized by the government, which makes them cheap, and could be that could be. I can't even remember now. I'm not sure that that's it exactly. It was just a package. You added the meat to it and made a whole meal for four or five or so.

Speaker 2: 24:44

Anyways, what is inexpensive, what we think of as affordable in our food, is usually flour-based, because the wheat and the grains are heavily subsidized by our government, so they're cheap and they use those as the foundation of our foods and our meals, but they don't provide nutrients.

Speaker 2: 25:06

When you go into a restaurant, you can spend a whole lot less on a pasta meal than you would on a big dinner salad, because the pasta is subsidized by the government. The produce in that salad is not, and so either growing your own at home is a great way to do it, or just deciding that your body is worth it through this battle and you need to put your money into the real food that is going to nourish your body and you actually won't need as much of it as when you eat the processed food that doesn't sit long in your body. It gets processed and eaten very quickly and digested and then you're hungry again. But when you eat the real food, even if it's grains whole grains, brown rice instead of white rice and quinoa and using multi-grain foods is so much better for your body than the heavily processed, super easy to chew and digest. You know Wonder Bread. I always wondered about a bread that you could peel the crust off of and roll it into a ball, and it's stuck that way.

Speaker 1: 26:20

What is that? Oh, that's hilarious, yeah, so we never got Wonder Bread when we were kids.

Speaker 2: 26:26

I didn't either.

Speaker 1: 26:26

We got whole grain. We got whole wheat, whole whatever. My mom used to go to the company or a wheat and get breads from down there and I don't even know if those are even good, but they were better than Wonder Bread. She would not buy us those. Or sugar cereal oh yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 26:42

The key. If you're going to eat bread and I don't highly recommend it because usually it processes very quickly to sugar in your system and a cancer patient doesn't need to be adding sugar to the system but the key is to look at the fiber content. I just laugh and I grew up on Cheerios when I was little and you look at the Cheerios box and it talks about 24 grams of fiber. You know whatever that was at the beginning of the manufacturing process. When you look at the nutrient ingredient label on the side of the box, there's not even one whole gram of fiber per serving in that product.

Speaker 1: 27:20

Oh, I didn't even know that.

Speaker 2: 27:22

And bread is commonly that way too. So I tell my clients, if you're going to eat bread, make sure it's three to five grams of fiber per slice so that's at least a little bit slower in turning into sugar in your body. But you really need to think about what a cancer patient may avoid eating added sugar. But you've got to consider what food turns into sugar in your body, and that's heavily the flour based foods breads, crackers, pasta, anything made with a flour.

Speaker 1: 27:57

I want to talk about how you support cancer patients, so like once the cancer is found and the medical team jumps into action. What other means of support are there for cancer patients? What do you do to help them?

Speaker 2: 28:20

I try to provide a voice of reason, a voice of clarity for someone who's in the midst of oh my goodness, I'm dealing with cancer and they want me to do this and they want me to do that. I had a good friend of mine was diagnosed a month ago and she said all this setup, she wasn't working at the time and she said it's a good thing I't working at the time. And she said it's a good thing I wasn't, because in all the initial appointments she said it's a full time job to be a cancer patient. It really is. Yeah, talking to her and learning from her and hearing what her experience has been, I totally understand that. But there needs to be the voice on the other side of the medical community who's saying how are you supporting yourself at home? What are you eating? What are you doing to calm the fear that rises up and shuts you down, shuts down your reasoning and your willingness to make a decision, and say, no, that's not for me or I need more of this. Someone who's coming in and saying it's okay to feel those feelings, but let's work through and process them and then come to a place of you're going to prioritize you in this. You have a real focus. Like my friend said, it's a full-time job. You need to devote yourself to the project of coming through this and doing so in a way you know.

Speaker 2: 29:38

People said how come you titled your book thriving through cancer? How can you thrive through cancer? Well, thriving doesn't mean sitting on the top on clouds eating bonbons. It literally means to grow and expand.

