Episode Overview
In this final episode of 2024, I break down the science and benefits of ketosis for breast cancer survivors. I’ll tell you why metabolic health matters and how achieving a state of ketosis can support recovery and overall wellbeing.
Key Topics Covered
Why Ketosis Matters for Cancer Survivors
Resources Mentioned
Connect with Laura
Website: The Breast Cancer Recovery Coach
Access coaching programs and resources to support your healing journey.
Instagram: @thebreastcancerrecoverycoach
Facebook Group: The Breast Cancer Recovery Group
Website: www.thebreastcancerrecoverycoach.com
Disclaimer: This information is for educational purposes only and should not replace medical advice. Always consult with your healthcare team before making changes to your diet or lifestyle.
#BreastCancer #CancerRecovery #Ketosis #MetabolicHealth #CancerSurvivor #HealthyLiving #WellnessJourney
Read the full transcript:
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You're listening to better than before breast cancer with the breast cancer recovery coach, I'm your host, Laura lomer. 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.
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Hello friends and welcome to episode 392
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this is the last episode for 2024 amazing. What an amazing year it's been. I love doing a year in review, because it's just fascinating to see how much can happen in a year when you're really intentional about deciding what you want and working through all the stuff in your head that stops you from getting there when we start the new year, which is coming up, there's typically two really big things people start to think about. We start to think about our goals, what we want to create in the next year. And we typically start to think about our health and health, and the goals kind of go together. And before I get into today's show, which is going to share a lot of great information with you about ways to support your health. I want to tell you that there are two things I can do for you to help you in both of those really big focus areas. One, if you're thinking about creating a life you want in 2024 I've got two things to support you. One, join my better than before breast cancer. Membership in that membership, you will find four years of coaching, of downloadable PDFs, of lessons, of workshops, of every program I've ever created. So better than before, breast cancer includes the four pillars of breast cancer recovery. It includes my 90 days of wellness. It includes becoming you 2.0 and it's got all kinds of other great bonus content inside of it. It literally has everything you could possibly need to change your mindset around any area of your life, to give you some guidance, to give you some new ideas and to help you work through your thoughts. And in addition to that, it's got an amazing community of like minded women who are focused on creating a life that's better than before breast cancer, we've got live group coaching. You have access to private coaching sessions with me, and you have access to discounts on more private coaching sessions when you're one of my members. So go to my website and check that out. It is an incredible investment to make in yourself, and say, I'm going to commit to a year of coaching, a year of support, a year of intentional living, amazing. The second thing you can download my program creating a life you love in 168 hours a week. This program is phenomenal. There's three months worth of lessons in it. There's downloadable guides that have prompts that help to get you thinking, to help you be intentional, to help you understand the difference between having a goal and becoming the person you want to be. And when you download that program, you get to listen to my intentional living in 2025 workshop. You get that bonus audio to hear what that workshop was all about, and you get the guide for that workshop, which is an incredible bonus. This, I can't even tell you the value of starting a year on purpose with the intention of clearing through the thoughts that stop you from creating what you want in your life, and give you a guide to get there. And then another thing is, if you want to focus on health, my friend, you've got to go to my website, the breast cancer recovery coach.com and sign up for a metabolic health coaching package. Get your nutrition genome done. Understand the blueprint of your body, understand how your body responds to lifestyle, to food, to sleep, to toxins, to all the things, so that we can work together to create a very specific program that supports your genetic makeup. The Complete metabolic health coaching also has labs in it, and these labs help us see where your genes may be expressing and blood what your blood work is telling us about that so that allows us to hone in even more on creating a program that is specific to you. This is not about taking a bunch of supplements. This is not about following some wacko diet. This is about learning the language of your body so that you don't have to go through all the confusion and buy all the books and wonder if you should eat this way or that way, you'll actually know. So my website, the breast cancer recovery coach.com, at the top, click on coaching and programs, or where you're watching this YouTube video or listening to this podcast, scroll down and there's the show notes and click on a link that speaks to you. And I would love to support. You in creating a life you