Episode Overview

Have you ever felt like sugar just calls your name? You’re not alone—and it’s not just about willpower.

In this episode of Better Than Before Breast Cancer, I share fascinating insights from reviewing the nutrition genomic reports of 20 breast cancer survivors. What I discovered is that most of them had genetic tendencies that made managing blood sugar harder and also patterns linked to impulsive or reward-seeking behaviors. When those two things combine, it explains why cravings can feel so powerful.

We’ll also talk about why sugar isn’t just candy or dessert, but includes refined carbs and hidden sugars in everyday foods, and how sugar impacts not just diabetes risk but also cancer growth, inflammation, and your overall terrain.

You’ll learn:

• Why sugar cravings run deeper than willpower

• How cancer cells use insulin and glucose receptors to fuel growth

• Why your brain is just as involved in sugar cravings as your pancreas

• The 5 S’s framework—five practical steps to calm cravings and stabilize blood sugar

This episode will give you a new perspective on your relationship with food and empower you to nourish yourself with confidence and trust.

👉 Listen now and start taking back your power around sugar.

Explore more support:

• Better Than Before Breast Cancer Life Coaching Membership: https://www.thebreastcancerrecoverycoach.com/lifecoaching 

• Take the free Sugar Challenge here: https://www.thebreastcancerrecoverycoach.com/sugar
   

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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.

0:33
Hey there, friends. Welcome to Episode 427

0:37
of better than before breast cancer. I'm your host, Laura Lummer, and we've got some really great stuff to dig into today. You know, as a person who has been managing cancer in my life for 14 years now, little over 14 years, and metastatic disease coming up on five years, next month will be five years since my stage four diagnosis and coaching women for eight years now, there's something that is really frustrating, and that is the fact that there there's no cure, right? There's no cure. There's no one, not in standard of care, not in the naturopathic world. There's no one anywhere who can just say to you, here's the thing, take this, and you'll be fine, right? It's not like a Z pack. I'm going to have an infection of some kind here. Take this, you'll be good in five days, right? We don't have that. And cancer is really complex, and every individual body is really complex, so there's so much that goes into it, and different things work for different people. So this is why I think there's so much confusion and confusion and the fear, because of the confusion after a diagnosis or when you're trying to hopefully prevent any kind of recurrence, I think that's just a big part of this journey, and it can cause a lot of suffering. One of the things that really stands out to me, something that I'm so grateful for, that I believe brings clarity to this to the table, is when I started learning and following the metabolic approach, and I started learning about lab interpretations from a metabolic health perspective, from a terrain point of view, when I started learning and studying and getting trained in nutrition genomics and the interpretation of nutrition genomic reports and what that meant, I found these things to be so fascinating because it landed with me in such a way that said, Oh my gosh, this is the language of the body. If we follow this, if we look at our nutrition genomics, if we look at our labs, then it clears up a lot of confusion, not maybe everything, but it clears up a lot of confusion because it helps us understand exactly what our body needs. So if somebody is saying, Oh, here's this this vegan plan, and here's this paleo plan and here's this carnivore plan, right? And everybody's got an idea, and isn't that one person is right and one person is wrong, because lots of these different approaches have worked for someone, which is why someone got really excited about them and then wanted to share them with the world. But what it comes down to is that not one approach works for everybody. So even if the metabolic approach is exactly that, the metabolic approaches is, what is your metabolism? What does your body need? How does your body work? And then test, assess, address, test again, because the body's always shifting. Everything's always shifting. So I bring this up because I want to talk with you about something that's really important today. And it really does come back to bio individuality. It comes back to understanding the language of your body. So one of the things that I think everyone is aware of when it comes to supporting our body's ability to heal and be in an optimal an optimized state of health is to manage our glucose and insulin, manage our blood sugar, manage our insulin. Now, when we say that, a lot of people think about diabetes, we go straight to diabetes, and I don't know that we really have grasped that understanding, like the general public. I say we that really grasped how important this is from a lens of supporting your wellness and reducing risk of recurrence or supporting better outcomes if you're living with disease when it comes to cancer. So I want to share with you something very interesting that started to stand out to me. So I would do the nutrition genomic reports for my clients. And it was so valuable. It is so valuable, and they got so much out of it. People would start to ask me, Can you do this for. My family members, and then, of course, friends and family of mine wanted to have them done, which I love to do, but something started to stick out to me, and I started to see with my clients who already had a breast cancer diagnosis, there were some really fascinating commonalities in what I would see in their nutrition genomic reports. And I looked at those and compared them to some of the other clients I had who had not had any diagnosis of cancer, and what I started to see was a really interesting pattern with genetics that influenced the way people's bodies handle glucose and insulin, but also the way that their brain works when it comes to