Speaker 2: 29:53

When you think of failure to thrive in infants, it's their failure to grow at an expected rate. But you can thrive through cancer despite the rough days, when you are making a choice to prioritize yourself, to choose the foods that will nourish your body, to have time outside and grounded and in nature, to restore your spirit, your soul. There's so many different things that you can do to support you and it doesn't mean you exclude the people out around you. It may mean you spend less time with some of them. If they tend to draw you back, to wallowing in the fear, then you need to choose yourself in that and that is not selfish, that is not at all selfish, that is protective of you. In this time, you may need to just say I need to spend less time with that person and I need to draw people around me that believe and help me hold that vision for my positive future.

Speaker 1: 31:03

Yeah, there's a lot of misunderstandings about what thriving means. I mean for me like a no brainer, even during cancer I, if somebody says I want you to thrive through this, that would make total sense to me, even though I was in a very fearful and mad and all the emotions. But I really learned a lot about creating boundaries.

Speaker 2: 31:25

Yes, yes.

Speaker 1: 31:26

I learned how to to accept help. I was I, you know. I always felt like I was always the one to support people and do things for other people you know, meal train, or you know or gifts, or showing up or whatever it is and this was the first time that I really really needed people, except for after my mom died in 2019.

Speaker 1: 31:49

You know I did that support then, but I really had to spend my feeling of I shouldn't, you know, need that support, and so, first that, but also creating boundaries and surrounding myself with people that made me feel good and that they were supportive and things like that. Yeah, I just think that's such a great piece to what you do. So tell me more about the stresses experienced by cancer patients and ways you guide them to manage them. So when you ask, what are you doing for yourself, what kind of ideas and I know you talked about getting out in nature what does that piece of the program look like?

Speaker 2: 32:34

That piece is just encouraging you in beginning to explore and learn what nature does for us. Getting outside and I live in South Louisiana it is hot. We're going to be in full heat next month and then miserable heat through October, but it still benefits to get outside for a walk, to get outside in an area that's surrounded by trees. I've had one client that was in the city and she said trees are not real common here. What do I do then? And I said find a park with one tree and sit under that tree. Just sit there. It sounds a little woo-woo, but let that tree nourish you in a way you didn't know it could do.

Speaker 2: 33:19

But being in the midst of, I love walking on. We have areas that were reclaimed from former railroad tracks, that are now walking trails in our areas, and it's all wooded, it's all delightfully immersed in without it being muddy, which is nice. But being able to walk out in nature if you're near a beach, walking on the beach is so invigorating for some. For some it's struggle. We've got to find what fits you individually. But there's an aspect with beach walking, or even walking in grass, that's called grounding and it literally is an energetic exchange between the earth and our bodies, that can reduce pain, that can calm stress, that can do so many simple things by just being out walking.

Speaker 2: 34:08

One of my clients walked her dog multiple times during the day. She said she was walking three miles a day average, some of it walking her dog, some of it just out walking by herself. And that was part of her recovery, part of her treatment care program for herself. But I encouraged her. Sometimes you know when you go out walking, if you get into a grassy area, kick your shoes off and walk barefoot while you're walking, the dog and you will get more benefit than if you're actually concrete will convey the electrons, but it's just not as nice to walk on barefoot.

Speaker 1: 34:46

No, and you want to make sure you don't step on a bee or anything.

Speaker 2: 34:50

And I had another client that I actually talked about her in the book, where you know she lived near me but closer to the swamp, and she said, yeah, we've got grass in our yard, but it's not something I want to walk in because I don't know what creepy crawlies are in there. So she would sit 15 to 20 minutes a day on the concrete slab under their house because our house was raised for flood risk and she would just sit with bare feet on the concrete and that would give her the benefit of the pain relief from the concrete connection, from the exchange from the earth, without having to worry about the creepies that were in her grass.

Speaker 1: 35:31

That's so funny. I was diagnosed a week after I retired from the school district here.

Speaker 2: 35:35

Wow.

Speaker 1: 35:36

It's like something else. Nope, you're not going to retire. You're not going to do the things that you thought you were going to do this year. We're going to do this instead. My husband and I made a plan, and we planned it at the very beginning Every three weeks, we would go camping and so. I would have my treatment the first week. I'd feel horrible. Second week I was feeling a little bit better, not great, but we always planned to go camping that third week because that was the higher before the next treatment.

