#370 Cooking up Health - Metabolic Benefits of Home Cooking After Breast Cancer

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Today, we’re unraveling the complex roles of two essential minerals—iron and calcium—in our health and their unique implications for breast cancer survivors.

Iron and calcium are critical for numerous bodily functions. Iron is essential for producing hemoglobin, which transports oxygen in our blood, while calcium is vital for bone health, muscle function, and nerve signaling.

In this episode, I’ll explore how these minerals support our overall well-being and why maintaining adequate levels is crucial, especially during recovery.

Iron is a double-edged sword. While it is necessary for energy production and immune function, it also fuels rapidly dividing cells, including cancer cells. We explore why cancer patients, particularly those with breast cancer, are often advised to avoid iron supplements.

Calcium is paramount for bone health, especially for breast cancer survivors who may experience bone density loss due to treatments like chemotherapy and hormone therapy. However, supplementation carries risks.

I’ll discuss the interactions between calcium supplements and cancer medications, emphasizing the importance of monitoring calcium levels and opting for dietary sources whenever possible.

This episode comprehensively examines the benefits and potential risks associated with iron and calcium supplementation.

I’ll also highlight the importance of individualized care, encouraging you to consult with healthcare providers to tailor your nutritional strategy based on your needs and health status.

Understanding the intricate balance of iron and calcium can empower you to make informed decisions, optimizing your recovery and long-term health.

Tune in to this essential episode and take a proactive step towards a healthier, more informed you. Your journey to wellness continues here.

 

In this episode, we're diving into the kitchen to explore how home cooking can play a crucial role in your journey to recovery and maintaining your metabolic health.

I know firsthand how overwhelming it can be to navigate the path to wellness after a breast cancer diagnosis. One of the most powerful steps you can take is reclaiming your kitchen and embracing the art of cooking wholesome, nutritious meals at home.

Home cooking gives you complete control over what goes into your body.

It allows you to choose fresh, nutrient-dense ingredients that can boost your immune system, support your metabolism, and provide the energy you need to thrive. We'll talk about the incredible benefits of incorporating more whole foods into your diet, and how cooking at home can help you avoid the hidden sugars, unhealthy fats, and preservatives often found in restaurants and processed foods.

I'll share some of my favorite tips for making home cooking easy and enjoyable, even if you're not a seasoned chef. We'll discuss meal planning, and how to make cooking a fun and therapeutic part of your daily routine.

This episode is packed with practical advice and inspiration to help you take charge of your health through the power of home-cooked meals.

Whether you're a breast cancer survivor or currently in treatment, this episode is for you. So grab your apron, and let's get cooking!


Referred to in this episode:

Work with Laura

Tasty 

Cooking for One

Cooking for Two

Mediterranean Crock Pot Cookbook Made Simple

 

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Read the full transcript:

0:00
You're listening to better than before breast cancer with the breast cancer recovery coach, I'm your host, Laura lummer. I'm a certified life coach, and I'm a breast cancer thriver. In this podcast, I will give you the skills on the insides and the tools to move past the emotional and physical trauma of a breast cancer diagnosis if you're looking for a way to create a life that's even better than before breast cancer, you've come to the right place. Let's get started. Hello friends and welcome to episode 370 of better than before breast cancer. I'm your host. Laura lummer, I'm thrilled to be here with you today. We're going to talk about something really important and meaningful today. And before I jump into it, I have a favorite to ask of you, if you enjoy this podcast, if you watch it on YouTube, if you listen to it in your favorite podcast hosting station or app, if you could take the time to leave a rating or review, I would greatly appreciate it. The more you subscribe, like, follow, rate, review, especially, Subscribe and follow, the more the show gets shown to other people who are looking for information to support them, so you can do some good work for yourself by sharing something that's meaningful to you through leaving a rating and review, and hopefully someone else can find something that's meaningful and supportive for them as well. So thank you for taking the time to do that, and if you are a new listener, I hope you get something good out of the show and you're motivated to leave a positive rating or review, and thanks in advance, because it would be much appreciated. All right, let's talk about what's going on in our minds when we're thinking about supporting our health? There are two, I would say, primary objections that I hear from people. So I do mindset coaching and I do healthy lifestyle coaching, and there are two major objections to both of these, because when we're trying to support our mental and physical well being, there is a huge hurdle that most of us have to overcome, and that is believing we deserve the time, the effort, the energy, the money that goes in to helping ourselves get better in these areas, right? If we're working on having a better mindset and calming anxiety and improving just our overall emotional state, that takes practice. It takes work. There are skills, there are tools we can use and implement to improve that, but it also takes good nutrition, right? Our mind and gut are intricately connected our body. Nothing in our body works on its own, and so good nutrition is really paramount to good mental and emotional well being. You know, when I do a genetics, a nutrition genetics, report on someone and we're looking at their mood and behavior pathways, I see nutrition recommendations, right? What do you do? So you think, oh, gosh, I have genes that predispose me to anxiety or depression or ADHD, and I see this, right? There are certain genetic snips that may cause someone to have trouble concentrating on things or have more of a sensitivity to environmental factors and just the responses to it. And there are foods and lifestyle choices that we can make to quiet those genes down and to settle that emotional and mental frustration and suffering. So when we're talking about a healthy mindset, a healthy body is critical. You know, it reminds me of yoga. When you do yoga, the ultimate goal in yoga is to be able to sit and meditate, right? But we hear the word Nirvana, right? And nirvana is to realize that highest self and connect with it. And there's a process. So yoga asana, when you go to a yoga studio, you're moving your body. That's like a beginning step. That's saying, How do I get the body clean? How do I get the body healthy? This is the science of Ayurveda, right? Ayurveda comes together to say, get this body in sync with the Earth, with circadian rhythms. Get this body healthy, get this body clean, so that it can have, hopefully no pain, or at least less pain, so that it can sit for a while at a time and focus on the breath and calm the mind. Because we can't have a calm, steady mind with an unhealthy body. It just doesn't work that way, right? And the healthier our body, the healthier our mind. So the first hurdle is understanding that you're worth the time, that you are worthy and deserving of the time that it takes to do whatever it takes to support yourself to be as well as you can be to support your physical, mental and emotional wellness. Now, when we start talking about physical wellness, we got to talk about food and we've got to talk about moving the body, because that's what the body was designed to do. We are a system of levers and pulleys bones and muscles, and moving those bones and muscles helps to keep every. Anything else functioning well. But we're not talking about exercise today. We're talking about how we feed the body. So if we want a healthier body, we want a healthier mind, we've got to feed it the right way. Now, understanding exactly what your body needs is brilliant and amazing, and so we're so fortunate to be in a day and age where we can do our nutrition genomics and understand exactly what our body needs, but we I feel pretty safe saying that if we gravitate to whole food diet first, that's going to be good. And the more whole foods we eat, and the more we know what's in those foods and how they're prepared, meaning, we make them ourselves for ourselves, that's an act of love. So when we talk about moving the body, I hear, yeah, I don't like that. I don't like exercise. I don't like to sweat. People don't I don't like to sweat. Sweating is an important function of the body. So then we've got to work on the mindset and go, Okay, how do we make this fun? How do we make moving the body fun? Would you like to sweat if you were dancing? Would it bother you as much as if you were flipping tires. I say flipping tires. That's extreme, but you know what I'm trying to say? So when it comes to feeding the body with healthy food, I hear a lot of people say, I don't like to cook. I don't cook, or I won't cook if you want a healthy body, but you are not willing to cook for yourself, or have whole foods prepared for you by someone else, to put whole good foods in your body where you know the ingredients in them. That's like saying, I want more muscle and a stronger cardiovascular system. I want to increase the capacity of my lungs, but I don't want to lift a heavy weight, and I won't work out. Well, it's not going to happen. It's nice to want then it's just a dream. But if you want to support your body and being as healthy as it can, you've got to work on the thoughts that you tell yourself you don't like taking care of yourself, right? Saying I don't like to cook, I won't cook, is saying I don't want to take that step to take care of myself. Now there's an option, an option being, if you have the financial resources to hire someone to prepare whole good foods for you, great or hire a food service, or at least a food service, to supplement your meals so that you don't have to cook as often, but working on the mentality and noticing the thought of, I don't like to cook that's not going to serve you in any way. So I started thinking about this because I hear this often and I understand it because let's think about it. Most people who get a breast cancer diagnosis, most of them are I was going to say over 50, but I'm gonna say it's like 45 and over, but the statistic still stands like that, median in ages, in their 50s, right? And our lifestyle has gotten a lot more bougie. By the time we're in our 50s, it's a lot less intense. We're not running around, building careers, raising families. So little by little, the lifestyle gets a little more quiet, a little more peaceful everything. Gosh, cooking means cleaning the kitchen. That sounds like a lot of energy. I don't want to do it, and I get it, it's okay, but we have to be able to look at those thoughts and ask ourselves, is that thought serving me? Why am I choosing that thought? How is this helping me to feel better, to reduce my risk of recurrence? Now, after a breast cancer diagnosis, we're going to be going through treatment, and God knows, treatment is exhausting. And, you know, I see a lot, and I'm so happy to see that many times when people get a diagnosis, friends and family, communities, churches, they come together and say, Can we do a meal train for you? And I love that, and I encourage you. If somebody offers you that, and you're newly diagnosed and you're going to treatment, say yes, but say yes, with direction, say yes, but I'm following a very special way of eating to support my healing. And these are the foods that I cannot have and put seed oils on it, and put food coloring on it, and put gluten on it, put carbohydrates on it, right? Except for vegetables and fruits. So be very specific. People want to help you, and it's okay to say this is how, how you can help me, right? Fast food gift cards, not so great, because we don't want to be eating fast food, a restaurant, food filled with seed oils, right? So I started thinking about this, and I'm hearing it a lot. I'm thinking, how big of a problem is this lack of desire to cook for ourselves? Started do a little research to see, is this really prevalent? Is this maybe just something in the community that I'm serving? Because what I want to understand is, how can I help to shift that a little bit, because I know how important it is. So I started looking, and I found an article in kitchen infinity that said 64% of Americans surveyed regularly cook at home to save money and manage their diets. Okay, that sounds good, 64%