5:51
the foods that contribute to glucose and insulin dysregulation. So I decided to do a little tiny study of my own. I pulled 20 reports from clients I knew to have had a breast cancer diagnosis, and I wanted to compare them all across the board, and 20 was as much as my attention span could handle. So this definitely is not some random demise clinical trial, you know, but it's just me sharing with you some of the things that I saw. So out of 20 nutrition genomic reports for women who have had breast cancer, I found that more than 90% of these women had genetic patterns that made it harder for their bodies or predisposed them right? Because, just because it's your genetics doesn't mean you're experiencing it, but it's a fascinating thing to see that these genetics were very common, these genetic snips, these single nucleotide polymorphism these variants in their genes which would predispose them to being having more of a struggle with blood sugar and insulin regulation. But in addition to that, a large percentage of them also carried these SNPs, these genetic variants that would predispose them to impulsive behaviors. Yeah, we're going to get into this because this is your brain, right? Your brain is just an organ, and different genetic snips can have an influence on how that organ works, which we'll talk about a little more here shortly. But what I started to notice as I looked at those patterns, I thought, well, this is really interesting, because the combination of having certain genetic variants that may cause your brain to seek rewards, to be impulsive and to even lean towards addictive behaviors. Now, addictive tendencies. Let's be careful when I'm saying addictive, it doesn't necessarily mean drugs, because we don't always have to be addicted to drugs or alcohol, even though, you know that's, I think, commonly, what we think about when we say addiction, food, extra, any kind of thing that we do to such an extent that it feels out of control for us. It's not serving us. It's not serving our wellness, right? An addictive behavior like we feel compelled to do this, even if we're telling ourselves, I really don't want to do this as much or at all. Right? So that's more of the addictive tendencies. So when I looked at this combination, it made me really think about something that I hear a lot, and it starts to make a lot of sense, and then what I hear is, I am completely addicted to sugar. Sugar is calling my name. I can't stop myself. I have had many clients say to me, Listen, before we even start talking, don't ask me to give up pasta or croissants. It's not happening, right? Right? They're very addicted to certain kinds of foods, and that's no judgment in that. I'm saying this is what I see a lot, and I understand it as well. So what I realize is that once you understand how your brain and body work, how they're wired, you can also learn how to shift those signals. So there's a big difference between this is how I'm wired and this is how I want to behave. These are these are the behaviors I want to follow. These are the behaviors that just come up automatically from that organ in my skull, right? That is wired a certain way. So I'm going to share with you later in the show here a framework that I'll call the 5s and what these are five powerful ways that I believe help you to calm cravings, to stabilize your blood sugar, and to just support the optimal wellness of your terrain. So before we go too far into this. I wanted to say that sugar does not only mean candy bars. It doesn't mean adding spoonfuls of sugar to your coffee. Sugar is any kind of refined carbohydrate. So the pastas, white bread, white rice crackers, breakfast cereals, the. These foods break down very quickly into glucose, and they can cause a sharp spike in your blood sugar. And because sugar is added to so many packaged foods under so many different names, many people don't realize they're eating far more sugar than they think they are, right corn syrups and all kinds of dextrins that are added to different things. So even if you think, Well, I don't really eat sweets, or someone who doesn't really eat sweets, it's really important to know that sugar can be very sneaky and can show up in your diet in a lot of ways. So also, what's interesting, let's go back to the idea that your brain is just an organ. One of the things I love to talk with my clients about when we're doing nutrition genomics is when we look at these genes that influence the way their brain works. I like to show them Look at this. This is an organ, and it a certain way, but certain behaviors, nutrition, lifestyle practices, can change the way that that organ works, can rewire it in such a way that it benefits you. And it's important to understand that this organ inside your head, isn't you Right? Like we look at ourselves and judge ourselves a lot of times by thoughts that we have or impulses that we have, and if we can do a little bit of a separation here, and say, Well, hold on, is that me? That's my brain that's offering this to me. But if I'm able to observe it, if I have a level of consciousness that's here, that's saying, I see my brain is offering this impulsive thought, well, then there's a little bit of a separation there, right? And then we can make a choice that can help the brain to develop into a different way. So we don't judge ourselves based on what our pancreas does or what our liver does, like we don't attach that to our self worth, but a lot of