Speaker 1: 36:06

Yeah, and so we would go somewhere different each time that we hadn't been to before and we would spend a good few nights there and just paddle boarding, walking on the beach, just hanging out at the campsite, and I think a couple of times we went golfing and things like that. I will say that it really did help so much with my mental health and all of that. And I had completely stopped drinking, I had cut down on cause I know this is a big part of it too I'd cut way, way, way way back on my drinking before I ever even got breast cancer, because I was going through a weight loss type thing.

Speaker 1: 36:47

I wanted to cut back like significantly, and so I didn't drink any alcohol during my cancer at all. I will have a little something here and there, but it's very rare.

Speaker 1: 36:59

Now I would consider myself primarily a non drinker, but if I go over to some friends house I'll have some wine with them or whatever, but it's not like five glasses of wine. I just know that alcohol and sugar and all of that is definitely not good for us. I would love to know okay, I'm going to put you on the spot here and you can tell me if it's too much on the spot Do you have a favorite excerpt that you've read from your book?

Speaker 2: 37:28

There are several different excerpts that really touched me, but I think one of them was there's a chapter called Working Behind the Lines and it's still in the nutrition discussion, but talking about it in terms of back in World War II the Russians were faced with the Nazis coming in to attack and they were greatly outnumbered by the Nazis and their way they actually came out winning, but the way they did so was snuck behind the Nazis' lines and broke off their supply from the motherland. So the whole idea of that chapter is sharing nutritional ways that you can cut off the supply for the tumor so that it's not well supplied further growth. One of those is eating mushrooms. There are many types. There's the mushrooms I grew up with, the white button mushrooms and stuff, and nowadays we're much more aware of shiitake and lion's mane and a variety of medicinal mushrooms. Turkey tail and lion's mane are very good if you've got access to them. But even if you have the old white button mushroom preferably fresh, not canned Mushrooms contain not sure what the term is for them but they cut off angiogenesis, which is the growth of new blood vessels to supply a tumor.

Speaker 2: 39:02

If the tumor develops and as it builds, it needs to grow more blood vessels out from it, actually capillary size to supply its nutrients from the body. But mushrooms contain a component that limits that growth and so eating mushrooms on a daily basis, if possible in various ways, or even do tinctures of mushrooms Some companies offer tinctures of mushrooms can help cut off and limit the tumor's ability to get new growing capillaries to supply it. So that's one way of cutting off behind the lines. Another way is green tea. Egcg, epico, gelatin that's a big, long word. Big long word. By brewing and drinking green tea on a regular basis, on a daily basis, they can also help with cutting off supply for the tumor. And the key is not bottled, commercially provided green tea. That's going to be. You know, you've got the issue of the plastic bottle and the sweeteners and the stuff they put in it. Get loose leaf, quality green tea, organic if you can, and brew your own.

Speaker 1: 40:18

Okay.

Speaker 2: 40:19

I like that. Five to 10 minutes gives it the strongest capability in your body, and then drink it.

Speaker 1: 40:26

So you can have your mushrooms and your green tea every day, yeah, yeah, I mean, we all have cancer cells. When I was first diagnosed, people were like, oh my God, jamie, but you were so healthy and I'm like I am healthy. If healthy people can't get cancer, right, and I know that they can, clearly, but would that be something that, just in general, people should be doing is eating mushrooms and drinking green tea?

Speaker 2: 40:52

I think it certainly wouldn't hurt. It's not like it's the mission to protect yourself. I look at health like an iceberg. What we see on the outside, above the water level, that's what we know of, and we see a person and they're very active and they've got all these different energetic things going on. But there's a whole lot of iceberg underneath inside our body that we don't know about. And there are times that a very healthy person dies of a heart attack and the heart attack was the first symptom they had and there's no warning about it. We don't know and there's no warning about it. There's no, we don't know.