love in and the health you want to achieve in 2025 All right, that being said, let's start off with this show. So when we come to a new year, I cannot help but start to think about how many people want to change their health, and how the first thing that comes up when we want to do that is a diet, right? We start thinking about a brand new year. We start setting some goals. We want to feel healthier, we want to feel energized. We want to be in tune with our body. And for breast cancer survivors, honestly, you know, when it comes to metabolic health, the stakes are high for everybody. We live in a country, in a world where metabolic health is broken and it's got to become a priority. And I'll tell you, couple weeks ago, I had a meeting with my oncologist, and I just love him. We had a great conversation, and he said to me, he says, you know, my pet scan came back, my blood work came back. My blood work is beautiful. My tumor markers are lower than they've ever been in four years. My pet scan showed only activity in that one lymph node, and it was decreased activity to the last time that we looked at it, and as we were talking about this, and remember I started when I met this oncologist, this man said to me, I'm prepared to hospitalize you, right? I had cancer
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everywhere, my femurs, my hips, my pelvis, my spine, my ribs, my shoulder blades, my forehead, my chest was full of fluid, and five and a half centimeter tumor in my lymph nodes, hot mess, and now, more than four years later, I'm sitting in his office, and he said to me, as I was leaving, ignore this PET scan. Don't even give it another thought. I'm not worried about it, and I don't want you to be worried about it. I want you to go have a wonderful holiday and keep doing whatever it is you're doing. He said, there's no question in my mind that the healthy lifestyle you live is the reason why you're doing so well. And he used the word thriving. It's the reason why you're thriving. And I said, I agree with you 100% and he said to me, you know, we are starting to incorporate. We go V ozempic, semi glutide, these GLP one inhibitors into cancer care, and you're going to see more and more when people get diagnosed with cancer. We're going to start prescribing these GLP one inhibitors, because we've realized that if people can be at a healthy weight, they're going to do so much better in treatment, and they're going to have better outcomes overall. Well, I mean, that was not a surprise to me. It was not rocket science. And on the one hand, great that they're finally recognizing that a healthy weight is vital to a healthy life, a healthy metabolism is vital to our healing. Great that standard of care is recognizing that. But dang it, I wish you would have said to me, you know, we're going to start giving people nutrition and exercise support when they have a diagnosis of cancer. We're going to start giving them coaches that help them understand how to change their behaviors and treat their bodies better so that they can get to a healthy weight, so that they can have healthy lifestyle habits. I really wish we would do that first before we turn to drugs, but at least there's a little shift in the understanding that a healthy metabolism a healthy weight is critical to good outcomes in life. So at least I was happy to hear that part of it, and I didn't argue with him about getting people nutrition coaches or dieticians or nutritionists. And I Well, no, I'm not even going to go down that road because I don't want to criticize anybody. But I was happy to hear it the way that went. And so today I want to talk to you about something that I want to clear up confusion about that I want to share with you because it's so important, it can make such a huge difference in your health. And that not only means getting to a healthy weight, it means it is a different metabolic state that can benefit and support the health and healing of your body. I know you've heard me talk about it ketosis, being in a state of ketosis, and I want to emphasize right now that that does not necessarily mean eat a ketogenic diet. And not everybody needs to be in a high therapeutic state of ketosis, depending on your goal, that will shift what you want to do with your diet. There are different levels of ketosis, some we can get to pretty easily with simple carb restriction and a healthy structure diet. Now, eating a ketogenic diet is more than just carb. Acting it is incorporating a certain amount of fat, right? And so there's a little bit of difference, and that gets you into a higher state of ketosis. That's something that I focus on. And my clients who have active cancer or are going through treatment go into this way, ketogenic way of eating, and using that in intermittent fasting to get into ketosis, because it benefits them so much, as far as reducing side effects from treatment and the results they just see overall, in their labs and in their scans and in their quality of life, okay, but I'm not saying that you have to follow ketogenic diet. So don't turn off the podcast. All right. You also do not need to be a biochemist to follow along with this. I'm going to make it very simple. I want to help you understand that this is not about an extreme diet. This is not about eating piles of bacon and cheese, which so many people think it is. The metabolic state of ketosis is about helping your body use its natural fat burning abilities to support your weight loss and to reduce