times, we attach our brain to our self worth, and we attach our seeming inability to not give in to cravings, do not give in to urges as a part of our worthiness. And it's really, really not the same thing. Okay? So some people, they have a genetic makeup that their brain doesn't effectively recycle things like dopamine. Dopamine is that feel good chemical, right? I'm sure you've heard about it. And so if their genetic makeup doesn't recycle dopamine very efficiently. And what that might mean, or what it might look like in real life, is that when they eat something sweet or starchy, the brain will light up with pleasure, but the effect won't last very long, so the brain wants more, and this can set up a cycle of craving and consumption that really feels like addiction feels really strong. So there was a study that was published in neuroscience and bio behavioral reviews, and that study found that sugar activates the brain's reward system in ways that closely mirror addictive drugs. The authors of that study said that sugar activates neural pathways in ways similar to drugs of abuse, which may explain addictive like eating behaviors. And trust me, I am very familiar with this because I have a family of people who have a tendency to have addictive food habits. And and as a result of that, a lot of extra body weight and metabolic disorders that come from that right that my dad died from morbid obesity and type two diabetes, and it was a terrible, terrible thing to watch. So I'm very familiar with this compulsive eating behavioral pattern. So if you recognize that, and you think, like, I feel like I'm addicted to food or to sugar, well, it's real, right? This is very real thing. So rather than judge it, let's get really curious about let's go wow, that that's fascinating. That's an interesting thing. What does it mean? Let's question it and not judge it or make it a part of the worthiness of who you are. Right? Because cravings are just one side of the story. When we eat a lot of sugar or refined carbohydrates, our blood sugar spikes that signals our pancreas to release insulin, and insulin, in turn, moves that blood sugar into our cells to try to bring things in our blood back into balance. But what became clear when I started looking at these genetic reports, that not only did 90% of these 20 reports, very small little sampling, there have patterns of glucose and insulin dysregulation that they wouldn't was was not working as smoothly as it should be, but their bodies really struggle to keep that in balance. And that's not important just because of diabetes, but cancer cells, including breast cancer cells, literally love to load up on insulin, and insulin like growth factor. IG. F, right? IGF receptors make them more sensitive to insulin growth, promoting signals make these cancer cells more sensitive, right? So there was this study that was published in breast cancer research and treatment back in 1990 and it found that breast cancer tissue had over six times more insulin receptors compared to normal breast tissue, and those receptors were fully functional and active. So now we see the picture shifting little. We hear a lot about sugar, right? Glucose, glucose. People are always talking about, manage your blood sugar, but why? Not only can sugar have its own inflammatory effects and other things it does in the body, but the insulin, piece of it, the insulin that it's always going to trigger when our glucose increases is also a part of this equation. That's really important. There was a study in cell reports in 2023 that found up to 80% of breast cancers over expressed insulin receptors, and that the over expression was linked to more aggressive disease and poor outcomes. In that study, the author said that breast cancer cells frequently over Express insulin receptors, and this associated with this is associated with worsened prognosis. Then there was another in 2023 a study in gland surgery that compared tumor tissue to the normal tissue right next to it, and they found about 30, almost 35% of the cancer tissue had high insulin receptor expression, and that was compared to only 15% of the normal tissue, and the higher the insulin receptor expression, the worst patient outcome. So what does this mean for us in every day in real life? It means that when our insulin is chronically elevated, especially in someone who genetically may struggle to regulate their blood sugar, it doesn't just raise blood sugar concerns the insulin itself can feed and fuel cancer, and that is an important thing to remember here. So sugar isn't just about a temporary energy crash. It isn't just about extra pounds. It isn't just about Will I have diabetes or not? It's about the health of your entire terrain and the internal environment where well being or disease can take root. So the interesting thing here is that the brain and the body are in this together, right? So what is a craving? Why do I want to eat sugar? What is sugar doing? The brain can push you towards wanting that hit because it wants the dopamine. Dopamine feels good, and then the body struggles to manage that blood sugar spike that follows. So what can result from this cycle, inflammation, fueling disease, and that can end up in the cycle that we experience of craving, Spike, crash, craving again, right? We crave something. We have it. It makes us feel good for a little bit, we crash, then we get another craving, because it doesn't feel good be crashed, right? So