Speaker 2: 41:38

So healthy is a term that I look at with you know, rose colored glasses, because it's not a real decided term. It's not a real accurate term. There can be a lot of things going on and if you're constantly ignoring the symptoms your body's given, like I said in my bio, I believe the symptoms we experience are our body's cries for help, and when you have a headache, your body really isn't asking for the pill that you would take with a glass of water. It may just be needing that glass of water because you're dehydrated, but we have a tendency to just grab a pill, get some relief and go again in ignoring those symptoms that the body is using to say little help here, need something Right. Right, our doctors are not trained to look at the symptoms, as what is this signaling? They're trained to answer symptoms with medication Right, and that's not serving the ultimate purpose of the symptom.

Speaker 1: 42:34

You know, it's interesting that you talk about headaches, because I've been getting these headaches for the last two months and I am not a headache person and I am well hydrated. I drink water all the time. I'm addicted to water. I can't I always have my water with me.

Speaker 1: 42:47

I went into my GP and I've been actually seeing a functional health doctor for the past few months and we've been finding out what my food triggers are, and this is when we discovered that I needed to not be eating gluten, because I have Hashimoto's and anyone with an autoimmune should not even be eating gluten at all, but I feel like no one should be and, like you said in our conversation before, in America no one should be eating gluten. Said in our conversation before, in America no one should be eating gluten. That being said, I went to the GP, my GP, and she did a bunch of tests and things like that to kind of determine. But she's like you know, I want to be really sure. So she actually ordered an MRI.

Speaker 1: 43:21

Now one of the things that when you go through cancer you're fearful, right, it's like, oh my God, I must have a tumor on my brain because I'm having these headaches and that is terrible, that terrible feeling and my whole body that wasn't feeling well. So she did an MRI. The MRI turned out fine, nothing of importance. My functional health doctor I described to him what was happening. He goes that sounds more like a tension headache.

Speaker 1: 43:47

He says you know, and he talked about the vertebraes and all this stuff. And so yes, food plays a role, but also the vertebraes could be a little adjusting or whatever.

Speaker 2: 43:59

Well, and even looking at magnesium levels, a lot of Americans are depleted in magnesium. They don't recognize it, but there are different types of magnesium. So we think, oh, I need to get magnesium. So I go and I pick up whatever we find in the grocery store or whatever, and it's magnesium citrate.

Speaker 2: 44:17

Well, different forms of magnesium are chelations with different aminos and citrate is going to help clear your body but it's not going to replenish your cells. So I always recommend to my clients that they look for glycinate or magnesium malate to replenish their cells and they should be taking probably 400 milligrams a day, especially if they are supplementing with vitamin D. One of my pet peeves is, especially since COVID, doctors have been saying, oh, you need to be taking vitamin D and zinc because the studies were showing that caused people to be benefited. But if you supplement vitamin D, your body has to use magnesium to get it in its ultimate form to be used by the body, to be used by the body. Okay. So a big supplementation 5,000, 10,000 units of vitamin D without magnesium will deplete your magnesium and then leave you with blood sugar issues, blood pressure issues, headaches and things like that.

Speaker 1: 45:23

Okay, so magnesium. The one you want to take is magnesium. What Glycinate?

Speaker 2: 45:30

or malate.

Speaker 1: 45:30

Glycinate or malate. Glycinate or malate. I want to say this is something that I've been taking from the supplements that my functional health doctor has given me he knows a lot about that stuff. And then vitamin D. So you're not supposed to be taking supplements for vitamin D.

Speaker 2: 45:49

I do believe that most people need vitamin D also because we stay inside all the time. We don't get outside in exposure where we can pick up vitamin D naturally, and if you live in the Northern States, you're getting shorter days and less sun exposure. But if you are supplementing vitamin D, you need magnesium alongside of it.

Speaker 1: 46:10

Got it Okay, so you need to take both of those.

Speaker 2: 46:13

Got it, okay, yes.

Speaker 1: 46:14

All right, I want to keep this straight here in your book, in your whole book, do you have a section on that kind of stuff?