inflammation in your body. Well, it gives you a steady flow of energy and mental clarity. And if those things sound good to you, listen in. So first of all, let's talk about what ketosis actually is. So your body uses two main types of fuel, glucose that comes from carbohydrates and fat. Both of those are sources of energy. Most of us primarily run on glucose because it's the fastest fuel source for your body to burn, but when you reduce your carbohydrate intake, your body starts looking for an alternative energy source. Our bodies are so smart, our bodies are not going to say, Whoa, there's not enough carbs, there's not enough glucose, I'm going to starve to death. Nope, it's going to find a workaround. Our bodies are extremely intelligent, and when that happens, when your body turns to using fat as its primary source of energy, you begin to make molecules called ketones, and ketones serve as a clean, efficient fuel for your brain and for your body. So before we can talk about burning fat, let's quickly go over how your body handles glucose. So when you eat carbohydrates, your body breaks them down into glucose. Glucose is then used for energy, or if we have more energy, what is a calorie? A calorie is a measurement of energy. So if you eat something that's got 30 calories, that's a measurement of energy, right? So that energy comes into our body, and then our body says, Oh, well, I'm kind of sedentary right now, and I don't really need all that energy, but let me hang on to it for later. And so it puts it into storage, and it stores glucose as glycogen. So think about glycogen as kind of like a battery pack. Right? Glycogen is stored in your liver and in your muscles because your body can get quick access to it and tap into it whenever it needs energy. But here's the thing, your glycogen stores are limited. The average person can store about 500 grams of glycogen, and then it's often depleted within 24 to 48 hours if you eat very few carbohydrates or you engage in intense activity. So once glycogen is gone, your body has no choice but to find an alternative fuel source, and that's where ketosis comes in. Or food, right? You can eat and put more glucose in, or you can let the body start to become fat adapted. So let me tell you the difference between what glycogen depletion is using the stores of glycogen or the glycogen that's stored in our muscles. Our muscles are going to access that for energy, the glycogen that's stored in our liver, our liver is going to access that to give energy to the body. But it's important to understand that glycogen depletion and being fat adapted. If you've heard that phrase, right, people who follow ketogenic diet also will normally say, like, I'm fat adapted. Those are not the same thing. Okay? Glycogen depletion happens quickly, usually, like I said, within 24 to 48 hours of having low carbohydrate intake. So it's like your body is running out of easy fuel. Fat adaptation, on the other hand, takes time. This is when your body becomes very efficient at burning fat and ketones for energy instead of just relying on glucose. This process of becoming fat adapted can take two to six weeks of consistent carb restriction to get into this state, into the fat adapted state, once your fat adapted. You'll notice steady energy, fewer sugar cravings, improved endurance, the ability to consistently have energy throughout the day. It is literally like this upgraded form of a short term battery, which means using glucose to a long lasting solar panel that's consistently giving you energy. Let's talk I've talked about carbs and fats, but let's talk about protein. So of course, protein also plays a role in this transition. Macro are big macronutrients, protein, fats, carbohydrates. When I say carbohydrates, I know most people think of bread, right? We think of bread, sugar, flour, pasta, we think of refined carbs, but vegetables and fruit are also carbohydrates. Nuts have carbohydrates in them. Many foods have carbohydrates in them. Okay, so
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when we're thinking about carb restriction, we do want to limit the amount of carbohydrates we ingest, but we want to make sure that that carbohydrate source is coming from nutrient rich sources like vegetables. Okay, so when glycogen stores are depleted because you're following a carb restricted way of eating, your body starts to use your protein through this process called gluconeogenesis, and it produces smaller amounts of glucose for essential functions, but if you consume too much protein, that can lead to more glucose production than your body needs, and then that can slow down this transition to get into This metabolic state of ketosis. So on the other side of that, eating too little protein can cause muscle loss, which we absolutely do not want. So the goal with protein in the diet is to seek balance, to find enough protein to maintain a healthy muscle mass, which is so important, but also to make sure that you're not eating so much that it disrupts your fat burning process. Okay, why would I even talk about this? I don't care if you're skinny. I mean, skinny does not equal healthy. I want you to be healthy. I understand that those of us who have had a cancer diagnosis, we have different needs, and we focus on different things than a healthy person who never had a cancer diagnosis, because different things we put into our body can affect the diseased state cancer cells, right? So often have this conversation with people