it can become this really vicious cycle, and it can feel super frustrating. So if you struggle with cravings, it isn't There's something's wrong with you. It's not your worthiness. It's not that you need more willpower. Your brain and your body may literally be wired to make this harder for you, but that does not mean you're powerless. So this is where I want to circle back to where I started this episode with that we can feel confused and we can feel overwhelmed because we don't know what works what doesn't work, and no one can give us any promises of a cure when it comes to cancer. But we do have a lot of power. And why am I talking about sugar in this context? One because of the things that I already showed you that it can absolutely lend itself to supporting the increased risk of disease and poor outcomes for disease, but because it's such a big part of our life, and because so many people struggle to give up or regulate something that can have a huge impact on their wellness. So this is, you know, a lot of people look at naturopathic care, at complementary therapies, at metabolic health therapies, and I hear a lot about this is so expensive, or I can't afford that, or I can't afford this. There's a lot of things that cost absolutely no money, and in fact, probably can end up saving you money that you can do to support the health of your terrain, a lot a lot of free things. I mean, you hear about them on my podcast all the time, but this is absolutely one of them, right looking at the diet and cleaning it up, but not just again, from a place of willpower, because willpower only lasts for so long. Willpower requires energy, and our cells in our body only have x amount of energy. We. We're constantly feeding and hydrating and trying to revitalize that energy, exercising, sleeping, doing the things that give us more energy. So when we've had a hard day, when we're stressed, when we don't feel well, when we're in pain, we don't have enough energy all the time necessarily to facilitate or turn to willpower. So we've got to look at things from a different way, and have a strategy and a plan to support us, instead of going into judgment. And why do I do this and telling ourselves that we're powerless? If we can step into our power in some simple areas like this, and if we can understand that some of us, and I am definitely in that crowd, have genetics that are kind of working against us, then we have to figure out how to work with them. Okay? So you can start to shift the signals in your body by using some simple framework. So I mentioned the five S's. These are five powerful ways that you can start to calm your cravings, stabilize your blood sugar and support your terrain, one the first one structure your meals. So every plate, you know, we we're really into snacking in the United States, we're just grabbing things. I remember when I worked in the corporate world, everywhere you walk down the hallway, there were these little like plant stands with candy bowls on top of them. You walk by people's desks. I mean, in the kitchen area, there was a break room where I worked, and that became like the dumping ground for everybody's leftover desserts. You know, holidays and people had parties and they'd bring the leftover cake and the candies and the cookies. I mean, just sugar everywhere. And so when we're not thinking about it, and we're just it's easily available and ready. We just grab handfuls as we walk by things sometimes, right? And we don't even realize how much we're taking in or why we're eating. We were not even hungry. So if we start to think about meals in such a way as the meals are what sustain us, meals are when we start to feel hungry, and our body is saying, I need some more nourishment right now, right? But the snacking, this is just a habitual thing. I can I'm I'm willing to stake a lot of money on the fact that most of us reach for a snack just out of habit, just because it looks good, just because it sounds good, and 99.9% of the time has absolutely nothing to do with hunger. So that's dysregulated behavior pattern, right? So let's think about meals, the 5s structure. Meals number one, every plate, every time you eat. Think about it in terms of having a well balanced plate in front of you, protein, fiber and healthy fat. Those together every time you put something in your mouth, have those three together so it slows down. Blood sugar spikes and crashes. So when we spike blood sugar, then we release a lot more insulin. But if our blood sugar is nice, and even then, our insulin isn't going to go out of control. So let's say, for example, you want to have a piece of fruit. Well, fruit has a lot of sugar in it, so when you're having that fruit, maybe you cut it up even berries. I have lots of clients, again, as you can see from what I just told you, there's a lot of my clients I work with are very sensitive to all kinds of sugar, and fructose in fruit is sugar. So they'll come to me and say, I don't understand, I had like a half a cup of berries, and my I was out of ketosis, and my blood sugar went up because their body is very sensitive to it. So maybe can only have a quarter cup of berries. But when you have those berries, drizzle them with heavy cream, have them with a piece of cheese, have them with some nuts, right, something that has more fat in it to help regulate and so that that anything that goes in your mouth is structured and always has a healthy fat and fiber along with it. Okay,

