Health & Fitness
Breast Cancer: Prevention and Resources
NutriWell Coaching & Yoga's approach is holistic, guiding people to a balance between mind, body, and spirit. This balance reduces inflammation, reducing cancer risk and mortality.
As we all know, October is breast cancer awareness month. However, as a friend once posted on Facebook, every month should be awareness month because people are diagnosed with breast cancer, and other cancers, every day of every month. Many of you may not know that I consult with Turning Point Breast Cancer Rehabilitation- so an area that I have a passion.
Prevention of breast cancer, what can you do? It’s amazingly simple and complex at the same time. According to the American Cancer Society, our physical activity and eating habits could reduce cancer mortality in the United States by as much as one-third! That’s dramatic! And that’s in each of our control.
What to choose:
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Eat at least 7-9+ servings of vegetables and fruits every day. Choose a rainbow of colors as the variety of colors provides a variety of rich anti-oxidant rich nutrients. This is the loudest message from all research on nutrition and cancer prevention.
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Choose food instead of pills. Supplements may be organic, natural, or even vegetarian, but they are still pills and the research on supplements conclusively in relation to prevention of cancer shows that the pill form of nutrients does not prevent cancers.
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The 2008 Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans minimal recommendation of 150 minutes of moderate-intensity EACH week of physical activity. Is 30 minutes too much time to invest in reducing your cancer risk? (yes or no?) Can you make it 60 minutes some days?
Limit sedentary activity throughout the day, even if you exercise.
Achieve and maintain a healthy weight for your body. Forego the fads where you lose weight and find more. You have to put in a little effort here, but aren’t you worth it?
Limit eating processed meats and animal proteins.
Choose whole grains vs. refined grains. Less processing is less exposure to chemicals.
Limit alcoholic beverages, if you drink.
When your body is healthy it will ward off and fight disease better and may even delay diagnosis so that you have more worry free years. If you want an incredible reference, purchase 101 Things You Should Know About Breast Cancer by Pam Schmid (find at www.pamshmid.com). Pam tells her story of a lifetime of health and fitness, her career of choice even, and her journey with Breast Cancer and now metastatic disease. She provides the facts, not the theories, and the choices we can all make to be healthier at various stages of cancer diagnosis, treatment and survivorship.
