Enhancing Health through Diet, Exercise, and Habit Formation: The Power to Improve Cancer Treatments and Reduce Heart Risks

Is it ever truly too late to enhance our health?

 I promise you'll discover that the answer is a resounding "No!", as we explore the profound impact of diet and exercise on cancer treatment. We'll debunk the myth of missed opportunities and will shed light on how targeted dietary and exercise interventions can drastically improve chemotherapy outcomes for breast cancer patients. Equipped with compelling studies from HealthHarvard and Johns Hopkins, we'll reinforce the idea that adopting a healthier lifestyle, even late in the game, can significantly reduce the risk of heart attack, stroke, and potentially enhance cancer treatments.

Ready to make lasting change? We're making it easy, as we explore James Clear’s powerful tips on habit formation. You’ll be intrigued to learn how minor adjustments can result in profound differences, and how finding satisfaction in these changes can foster a better relationship with our bodies and food. With the additional habit tip - making it part of your identity - we'll delve into the key for creating durable habits. To kickstart this transformation, we'll be sharing 12 delectable Mediterranean recipes that not only tantalize your taste buds, but also contribute significantly to your health. Join us on this enlightening journey, and feel free to share this transformative episode with those you care about.

Articles referenced:

Targeted diet and exercise intervention could improve chemotherapy outcomes for breast cancer patients

Can you make up for years of poor eating?

It's Never Too Late: Five Healthy Steps at Any Age

James Clear: Atomic Habits

Here is the link for what was mentioned in the podcast =)

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Check out the Website: Fit after Breast Cancer

Chapters

• 0:04 Diet and Exercise in Cancer Treatment
• 11:30 Creating Habits for Lasting Change

Transcript

Bettina M Brown: 0:04

Hello and welcome to In the Rising a health and wellness podcast for those going through and those supporting those going through cancer. My name is Bettina Brown and I'm board certified in physical therapy, wound care and lymphedema, and you know, for me cancer is very personal. It's affected my friends, my immediate and my not so immediate family, and therefore I created this podcast and fit after breast cancercom to address the multiple dimensions of our lives during and after recovery. Hello, hello and welcome to today's episode, episode 199.

Bettina M Brown: 0:47

I'm excited, 200 is around the corner and I really wanted to talk about something that sometimes I have heard other people talk about and sometimes I have felt myself, and that's about the concept of it just being too late. Have you ever felt that way? It's too late to be able to put in enough money to retire at 65. You have to work forever. It's too late to build that connection with your spouse. It's too late to build a really meaningful relationship with one of your children after not having been in their life for a while. Or, as I'm aware and what I've observed, you know, there's a lot going on for a lot of people and a lot of disconnect, and so we feel like it's too late to make some of these changes, but I came across an article that I think I needed to hear, and I really was glad that it came out, because I think I'm not the only one that needs to hear it. It is entitled Targeted Diet and Exercise Intervention Could Improve Chemotherapy Outcomes for Breast Cancer Patients, and it's written by Megan Craig, and I will have the link listed below, and the article describing everything where they find out will be in the Journal of Clinical Oncology and is published on September 1st 2023. And so the gist of this is diet and exercise. I will admit I'm a physical therapist, I'm a little bit of a diet and exercise kind of person that I do appreciate the benefit of that, and I also have been a physical therapist long enough to realize that diet and exercise are just like not the topics most people get super excited about. The general public is like, yes, diet is that I'm eating, exercise is walking around my house, sitting in the office, standing up whenever my watch tells me to get some activity in, but not really engaged in a regular activity.

Bettina M Brown: 2:54

Well, the researchers came across something very interesting. So, really, chemotherapy is difficult. It is hard. I have never been through it, but I've worked with so many patients going actively through chemotherapy Chemo. Chemo brain is a thing, fatigue is a thing, exhaustion true exhaustion and weight gain is a thing, and these side effects can really limit your desire and your ability and want to continue and your ability to actually get through the chemotherapy, because it takes so much out of you.