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spotting hidden sugar is as number two. You gotta read the labels, and you have to watch for sugar in disguise, corn syrup, maladextrin, cane juice, agave, honey. These are sugar guys. I know people like well, they're natural, and we think that all natural is good. Well, natural is sugar and sugar is sugar. And I had a client recently who was really upset, really frustrated. She's trying so hard. She has active cancer, and it's metastatic at stage four, and she is trying so hard and so committed to her program, but what she was doing was putting honey in a couple beverages throughout the day, and she could not understand why she was slipping out of the metabolic state she wanted to be in. And when we looked at how many carbohydrates were in that honey and how that sugar was affecting or there was the key. Right there. It's a simple fix. So you may be like, oh, man, I can't have honey. I'm not saying you can't have honey, but everything we eat, it has to have be taken into context. What is the goal with the food? I've talked about this before. I have active stage four metastatic cancer. My goal with food is to heal my body. So do I have to be much more restrictive than maybe someone who does not have any active cancer in their body has a healthy overall lifestyle, and they can have a little bit more sugar or honey in there to eat here and there, sure. So we have to take things into context. This is not about restriction. This is about understanding the language of your body, what your body responds to and what your goal is with the way you nourish yourself. So our first 2s structure your meals and spot head and sugar. Our second one is stimulate healthy rewards. So you gotta find new ways to light up your brains feel good chemistry. Now, a lot of people that have, let's say you're thinking, Well, how do I know if I have these snips? Well, I don't need to tell you. I don't need to say you have this and you have that, and you have this. Tune into yourself and and know your brain and know your body, and listen and say, You know what? I do have a tendency to be impulsive, or I do have a tendency like, for instance, I'll tell you one of my weaknesses. I haven't had this in years, and God help me if I get around a bucket of it. But I love to go to the movies, and I would love to have cattle corn drenched in butter so you got the sweet and the salty and the fat. Oh my god. Oh my god. I can't stop myself. I went by this bag of kettle corn, and I would say to the kid, you know, that's buttering the popcorn. I'm like, so can we make sure and layer the butter in so, like, there's a ton of butter on this popcorn, right? We would get into the movie theaters, and my husband could reach over and take, I don't know, two, maybe three, bites of the popcorn, right? He'd take a little handful, and then he'd be done. And I would be like, how, how are you doing that? If this bag is in front of me with buttery kettle corn, there's no stopping me, right? So I know this about myself. I know this about myself. I know this about myself when it comes to white truffle potato chips, when it comes to Trader Joe's cookie butter, these are things I can never have in my house, because I know me, and I know how my brain works. I know that some people's brains can have a little bit of something and then they're very satisfied, and my brain cannot. My brain says that's