who come to me and they have a cancer diagnosis and they have a naturopath, and they'll tell me some things that this naturopath is asking them to do, that I know from my studies with Dr nation, winters are not things that would be asked in the metabolic approach to cancer would not be asked of someone with a cancer diagnosis, because it's a potential fuel for cancer. And I'll ask these people, is the naturopath you're working with someone who specializes in cancer care? In nine times out of 10? I'll hear no when it comes to someone recommending something that I know can fuel cancer, right? So I always recommend, if you're going to work with a naturopath that says, support you, especially through cancer treatment, or afterwards, make sure this person understands the hallmarks of cancer and the metabolic needs of cancer, because they are different. So ketosis. Do people use it as a biohack? Do people use it for weight loss? They absolutely do. But why is it important? And why do I want to share with you the metabolic state of ketosis, specifically for our community of breast cancer survivors. One, it helps to starve cancer cells, so many cancer cells, including some breast cancer types, thrive on glucose. We think about, let's think about the diagnoses we hear for breast cancer, hormone positive, triple negative. What's triple negative? Triple Negative means it does not respond to or grow in the presence of progesterone, estrogen, or the her two new protein right? So if you have triple negative breast cancer, and it doesn't grow in response to hormones. What's going to be one of the big drivers? This is oversimplifying, because cancer is very complex, but what's going to be one of the big drivers that you have control over glucose, right? So by lowering blood sugar and insulin levels, what is insulin a growth factor? What is sugar? A fuel? Blood sugar, glucose, a fuel. We put the fuel in in high levels. Let's say if we have high blood sugar, or consistently high blood sugar. Every time we do that, we elicit an insulin response. What is insulin a growth factor? Right? So ketosis makes. Harder for cancer cells to grow and survive, because we're keeping insulin levels low and consistent. We're keeping glucose levels low and consistent, not non existent. Because they can't be non existent. We need those. The hormone insulin does lots of things in our body. Glucose is super important for our body. We must have them. We're not trying to eliminate them completely. We can't, because our body in the process of new glucose neogenesis, gluco Neo Genesis, will make glucose right? So we're never not going to have some glucose. We want to keep it as low as possible. That is what happens when we can achieve the state of ketosis. Also in a state of ketosis, we can reduce inflammation. So chronic inflammation is another factor in cancer progression and recurrence. Ketones, especially a ketone that's called beta hydroxybutyrate. You've probably heard of that one BHB, have very anti inflammatory effects, and that can support healing and overall health for all people, not just people in the cancer population, but we know that chronic inflammation is a key to cancer progression and recurrence, and therefore we want to do something that's going to help to reduce that inflammation, and getting ourselves into a state of ketosis. Can do that balancing hormones, hormone receptive positive breast cancer. What do we want to do? We want to manage estrogen levels. It's crucial estrogen, not just because estrogen can be a fuel for estrogen positive cancer, but because if our body has trouble with methylation, detoxification, oxidative stress. It may not be efficiently and effectively moving estrogen breaking down, estrogen and detoxifying out of what's out of our body. And so estrogen can be hanging around for a long time, breaking down, and the more it breaks down, the more toxic it becomes. So we've got to be focusing, you know, a lot of people, when I work with them, on their 3x four genetics, and we're looking at nutrition genome, they want to know, is it testing for braca? Is it testing for ATM gene? Check two Lynch syndrome? And the answer is no, those are things standard of care looks at, because those are things that science develops targeted therapies to address, and those are things that are really focused on in the medical world and can really increase chances of specific cancers. But what we don't realize oftentimes is when we're looking at our nutrition genome, things that also include that risk is, is our body detoxifying effectively? Is it methylating effectively? Is it breaking down estrogen effectively? So estrogen isn't hanging around, becoming very toxic and creating damage to our DNA. So this is an important thing to think about. Being in the state of ketosis, especially for hormone receptor positive cancers, is crucial, because it helps regulate insulin and it can help reduce body fat. This is why people go into ketosis to lose weight, why they go into ketosis, which is the state of burning fat for energy stored fat on our body, right energy stored on our body. And what happens is when we have a lot of excess body fat. Guess what adipose tissue? Fat tissue does? It produces estrogen. So when we're in a state of ketosis, it can help to reduce body fat, because we're teaching our body access the stored energy on me, and when that happens, it can lower estrogen production from fat tissue and support our body's ability to have better health outcomes.