9:56
64% is good, but that's almost 40% of people who are. Not cooking at home. Then I read further, and I found this quality assurance magazine, and it said, out of the people they surveyed, 81% of consumers prepare more than half their meals at home. That's good. Then I found in comfy living, they did a survey and said 93% of Americans cook at home at least once a week. So then I started thinking, what? Oh, what's the breakdown of this cook at home? And I went further and found 25% of Americans surveyed said they cook at home five times a week. That's fantastic, but that's 25% of the adults surveyed. That's not a lot. 39% they said they cooked at home three to five times a week. Well, I mean, how often do you eat? Right? So that's good. That's good. We're getting there three to five times a week, but we eat more than that. And then 29% said they cook one to two times a week. That's almost 30% of the population cooking one or two times a week. So I started thinking, Hmm, what is the correlation that we see here? How is this impacting our health? Now, correlation does not mean causation. This is not a clinical study. This is just me thinking out loud and offering you this information to think for yourself. So I found on the CDC that currently the statistic says that almost 42% of United States adults are obese, obese, meaning they have a BMI of 30 or higher. This does not relate to people who are athletic and super muscular, because it's a height to weight ratio. But basically what that comes out to saying is that your body is about 30% fat, and then it says over 9% of adults in the United States are severely obese, and that means a BMI of 40 or higher, or 40% of your body being body fat. Body fat is very active tissue and not active in the way we want it to be active, active in a way of supporting inflammation, estrogen holding on to toxins, creating a lot of havoc with insulin resistance, the way glucose is used in the body, the more body fat we have, the more it's working against us. So then I look at other statistics, and I see that the CDC says that 11% of the United States population has diabetes, and 90 to 95% of that is type two diabetes, which means around 33 million Americans are currently living with type two diabetes. Hmm, 33,000,011%