good, give me more. So we've got to really know ourselves, and then we have to understand if our brain needs more, feel good chemistry, to satisfy it and calm the tendency to have urges, and calm the tendency to have these impulsive behaviors, then we've got to be really intentional about inviting joy into our life, because if we don't fill ourselves with intentional, healthy joy, intentional, feel good chemistry, we will have more cravings, and we will probably try to resolve and buffer those cravings with Food that probably isn't serving us. So what does that look like? What do you love? Exercise, music, time in nature, laughter, connection with friends, reading a good book. What do you love and how much do you do it? Painting, drawing, crafting, surround anything, right? What do you really love that makes you feel so good and so happy? And then look at your life and say, am I inviting these things in? Am I really intentional? Really intentional about making sure that I'm seeing my friend at least once a month, right? Because time goes by fast, we get busy. Am I? Am I intentional about making time to see my kids or my family who live out of state, like, where am I intentionally? And that means on purpose bringing joy into my life. Where do I on purpose turn on music when I'm making dinner right? Where am I bringing in joy? The more you can do that, the more that you can stimulate healthy rewards, the more you help to rewire your brain in a healthy way, away from cravings that aren't going to serve you all right, stress, less, sleep more. That's kind of two S's, but it's under 1s categories we've got, structure your meals, Spot hidden sugar, stimulate healthy rewards, stress, less sleep, more. High stress and poor sleep will put your cravings through the roof. So you have genetics that predispose you and push you towards cravings and you're under stress or you are not focused. On good quality sleep. Forget it. That's exactly what causes those kinds of snips, those kinds of genetic variants, to express themselves. What does express themselves mean? Just like us, when I'm expressing myself, I'm talking out loud, the more I express myself, the louder I get. Right? Same with our genes. So there are things that cause them to express themselves in ways we don't necessarily like. There are things that cause them to quiet down their expression, lowering stress and improving sleep. Are two of those things, so intentionally. Again, comes back to intention, making sure you've got relaxation practices commit to better sleep hygiene. I'm sorry to say, for those you love to fall asleep to the TV, that is not a good thing to do, so we think about quiet, silence, peace, winding down, cool environments, dark environments, good sleep hygiene, a routine and a consistent time before going to bed when we can align our circadian rhythms that our genes love, that they love it so much. It's like, oh, I'm taking good care of you. I'm doing exactly what you need so that this body can feel good. Our genes love that. And here is the biggest, right? The biggest This is like the big bonus s number five, stay consistent. Consistency is everything perfection. Forget it. Throw it out the window. No one is perfect. No one will ever be perfect. Things will happen. Things will come up. We'll skip meals, we'll get sick, we'll have parties, we'll have all the things life will happen. And let life happen. Life's amazing.