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Ketosis improves brain health. Many of us deal with chemo brain after treatment and menopause, right go if you've gone into chemically induced menopause, that sucks if you have chemo brain. That sucks if you go through the afternoon and like, at two o'clock in the afternoon, you're thinking, I literally cannot think straight. I can't focus on anything. I can't think straight. I've been there. I've had that happen. Ketones provide a clean energy source for the brain, and I will tell you that when I started the process the protocols of intermittent fasting and getting into a state of ketosis, the one thing, well, there's two things that stood out the most to me. One, I had no more brain fog, and for me, that was miraculous. And the second thing, I had no more bloating, and for me, that was also miraculous, right? I went, I don't get bloated anymore, I don't have heartburn anymore, and I don't get brain fog. And that was fantastic. And the state of ketosis helps us get to that place. So those are some benefits. There's more, and we can go into that. There's more about how being in higher levels of keto. Says actually rebuild our immune system. Being in a state of ketosis helps to clear out cells that aren't functioning properly. It helps to support the white blood cells and the functioning of them in our body. It really does a lot of amazing things. So, you know, I think it's kind of been a disservice that the ketogenic diet went out there as just a weight loss thing. So now, when we hear about the state of ketosis, we're just thinking about weight loss, but I want you to start to think about it in a way of a healthy metabolic state of being okay, so how do you get into ketosis? People say to me, Oh, I have to follow ketogenic diet groves. I don't like meat. I don't want to eat a bunch of cheese. The first thing is, lower your carbs, right? Keep your carbohydrate intake under 50 grams a day. Focus on non starchy vegetables and foods. So lots of green leafy vegetables, lots of cruciferous vegetables, spinach, zucchini, broccoli, cauliflower, big, beautiful salads full with lean proteins and healthy fats and avocados all the good things, right? Fresh, delicious things. Now for some people, restricting their carbohydrate intake to 50 grams or fewer a day will drop them right into ketosis, not for me. For me, it's harder. My body has lots of genetic snips that affect the way my body processes and uses glucose and insulin and various other things that happen in the process of digestion. So for me, it's tougher, and I have to keep my carb intra at my carb intake at 20 grams or lower that start at 50 and start and you can actually eat a lot of food. You can get lots of veggies and lots of good food in you for 50 grams of carbohydrates, I think. And we definitely want to avoid sugary foods, bread, pasta, starchy foods. So we have to think about carb restriction. And I hate even using that word restriction, because as soon as we hear it, we start restriction, discipline. I don't like it, so change the word to whatever you want. Just say, I'm choosing to only eat 50 grams of carbohydrates a day. Leave. Let's leave restriction and discipline and the all the ugly words out of it, right? Make it a choice, a choice that's good for your health and what you want to achieve.
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This is not about eating tons of fat. It's about including intentionally healthy options, avocado, olive oil, coconut oil, nuts, seeds, fatty fish, salmon, mackerel, sardines, including medium chain triglycerides, which come from coconut oil, or, you know, we have these exogenous ketones, the beta hydroxybutyrate ketone salts, things like that I talked about. So it's not about eating a bunch of cheese and bacon and sausage and the things that people normally think about when they hear ketosis and they think ketogenic diet. One of my favorite cookbooks is called Clean keto. It's delicious. There's two. My top two, I'll link to them in the show notes here. Squeaky Clean keto and the new Mediterranean diet. Because Mediterranean eating sands, the carbohydrates, if you're leaving out the quinoa and the couscous and things like that, or at least most of it is very much beautiful as a ketogenic diet, lots of olive oil, anti inflammatory foods, plant forward, right? A ketogenic diet, a healthy, well constructed one, a diet that helps to get you into a state of ketosis can be very plant forward, okay? Protein, so again, let's talk about protein. It's important for maintaining muscle mass, and it's very important, especially if we're a menopause, to maintain muscle mass, but we don't want to have too much protein, because it can produce more glucose and it can keep you from getting into a state of ketosis. So shoot for around 20 to 30% of your daily calories from good protein sources, like chicken, fish, eggs. You can even use tofu. Just check the carbohydrate content. If you're going to do that, it does not have to be all about eating a bunch of red meat and eating a bunch of steaks all the time, right? Especially because of the saturated fat. So depending on how your body processes fat, you might want to avoid eating lots of red meat. Maybe you love red meat, and that's totally fine, and you feel good eating all red meat. It's okay, but we just want to be cautious of how much protein, and seek that really lovely