Bettina M Brown: 3:29

And so these researchers were wanting to see if diet and exercise could help make the chemotherapy completion of the journey through a little bit easier, a little bit better. And what they found is, with some regular counseling sessions, increasing their diet with fruits and vegetables and increasing their exercise, they did not notice a huge what they call relative dose intensity, a measure of chemotherapy completion. It was not higher in the group of those with this intervention, but what they did notice, which I felt like was a big aha moment, is that 53% of the women who received this intervention of counseling exercise diet change experienced a disappearance of all invasive cancer cells in the breast, where those that did not have this intervention of counseling diet exercise was only 28% of that group. Now the thing about statistics and I have taken statistics like five times and I am not a statistician, I admire the people that love to look at all these different tests and I am a data junkie, but it is a lot, you know you have to really evaluate. Well, are the statistics really saying what you want them to say or are they just giving you false hope? But when you're getting a difference between 53% and 28%, that actually means something the statistics say that is actually meaningful. And so what I came away with that, what I gleaned from this, was that, yes, the chemotherapy was the same for both groups of women and, yes, we're all individuals. We have to remember that.

Bettina M Brown: 5:21

But the fact is that your body was still able to clear itself of additional invasive cancer cells because of exercise and a nutrition change, and so this is a huge thing about acknowledging that it's never too late to make a change. Right, we get a cancer diagnosis, or actually way before. Even the idea that you have to go get checked and something looks suspicious and you have to go back, the panic sets in the curiosity of what will happen, and really a lot of us do tend to lean in the direction of worst case scenario and that I have been through a few times and have had immediate family members go through. It's such an emotional journey, ups downs, trying not to read too much, trying not to read too much into everything and wondering is everything already too late? Because whatever is going to be there is there. But I really like that this talked about that. It is never, ever, ever too late. So I wanted to see is this the only thing that ever talked about it not being too late?

Bettina M Brown: 6:38

Regarding your health, and I came across another article from healthharvardedu that said you can still reduce your risk of heart attack and stroke with lifestyle changes and even medications. So you may not have the ability to completely reverse the fact that you just loved that fried chicken and went out partying all through your twenties and thirties or had no quality sleep because you know you had to stay awake to to get to your job, just so you can get up and party again, but having the ability to make a change today, a change right now, actually created a long-lasting effect. And finally, from Johns Hopkins, they talk also about how it's never too late to change healthy steps, and one of them, step one, is be more active and step two is improve your diet and get quality sleep, et cetera, et cetera, but being active and improving your diet, so it's the same concept. So if changing your diet is something that you're willing and wanting to do, stay tuned to the end of this podcast, because I have a gift for you. We need to change our habits. We need to create some movement, some activity I like the word activity and we also need to create some changes with our nutrition. But for so many of us, just seeing a new diet or a nutrition plan, it seems so overwhelming, like where do you start and how do you even begin with a habit, and so I'm going to emphasize some changes that James Clear from Atomic Habits emphasizes in his book Millions and Millions, millions Sold. And not that millions of books sold means that you're actually any good at what you do, but it tells me that this is something that resonates with a lot of people, and I actually do think James Clear is on to something. I'm on his email list.

Bettina M Brown: 8:49

I really like what he has to say, and he has four tips to create a change, to create a new habit, and that first tip is to make it obvious. So what does make it obvious mean? Well, if it's about activity, well, maybe putting those walking shoes right next to your toilet, right next to your bed, not where you trip on them somewhere, where you have to see them, where you know that there is no excuse to not go, do it. Making it obvious can also mean going to the grocery store and buying those fruits and vegetables and putting some things actually out on the counter for you to see. I've known some people who put huge sticky notes Make sure to bring your water, make sure to drink your water now, and they kind of post it all around their home. But it's making it obvious for them so they don't have to add this to their already swimming mind, full of details and full of items and full of information that we're also deciphering all day long. His second habit or tip that he says, is to make it attractive.

Bettina M Brown: 9:54

Now, exercise may not always be attractive to a lot of people, but really looking into what is exercise and that can be the activity what do you like to do that is fun. I love to go out by the Rio Grande River and and walk the trails there, and one of the things that I've really noticed is that a lot of people are together. They're with friends or family, riding their bikes, rollerblading, running. The people who are doing it on their own exist, but a lot of people do it together. So finding someone to do something with is great and this is where that what we often have called accountability partner comes in, because it's a little more attractive if you're not doing it all alone and if you would like your food to have a little more nutrition in it. It also needs to look good Because, let's face it, if we are really loving our double-decker hamburger with all the onion rings and french fries on the side, that looks really attractive. It does not look as attractive as the zucchini and bell peppers with onions and veggie burger, but adding the color, adding the spruce, putting it on a fancy plate. We are truly attracted to pretty things. Lots of research on how kids will listen to one teacher over another because of their attractive level. So we are attracted like we just take let's, let's just go with our anatomy and our human biology and go with it and know if we make it pretty that we're more interested. We can discuss the nuances later.