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Consistency means that you just keep showing up for yourself. Then we drop the judgment that if we went, oh my god, I binged on a box of Krispy Kremes yesterday. That was yesterday, right? So stay consistent with how you support yourself and just get right back to it. So waiting too long in between meals that you're so hungry that you make poor choices when you eat. Those kinds of things, if they happen too often, that's where we kind of get out of balance. So really nourishing yourself regularly, intentionally, I could go on back to intention. Intention. Do this on purpose. Nourish yourself on purpose, and show up for yourself consistently. A lot of times, people say to me, I can never have this again. I can never have that again. And I just like, No, you know, consistency, again, context, right? Oh, no, I'm coming up with some C's too context and consistency. Because what's the context? What's your body going through right now? Does it need more support right now? Do we have to be more intentional right now? Are you being consistent? And how consistent you know? Is it 80% of the time you're consistent? Is it 90% is it 50% where are the opportunities here for you? All right, so let's review one more time. Structure your meals and think about meals like, let's say no to snacking. Let's really consciously when we reach for a snack, say, am I hungry? If not, why would I be putting food in my body? Think about that spot hidden sugar. Really be aware. Sugar is in everything. It's insane. Stimulate healthy rewards, intentionally invite joy into your life every single day. Stress Less, sleep more, stay consistent. These are five powerful things you can do, and they don't cost a penny. In fact, if you can stop snacking and you can cut out sugar, and you can really be intentional about when you're hungry, you probably save money because you'll be buying a lot less food. I went years ago. I remember marveling when my husband and I both started doing fasting and intermittent fasting and a little more extended fasting, and really changed everything up and followed, you know, a very low carbohydrate diet, and became very intentional about, you know, my whole food plan to support my healing. We cut her grocery budget in half. And that was shocking to me, because I already thought I had a great diet, a great nutrition plan, but when I really stopped and looked at what my body needed and what served me, not only did I save money, I lost 75 pounds. Okay, so these things don't cost anything. These are powerful things you can do to support yourself, and they're completely free. Does it make them easy, not all the time, but they are powerful, and they'll work for you at no cost, all right? So you think about the five S's. Think about that as a road map for calming cravings, for creating a nice, stable, calm, internal environment that supports your healing, right? So remember. Find yourself again when you the language we even use, like I can't stop eating sugar, or sugar is calling to me, think about the language and even say to yourself, well, that's interesting that I decided to use those phrases with myself. What if I just, instead of saying I can't stop eating sugar, I went, wow. It's interesting how often I'm compelled to eat sugar, that's fascinating. What if we just start moving out the judgmental because I can't stop eating sugar. That's kind of a self judgment, right? It's very limiting. It's saying you have no power, like a substance has power over you, right? So we think about the context in which we talk to ourselves, and can we change that? Can we use more supportive language? Because even that brings more joy and less stress, right? Beating ourselves up and being judgmental, that's stressful. So your genes, in your brain and in your whole systemic regulation patterns, they may influence you. They may have a pull on you, but you are the captain of the ship, and you can make choices that will calm those cravings. All right, so follow the 5s start to change the signals of your body and create more stability and a healthier train. And I want to say to you, go to my website, the breast cancer recovery coach.com, and get my five day sugar Challenge program. This is not a stop eating sugar for five days. This is a let's really look at your brain and understand the way your brain is driving you. It's completely downloadable. You have it for life. You can do it over and over. It's simple, but it's a loving, heart centered approach, and a curious approach to why we make the choices we make, and to increase our awareness about those choices and to make conscious and intentional decisions about how to switch them, even if our body is kind of wired to work against us, right? So we're going to rewire the body All right? So there's a link to that in the show notes for this episode. You can go straight and check out the sugar challenge, or just go to my website, the breast cancer recovery coach.com, where you can see all of the different programs. And of course, my better than before, breast cancer, metabolic health and mindset membership, where together we explore all mind, body, energy, everything that you need to love yourself, build yourself, compassion, muscle, understand how to nourish yourself and support creating a life that is better than it was before. A breast cancer diagnosis and knowing that you have all the power to do it. Alright, get all that information on my website and come and find me on Facebook and Instagram. Laura Lummer, the breast cancer recovery coach, let me know what you think. Let me know what challenges you I'd love to hear. Alright, friends, I'll talk to you again next

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week. You've put your courage to the test, laid all your doubts to rest. Your mind is clearer than before. Your heart is full and wanting more. Your Future's at the door.

38:16
Give it all you got no hesitating. You've

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been waiting all your

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life. This is your moment.