12:37
How did these numbers correlate with the numbers that we see of people cooking at home, because this shift away from eating at home and is a shift towards eating out, whether that's a fast food restaurant or a higher end restaurant, or picking up pre prepared food at a grocery store. Now some of that's okay, right? But there's times when I'll see pre prepared packages of food at the grocery store, meaning vegetables already chopped up, or vegetables with meat in them already that you can just take home. It's chopped it's prepared, and you can just throw it in a pan and cook it up. And I look at that, I think, Oh, that's a good thing. I'm happy to see that, but I'll always read the label. And sometimes the labels are clean and good, and I think that is a wonderful thing. So you can go and you can pick up something that's already got your protein in it. Now are those animal proteins, grass fed, grass finished, wild, cut, pasture raised. Something we have to look into are the oils that are used on those foods, seed oils, usually they are. So some of them, I find are clean, but it depends on the store that you're looking at, but some of them have long ingredient lists that I look and I say, if I was making this stir fry at home, it would have like eight ingredients. Why is this list six inches long, right? Why is all this stuff in this food? So this movement away from cooking at home leads us to eating more processed foods, and eating more processed food is going to affect our nutrient intake, and especially when it comes to ingredients that increase inflammation, you know, like seed oils that are high in Omega six fatty acids, and then also portion control. When we go out to eat, like restaurants are loaded these days, people are like, Oh, you're gonna love this place. They give you so much food. Is that really the way we want to be thinking about where we eat? That by being over fed. Portion control is a big deal, especially when it comes to being able to manage our body fat. My husband, he's a big guy. He's six foot three. I'm I'm a big person. I'm five foot 10. When we go out to eat, we often will share a meal, because who needs an 18 ounce steak, or even bigger, like some of these steaks that are served at restaurants are just like a side of beef. You don't need to sit down and eat a side of beef in one setting. So there are lots of times where, if we do go. Out. I'm very careful about where we go out, and a lot of times I choose the salad. I ask always, is there gluten or sugar in your salad dressing? And I have backup packets of olive oil that I can just mix with lemons, because you can always get lemons at a restaurant with salt and pepper, right? There's always something can do, or an oil and vinegar. But I've been to some places where they have a house oil and vinegar, and I ask, is there sugar in it? And yes, there is. Why is there sugar in my salad dressing? Right? I don't need that. So we've got to be really careful about going out to eat. So now let me circle back to the beginning, where I said working on mindset is so important, because if you have the thought, I don't like to cook, I don't want to cook, or I'm not going to cook. And you also have the desire to have a healthy body. We've got to find a happy meeting place. How can we make cooking fun? How can we make and let me, let me remove cooking from this. And how? And say, How can we make feeding yourself fun, feeding yourself well, and feeding yourself with the right nutrition. How can we make it easy? And I'll tell you that as I get older, and it's just my husband and I in the house, I am not prone to making big gourmet meals. I do every now and then, because I find it enjoyable, but I have a busy schedule, and so I think simple, right? And I think looking for simple ways to cook and time saving ways to cook or prepare food is a really good first step to not think about it's got to be this big gourmet meal, but just simple, clean food, right? I would say that if I could pick one appliance that I would would be my ride or die, like no matter what I want this in my house, it would be an instant pot, because with an instant pot you can do everything. You can bake in that sucker. You can slow cook, you can pressure cook. I make our dog's food in there. I make our food in there, like my instant pot. I hard boil eggs, I make my bone broth. And Instant Pot makes life easy, in my opinion, and I have the one that it converts so it can be an air fryer or an instant pot, and I love it. I use that thing constantly. So think about what would make my life easier? Would slow cooking make your life easier? Slow cookers are awesome. When I was raising kids and working full time, I loved my slow cooker. I'd throw stuff in there in the morning, before I go to work, and then when the kids got home from school, if I wasn't going to be home in time for dinner, if they were hungry, it was there and available, right? So using tools to make your life simple are great steps towards being able to care for yourself. I love that there are apps and cookbooks that people understand this. There's cookbooks out there that are cooking for one, cooking for two. There are apps. I love this app. It's called tasty T, A, S, T, Y, the tasty app. And you can put all of the filters in there, like gluten free, or cooking for one or small mill, or 15 minute prep, and you can decide, like, I don't want to spend more than 15 minutes when I got my stage four diagnosis, and I was looking for food services to supplement, because I was going through treatment, and I was really, really exhausted from radiation, and I tried this food service, and I got the food and it was like four pounds and 45 minutes. It was a lot of work. And I went, Okay, no, this is not gonna work for me. And I think that that's an important thing to factory. I'm like, how much time are you willing to spend out of your 168 hours a week in the kitchen? And be honest with yourself, and be like, I need to be able to make a meal in 15 minutes. Fantastic. Now we've got a filter. We can start looking, what can you make in 15 minutes that's nutritious and good for you? Can you go to places that have cold cuts that aren't full of nitrate, but there are slices of real fresh meat, right? And you can use those, and you can put them on a charcuterie board, slices of fresh fish and smoked salmon and olives and nuts and eat that kind of style and charcuterie, people normally think about salami, and, you know, processed meats, and you don't have to have those. You can have good fresh meats and fish on those as well. But you do have to commit to a certain period of time, when I first, many, many years ago, started to be really into healthy style cooking, and I was still working full time and had kids full time. Then there were three hours on Sundays that were