Speaker 2: 46:22

I don't do a specific section on supplements like that, because supplements tend to be most individualized. If I'm working with someone coaching them, I'm always looking at what are the prescriptions you're on, the medications you're on, because a lot of medications deplete your body of nutrients. Different beta blockers will deplete COQ10 and magnesium. There are statin drugs deplete you of B12 and COQ10. There's so many different medication classes that deplete nutrients and so I'm looking at what do we need to put back in? That's being limited by your medications. But with a cancer patient, the biggest thing is getting the real food, and sometimes that does need to come with some either green powders or I recommend a particular line of fruits and vegetables in capsule form, just because I know their quality to fill the gaps, if you're having a hard time either accessing the food that you need or eating the food that you need.

Speaker 2: 47:26

Yes, there are issues with taste. I'm sure when you were doing chemo you had challenges with your taste and I found some resources from a woman who does recipes for cancer patients and she had different tips about if your food is tasting very cardboardy, adding salt salt. If your food is tasting overly metallic, adding syrup like a maple syrup to it little bits. But she had different ways to tweak based on the taste you were having or experiencing from your chemo treatment, and I put that into the book as well. I tried to give a lot of tools for different situations guidance and then, as I mentioned to you before we started recording, I also have a book portal that is accessed from a QR code on the resource page. That takes you to a small website where I offer 10 of the chapters in video form. In case particular patients are having trouble with reading comprehension, they can get the content through me on video and then recipes and resources that I couldn't easily put in print in the book, but I can offer links and resources on the book portal for you.

Speaker 1: 48:42

Oh, that's fantastic. Well, I am so thrilled that I ran across you because this is such important information and my audience well, most of them who have listened before thrilled that I ran across you because this is such important information and my audience well, most of them who have listened before knows that I started a nonprofit for this podcast because this is a passion of mine. It's all self-funded on a very robust retirement salary. So I started a nonprofit because I wanted to continue to support the cancer community and people who've never even had cancer. So to help them with that, I am going to be housing a lot of resources on my website and I want your permission to put your book on there, your website on there, so the people have a place to go if they're looking for somebody to help them with nutrition and things like that. So is that okay with you? That?

Speaker 2: 49:32

would be delightful. Yes, I'm ready to help.

Speaker 1: 49:36

I know with websites you have to get permission. Not that I'm benefiting off of anything. I just want people to have information at their fingertips where they can support themselves as they go through cancer. And I want to go back really quickly, because you said something about supplements for, like fruits and vegetables and things like that Supplements for mushrooms. So I follow Paul Stamets a lot.

Speaker 1: 49:59

I've learned a lot from him and I'm sure you know a lot about him. What are your thoughts? And I do have access to Turkey Tail and Lion's Mane and I've made recipes with it and we have a farmer's market here every Sunday and then I go to the local food co-op. But I also have used his supplements, the powder supplements. What are your thoughts about those, Especially coming from his company, like because I know that he's such a guru when it comes to mushrooms. I'm wondering guru.

Speaker 2: 50:34

when it comes to mushrooms, I'm wondering. My only real concern for mushrooms in supplement form is are you getting the volume you need for the components in the mushroom to be functional? When I think in terms of eating half a cup of mushrooms in a serving, it's really hard to put that half cup into a couple capsules.

Speaker 1: 50:48

Okay, but.

Speaker 2: 50:49

I have worked with some who make tinctures that I believe the tinctures relay in the tincture form, in smaller doses, the benefits of the mushrooms as well, and I really think it all comes down to who is your source, what are the growing conditions? What's their process for capsulating or making the tinctures. Finding that out and asking the questions to know is this reliable? Is this going to be a good way for me to do it? We too have, and I've learned a lot more about the mushrooms because we have a dealer or a vendor at our farmer's market that is a mushroom grower, and so we have the access to the different types of mushrooms and he makes a tincture, and that's where I first really learned about them. But I think you'd want to be careful about not just anybody's and do not go out picking mushrooms in nature and assume that it's safe.

Speaker 1: 51:46

Like don't go out to your front yard and pick them off.

Speaker 2: 51:48

No, no, there are some that are good and there are some that are really not.