balance of enough protein so our body can thrive, but not so much that it keeps our body from making ketones. So as your body shifts into this state of ketosis, into this healthy metabolic state, you lose water and electrolytes. Ch, two, oh, carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, right? What's H, 2o, water. So carbohydrates come with water. They hold on to water. We hold on to water in our body. So when we. Move into a way of eating fewer carbohydrates, then we tend to lose water. So as your body shifts into this state of ketosis and you start to lose water, you will also lose electrolytes, potassium, calcium, magnesium, these are our electrolytes, and they're in the fluid of our body. So we want to stay hydrated. We want to add sodium, a pinch of sea salt to a glass of water, a little salt on your salad or your food. Potassium. Get it from lots of leafy greens, magnesium from nuts. You can get it from supplements if you want. I always say food first, but we want to make sure we can even use electrolyte replacements like lmnt is a really popular one, and put some electrolytes into a glass of water so that you make sure and maintain good electrolyte balance. I personally like to take Epsom salt baths and just soak up all that delicious magnesium and goodness, especially when I'm in a high state of ketosis. Another way to get into a state of ketosis is fasting. So a recommendation by Dr nation Winters is for every healthy person to fast for 12 to 16 hours a day every day. When I talk to people about fasting, oftentimes they get scared and they're like, I can go without food. That sounds really that's a lot to work their minds around. But if, if we stop and think that if you finish dinner at 7pm right? You're finished eating, like, let's say, dinner, dessert, whatever it is you're gonna eat, you finish by 7pm and you don't eat your first meal of the day until 11am the next day, you've got in a good 16 hour fast, and that does a lot and benefits your body in so many ways, you you should be showing signs of ketones by that time, because your body has been supported in moving into a fat burning mode. Now it's 12 to 16 hours, not 24 to 48 so you may not have depleted your glycogen stores. And depending on how much carbohydrates you've eaten and how much energy is stored on your body, all that's going to affect it. So it's going to affect it, so it's going to be different from everybody. This is just a general guideline. Now, there are tools you can use to see if you're in ketosis. Some people like to use urine strips. I don't think that's very effective, but what it can do is show you if there's ketones in your urine when you wake up in the morning, which if you fasted for 12 to 16 hours, it's likely there might be some ketones. The important part, really is that you use something called like a Keto Mojo or a blood ketone meter. And so these things can you prick your finger, you put a little drop of blood on a strip, and it'll tell you your glucose, and it'll tell you your ketones. So even if you have low blood sugar, low glucose, you don't know if you're in ketosis, unless you've tested for ketones, and that can be an important thing, because, let's say, if somebody has trouble with glucose management or blood sugar issues that are pre diabetic or even diabetic, then you don't want to have deep, steep blood sugar glucose drops if you're not producing ketones, right? So the both forms of energy, and if they both drop, then you've got no energy. That's a problem. We want to be fat adapted so as one drops, the other one comes up, and we maintain a balance. And we know that by using measurement tools. Now I use a continuous glucose monitor. I recommend it for a lot of people, because for some people, they're like, I don't really want to get in ketosis. I'm not really interested in getting in ketosis, and that's fine, but I suggest see where your blood sugar is, understand how your body responds to food and a continuous glucose monitor. A link to the one that I use here in the show notes. Is called a it's by Dexcom. It's called stello, and the reason I use it is because it's super affordable. Many continuous glucose monitors were like $250 a month or more, whereas stello is, if you subscribe for one month, it's $89 you get two meters each one lasts 15 days, and in one month, you can learn an awful lot about how your body responds to food, sleep and stress as far as your glucose goes. And you can do it for a couple months if you want. But I find that to be really affordable, and I find the data to be invaluable, so especially when someone is considerably overweight is showing signs of being in that pre diabetic state. In standard of care, they call it pre diabetes. In the metabolic health it's either you're insulin resistant or you're not, right, so you're either diabetic or you're not but that's not how standard of care looks at it, because they have requirements. They have to be for insurance to then give medication to people to treat diabetes, right? But we're looking at optimal health. So I think a continuous glucose monitor helps you to achieve optimal health by understanding how your glucose responds to different foods. But even using a glucose monitor and the stello, the range goes from set blood sugar of 70 up to 140 and in a metabolic health. Especially a metabolic approach to cancer, we want to see people's glucose from 55 to 85 while they have