Bettina M Brown: 11:30

The third tip from James Clear is to make it easy and this is huge If it's a big deal to clear out your whole kitchen and buy all these new appliances and buy this and that organic and it's expensive, which puts a real huge hit on our finances to do things that we also like. Well, that's not easy. So doing one small change and he talks about that One percent change every single day, will make a huge change at the end of the year. So make it easy for yourself. And when I'm saying make it easy, I have actually spoken to someone for this podcast who said he changed his habits by going to the gym every day. And what I laughed when I heard is that when he meant he was going to the gym when he first started this routine, he meant that he drove to the gym, parked in the parking lot, waited a minute, started the car and left again Like he went to the gym. But he didn't necessarily get out the car and go in and to make that change. But now going in and Working out and being real active is a part of his lifestyle. But that was the small habit he had to make and he admitted that that might be kind of odd to some people, but he knew that would help make him successful, because he had to make a habit of where to drive every day. It was a non-negotiable and so making it easy meant just getting there and starting the journey not from A to Z all at once.

Bettina M Brown: 13:05

And James Clear also talks about making it satisfying. If things are satisfied in In in our, in our brain and in our heart, emotionally, we're just so more apt to connect with that. Same with any relationships. Right, if it's a satisfying relationship, we want to stick around. If it's unsatisfying, we're not sure what the point of it is and we're staying for probably all the wrong reasons. Well, diet and nutrition are also Relationships. We want to build a relationship with our body and feeling good with, with activity. We want to build and create a healthier relationship with food, that it's not the enemy, that it doesn't have to taste like cardboard, but that it can be fun and interesting and it can fuel you as Well as being an enjoyable part of your day.

Bettina M Brown: 13:56

Now I want to add a fifth one to the habit, and this is not what James Clear talked about in his four main topics, but I have noticed this and heard this from many people that I've had chance to talk to you if you want a habit to stay, make it a part of your identity. Now, what I mean by that it's it's hard to say that the phrase I'm a runner, I can tell you that I'm a runner, but if I'm not running, then am I a runner? I'm lying and truly lying is is Seems very easy for some people, a little difficult for others. But lying is not lying about who we are Is very different about, then, lying about what, what we do. If I identify and I do I identify as a physical therapist it's. It's not just what I do, it is part of who I am.

Bettina M Brown: 14:53

And so, as a physical therapist, I need to present myself for the way of of being active and eating well and I need to, more often than not, have the healthier stuff at the lunchroom table. I need to shop differently at the store because I feel, as a physical therapist, that that is a part of my identity. Doesn't mean I don't love a nice big bowl of buttered popcorn at the movie theater, but it is important for me to know of when I'm splurging and when I am actually Doing something on a regular basis. So that identity portion is so important, and Identifying yourself as a person that will never believe it's too late Might be that very first thing that you create as part of your habit. So I hope you felt enlightened by this conversation and know it's never, ever, ever, ever too late to do Something that you believe in. It's never too late to start something, because you don't know how it may change you. We may do the research 10 years from now or 20 years from now, but we do know that movement, activity, aka exercise and a healthier way of eating, is super important for us, and whether we are at that moment ill or we're kind of be probably ill in 10, 20, 30 years if we don't change our ways, it doesn't matter.

Bettina M Brown: 16:26

Now is a good time to create a new habit and as a gift, I want to share with you these 12 Mediterranean recipes. Click that link below and it will be delivered to your inbox. And, as always, thank you so much for your time today. It is very meaningful to me that you spent 20 minutes of your day listening to this podcast. I also invite you to share this podcast with anyone that you believe this message or this podcast in general would be beneficial, for the more hands and ears that we put podcasts like this like in the rising, the greater change and impact we will create in life. And until next time, let's keep building one another up.