Speaker 1: 51:53

You know, it's really funny because our son is really, really knowledgeable when it comes to mushrooms and he can tell which ones you can pick and cook and all of that. Yes, I think he's really starting to get into that, and we do have a few local growers here that I just love getting my mushrooms from, but Paul Stamets just seems like he's like the big guru of what we learned so much. So you would think that his products are. He understands the idea of getting enough. So like literally, when I take his, he says you take four of them at a time.

Speaker 1: 52:27

So there's a certain amount so you can get those nutrients. It's not just like one capsule and it's probably good.

Speaker 1: 52:33

But I do like the idea of tinctures too. I actually take tinctures. I take vitamin A and, I think, c that I got from my functional health doctor. I put it under my tongue every day. I know we're coming up on the end of the hour. People can find you. You have in the show notes. I've got your phone number, your email address, your Facebook page, your LinkedIn, your Instagram and the excerpt there's like a yeah, where people can find your book Driving Through Cancer. Yeah Well, this has been so enlightening and every time I interview someone I get so much good information. I just want to know. You've given us so much. I mean, I've learned a ton. I'm just really excited about this. I'm excited to go out and get some mushrooms today. Is there any other big piece of advice that you would leave for someone, really truly, that may not have health issues, but how they can sort of prevent, maybe before you know, like they haven't had cancer or anything like that? What other piece of advice do you want to leave us with before we say goodbye?

Speaker 2: 53:36

I think, one of the big challenges. I don't think you can pinpoint one of the main causes of cancer, but I do believe that stress in our lives contributes a great deal to it. And so, taking the opportunity on a regular basis even if you set an alarm every couple hours through the day to just stop and breathe, go to my website, look on the blogs and look under breathing, I have several blog posts about breathing patterns that you can use to calm your body, and it only takes a few minutes. In fact, you don't want to do deep breathing exercises extended, because when it's your first few times you could get hyperventilated. But breathing to calm your body, we don't take the time to breathe, to drink water and to sleep the way we need to, and all of those are key for our bodies functioning, for proper recovery, for proper reset in our bodies. Between each day and when we will give ourselves that gift, we will have a better life, I really believe gift, we will have a better life.

Speaker 1: 54:54

I really believe I love it.

Speaker 1: 54:55

I really believe stress has a lot to do with it too. Eddie Ennever told me at the beginning of my diagnosis that we all have cancer cells, and what happens is is you know, there's a whole myriad of things that could happen, like even four or five years prior, Like for me, my mom died in 2019. And then we had one thing after another happening for the next several years. It just sort of creates this perfect storm for cancer to strike. And so stress, I know. I am so convinced that that is a big part of it yeah.

Speaker 1: 55:27

Well, thank you so much, Kelly. This has been such a pleasure. I really appreciate your time and I'm excited to put your information on my website so people have a place to go to learn more about nutrition, to learn more about how to handle their stress. You know you have a great book and I know we'll be in touch, and so thank you for being here.

Speaker 2: 55:47

Thank you for having me. I appreciate the opportunity to share with your audience.

Speaker 1: 55:55

You are so welcome and, to my audience, I really appreciate your being here on this episode of Test those Breasts. I do want to remind people from the Reno Sparks area that we have a Survivors Day celebration at the Reno Elks Lodge on June 2nd from 1 to 3 pm, and there will be a registration link in the show notes so that you can sign up and I'm part of the planning committee and it's gonna be amazing and it's an 80s theme and so I hope that you all can make it from the Reno Sparks area. If you're outside of the Reno Sparks area, it's still Survivors Day, so there's something that may be in your community. So again, thank you for joining us and we will see you next time on the next episode of Test those Breasts. Bye for now, friends.

Speaker 1: 56:41

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Test those Breasts. I hope you got some great much needed information that will help you with your journey. As always, I am open to guests to add value to my show, and I'm also open to being a guest on other podcasts where I can add value. So please reach out if you'd like to collaborate. My contact information is in the show notes and, as a reminder rating, reviewing and sharing this podcast will truly help build a bigger audience all over the world. I thank you for your efforts. I look forward to sharing my next episode of Test those Breasts.