ketones. That's an important thing to remember, right? So even if you're trying to get into a deep state of ketosis, a CGM can show you some important information on your way there. But if you're really focused on producing ketones, then I recommend those strips, because that's the only way to really know if you're making ketones. So moving on, one of the things you may have heard of when you talk people talk about being in ketosis or or carb restricting is that they get what they call the Keto flu, and this can happen in the first few days or the first two weeks of transitioning into a state of ketosis or into reducing the amount of carbohydrates in your diet. Keto flu can be things like headache, irritability, fatigue, and it can be caused by electrolyte imbalance. So it's really important to stay hydrated, consume electrolytes, making sure you're getting some salt in the water, or you're taking electrolytes and to eat enough healthy fats so that your body can support you during this period of time. When I go in and out of ketosis, I don't experience this anymore. But when you start transitioning, your body starts to access those fat stores. And lots of times, we store toxins in fat, right? And we have, I see a lot of people that are genetically predisposed to inflammatory fat cells, and so we may be dealing with some inflammation. We may be dealing with some toxin release, which is another really important reason to stay well hydrated and keep moving, to get stuff out of your body as you reduce the amount of carbohydrates, and you start to release these things from being stored on your body. Okay, but once you move into that being fat adapted, once your body learns how to use fat for fuel, and your fat adapted. Here's some of the things that you may start to notice, very steady energy throughout the day, very few sugar cravings, if at all, really helps to reduce cravings. Much easier. Weight loss, especially on the belly. It is amazing what carb restriction and being in a state of ketosis and being fat adapted will do for belly fat. Okay, thinking clear, better focus. These are some of the big things that I see. And for my clients who are also in treatment, what they report back to me, and this is IV chemotherapy treatment, what they report back to me is when they're in a state of ketosis, they often notice they have a lot less fatigue from treatment and a tremendous amount less nausea, right? So that can be super important. I mean, definitely, if it's only just adjusting your food for a few days to see if that will benefit you, gosh, I think that that is worth it. So there's a good question, is it worth it? Is ketosis, right for you, ketosis is not one size fits all. It doesn't work the same for everybody. It's not a solution to everything. So you've got to consider your individual needs. If you're an active treatment, if you're managing some kind of a serious medical health condition, I highly recommend that you work with a doctor who is trained in metabolic health, right consult a healthcare professional, take care of yourself and be safe. What I'm talking about here on this podcast is not medical advice, and it should not take the place of what your oncologist tells you. And you should speak to a doctor about how do you manage this? Because being in treatment for cancer and taking very serious drugs, that's a big deal, and you want to have licensed, knowledgeable, experienced support. Okay, you're worth that investment. So for many breast cancer survivors, especially after you're out of treatment, you're trying to get back to how to feeling good. Ketosis can be very sustainable. It can be a very effective strategy for maintaining Weight Loss and for reducing inflammation. So I hope that helps you get a little clearer picture of what ketosis means. There's so much more. There's books and books and books and books on ketosis and what it means. And I say on ketosis, remember, I'm not saying on a ketogenic diet. On ketosis. In fact, I will link to a book that I think has just about every question you could ever ask about ketosis, and you can get a tremendous amount of information understanding from that. And I always recommend that you make an informed decision. But this, if you're looking into the new year, you're one of your main goals, and if you're in my community of breast cancer survivors, I gotta believe that your main priority is going to be health. This can really be a great way to support yourself to achieve your health goals for the new year and to help you make consistent forward. Motion into lasting change. It's not about perfection. It's not about I never could eat another piece of cake again. No, of course not. It's about lowering carbohydrate intake, eating whole nutrient dense foods, listening to your body and taking a step towards really being empowered and in charge of your health. If you are ready for that and you're ready to give it a try, click on some of the links in the show notes for this podcast. Grab the book the metabolic approach to cancer. Grab the book on ketosis that's linked here, and come to my website, the breast cancer recovery coach.com, and get your 3x four genetics done, get the metabolic health coaching, understand your body and free yourself from the confusion and overwhelm of how to get healthy. All right, friends, have a wonderful, happy, safe, joyous new year
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