Hi Everyone! Life around here is overjoyed and overwhelmed all at the same time. I’m sure those of you have have had young multiple children know what I mean. Even as I’m editing this post, I have one kid climbing over the couch asking me for a plum and another yelling from her highchair. The baby will surely follow. 🙂

I’m obviously not in the season for consistent, meaningful blogging, but I sure do get antsy for some time to write.

So, when I got this email from Tia last week, I thought it would be great to answer her question as a blog post. Why haven’t I done this before? So great.

Q&A: How Is Your Lifestyle 7 Years After Cancer? Part 1: How I Eat Today

Tia asks:

Hi there!

First, well done. I wish I had considered a holistic way once
diagnosed, but I think I seized and I didn’t know the alternatives;
come on a MD was taking care of me….right?!

My question is, what is your lifestyle and daily regimen now that you
are cancer free? I’m constantly researching and changing
supplements, adding foods and removing foods. I know we’re all
different, but was curious how you maintain a lovely life free of
disease.

Many thanks,

Tia

First off, thank you for such a sweet email, Tia!

I get asked this question often and of course depending on the season of life I’m in, there’s a different answer. Food preparation is a bit different nowadays with three kids than it was was with just Kevin and me back during my cancer healing season in 2008-2009.

For the first three years, from diagnosis point in 2008 until sometime around 2011, I ate pretty much the same thing everyday: All of my supplements, Beta-1, 3D Glucan, the Budwig mixture in the morning, 64 ounce green smoothie at lunch, and salad or additional green smoothie at dinner, and lots of green tea. Everything organic, no sugar, no meat, no processed foods, no cooked foods. I also did many other things to detox, and of course Essiac tea. You can read more about all of this on my HOW I BEAT CANCER page.

When I became pregnant with my first daughter while still going through natural cancer “treatment” in 2009, and after a few weeks of morning sickness, I continued this same protocol but STOPPED ESSIAC TEA (it is not considered safe for pregnant or nursing women.) I did start to add some sockeye Alaskan salmon into my dinner time salad and even some organic, free-range chicken. I have been in clinical remission (lack of any symptoms or tumor bulk) since May, 2009.

A “cheat day” during this time didn’t happen until about a year after my diagnosis date and I was in remission. On my one year anniversary I did have a bison burger from Ted’s Montana Grill with a sweet potato. I still NEVER ate artificial sweets, and very little cooked food, but during pregnancy and nursing I did eat more free-range/ organic meat and lightly cooked veggies. After remission I also ate more fruit and didn’t worry as much about sugar from fruit. I also would eat salads or cooked veggies out at certain restaurants again rather than bringing my food.

From 2011-2013, I still continued taking supplements, but lessened some of them. I still took Beta-1 3D Glucan daily and Dr. David Williams multi-vitamin and added a daily Vitamin D supplement. My daily diet still looked similar to my healing diet but with more flexibility and not always perfect, but any “cheating” was very rare. My second daughter was born in early 2013 and the reality of having a family began to kick in. I also became a stay-at-home mom at this point and had to prepare three home cooked and chopped meals a day for my family.

Still- I mostly ate what I considered to be very healthy and quite strict: organic, whole foods based meals which most days included the Budwig mixture for breakfast (I started adding chocolate stevia at this point to make “Budwig Chocolate Pudding”) and then for lunch I still drank my 64 ounce veggie smoothies daily. I started adding more fruit to it and took some of the more unsavory foods out of it such as broccoli sprouts and brussel sprouts to create more of a sweet smoothie. Still cancer fighting, but with natural sweeteners and much easier to drink. This helped too because I would make an almost identical smoothie for my daughters everyday and it simplified things.

A “cheat day” during this time would be maybe once or twice a month or so. Things I started to reintroduce occasionally would be veggie omelets, baked chicken and veggies with rice or quinoa, or maybe a turkey and raw cheese sandwich with lots of raw veggies. On birthdays I would have a small piece of cake and a spoonful of ice cream with my family.

From 2013 to now it has been CRAZY. I’ve had another baby, 22 months apart from my second and some days it is an honest choice to shower or brush my teeth. With all three pregnancies I had morning sickness for 8 weeks and have breastfed (or pumped for) all three, the first for a year, the second for 15 months and the youngest is still going at 7 months. Being the only one to provide food for a baby makes for a bigger appetite and way less time to prepare food for myself. The little one has also started solids recently, so add that to the mix. (I totally want to say “or VITAmix”….hahaha.)

This all is a recipe for some glorious chaos that I’ve had to work through. I also started homeschooling my oldest last year. I’m going to have to find something to outsource at some point. 🙂

I will openly admit there have been chunks of days where I fail miserably (to my standards) in keeping up with my anti-cancer diet. So lately the success of my day (nutrition-wise) can vary.

For breakfast, I still mostly eat the Chocolate Budwig Pudding mixture everyday and if I don’t, I drink green smoothies or eat oatmeal with berries and seeds/nuts on it (And I admit- I use organic instant oatmeal…a necessary time and clean-up saver for me right now.) If I make the Budwig Pudding, I make 50% more than I used to because my 2-year-old daughter loves it and eats it with me.

I also have gotten into juicing in the past couple years and now do it on almost daily basis. Lately I have been trying to juice one day a week and then freeze my juice in 8 ounce jars for the week. It may not be ideal because some of the nutrition is lost, but if my goal was to juice daily, I would fail more times than not. And I would be stressed out and a cranky mom. These frozen juices are also easy to grab on the go.

I try to eat a smoothie or salad for lunch everyday and for dinner I eat what my family eats- anything from baked salmon with homemade sauce to homemade pita pizzas with raw cheese and tons of chopped veggies, to bison meatloaf with roasted broccoli.

I’m not always perfect. About every other month my family goes out for pizza and my daughters and I share the loaded veggie pizza with cheese. I used to get the gluten-free crust and ask for light cheese, but nowadays I choose not to get overly obsessive while getting regular crust and standard amounts of cheese. (My favorite pizza is topped with broccoli, pineapple, tomato, onion, mushrooms, and green peppers in case you were wondering.) It’s once every other month…and I REALLY enjoy the normalcy with my family.

On my birthday last year I had a bowl of pasta from an Italian restaurant, and (gasp), I’ve even had a few non-organic vanilla milkshakes (my favorite dessert.)

My weakness right now in this season of life are snacks, specifically organic crackers I buy for my daughters to eat when we’re on the go. If I don’t pack an apple or some carrot sticks, etc. for myself, I will devour an entire box of Annie’s organic cheddar Bunnies. Or Woven Wheats from Sprouts. I love me some Woven Wheats. LoL.

I have learned that the key when you do decide to cheat a little bit, is that you can’t hold onto the guilt.

Guilt is toxic.

I have to say it again to really let that soak in, because even for me the feeling of guilt (when eating foods I know I wouldn’t want to confess to eating on HERE)…is REAL!

Guilt is toxic and no good for HEALING.

If you choose to do it, own it, move on, and learn from it. A lot of the time I find that the cheat isn’t worth it and it makes it easier to stay away from the temptation the next time. (And of course, I do not condone cheating on your anti-cancer diet until at least a few years after your cancer is in remission…and go with your research and gut on what you allow back into your diet.)

Next time I blog I’m going to get more into what my kids eat and what I make on a daily basis for my family. Until then, catch up with me on the Green Drink Diaries Facebook page where I update weekly…ish. 🙂