dedicated to just food prep, and that would meant getting my groceries. And now today, that's even easier, because I guess depending on where you live, where I live, I can order online from the grocery store, they get everything for me and my husband goes over there and picks it up, right? So that makes my life easier. Now, I've said that to people and say I like picking out my own food, but maybe give it a try. You know what? There's been very few times I've been disappointed. I think it's important to people when they are shopping for others, that they're giving you good quality stuff. So I've had very good luck and save the amount of time in. Would take for me to go to the grocery store and pick out everything myself. So thinking about what would make this easy? You know, when your mind is like, I don't want to cook, or I don't like to cook, can we offer it something else? Can we say, but what if I did or what if it could be fun? What? What would make it better for me? And come up with your own parameters about what would make it better. So how much time, right? How much money, how much time, how much effort are you willing to put into it? But I would really encourage you to think about the more you are willing to do this for yourself, the more it is going to serve you, the more it is going to help you. So what are some tricks even asking other people, what do you do? I have seen groups of women that it's so cool that they do meal prep, and they'll get three or four families together, and they'll rotate who does the prep, so one person will actually cook for all three of those families, right? Big batches of stuff, and then each family is giving the food to the other family. How cool is that? And at Foster's connection and community. I love that. That's brilliant. But can you think of creative things? Can you think of fun things? Can you have friends come over and cook with you, like, let's say, another friend who wants to have a healthier lifestyle, just like we have accountability partners when we exercise. Can we have accountability partners when we cook? So we can have some girl time and we can actually be taking care of ourselves. Can it be fun? Because I'll tell you, we don't do stuff if we don't enjoy it, at least we don't do it long term. It's not fun to be miserable, right? But if you keep putting energy into the thought of, I don't like to cook, or I don't want to cook, you're not helping yourself at all. Right? We have to recognize that and then do some work on shifting that thought and shifting that mindset to saying, What if I could enjoy this? What would it look like? What are the options? Could you maybe enjoy a cooking class? Could you maybe enjoy making things simpler? Are you overthinking the process of what you have to cook, and how difficult it has to be. I was at my sister's house the other day, and she made this delicious. She's a great cook of just not using recipe, just throwing stuff together. Our dad always cooked like that, and she's great at it. And she just threw meat and ricotta cheese and sliced zucchinis and fresh tomatoes that she chopped up. Tomatoes are my mouth is water, and just thinking about it. Fresh tomatoes chopped up and it, threw it all in a pan and cooked it together and then portioned it out. That's it, right? So no carbs. I mean, there's vegetables in it, but low carb, right? No grains in it. It was delicious. It was filling. It was satisfying. Some good healthy fats in it. So we can think about making things in batches, and batching them out for yourself and keeping them in glass containers or things for so people say to me, Well, I'm not supposed to eat leftovers. Like, don't they lose their nutritional value if you leave them in there for two or three days? Okay, let's say they lose some of their nutritional value. I would rather see you eat something that's lost a little bit of its nutritional value because it's two days old, then see you eating something that's going to work against you by picking it up at a fast food place, or something that you picked up that's pre prepared at a store that's full of seed oils, right? So we kind of have to balance out the way that we think things, think about things, and we don't have to be perfect, like maybe we could just add in one more time right now, one more time that you cook for yourself during the week, and we can subsidize with other things, right? So it's not about being perfect, but having the thought that I'm not going to do it at all. You're not only not ever going to have to worry about getting to perfect, but you're not going to be doing yourself any favors, right? We don't want to work against ourselves. So I offer you these few things to think about when it comes to cooking for yourself. Easy meals, right? Stir fries, salads, one pot meals. Use an app for ideas, or Google. Just go right on the computer and Google easy meals, 15 minute prep, if that's what you want to do. Batch cooking, large batches, break them down, eat them over a period of days, weekly planning, setting aside time at the beginning of the week that you're committed to and invite a friend over to do it with you, or a family member that you love to chop with you, and get all of your food and ingredients ready for the week. So you can just grab stuff and throw it into salad, or grab stuff and throw it into a pan. Use easy things in your kitchen. Don't make a big mess, right? Use a slow cooker. Use an instant pot. They're so easy. Dedicate time to that experience of cooking like literally write it out in your calendar. This is time I will cook on these days. Use your family. If you got family at home. Assign a cooking night to people right? Make it fun and enjoyable, and celebrate your successes. Like if you cook at home once a week and you decide to cook at home twice a week for your first goal, celebrate that like, give yourself a pat on the back for doing that. Give yourself a lot of credit for every. Change that you make to support yourself is getting you closer and closer to having optimal metabolic wellness, and that's what I want for you. All right, if you need more help with that, you can always come and find me. You can work with me in my better than before. Breast cancer, life coaching membership where we fully discuss all of these things, from our thoughts to our food, to everything, everything imaginable, and you have access to a whole full four years of library of content and lessons and workshops and support. I coach people one on one, and I also do metabolic health coaching, where we dig deep into what your body needs and create a lifestyle plan for you. You can find all that information at the breast cancer recovery coach.com I hope you check it out and until next time, be good to yourself. Take care.



 

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