Written by: Kathryn White, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
If you’re currently living with cancer, eating a healthy diet can be a great place to start supporting your healing process both during and after cancer. Healthy eating is very important for supporting your body and goes a long way towards rebuilding your health and even living a disease-free life. Therefore, to truly live the best lifestyle possible, it is important to start eating a more healthy diet. And, as they say, it is never too late, and there is no time like the present.
Get rid of the temptations
A great first step when you want to start eating your way to health is to rid your home of all temptations that will distract you from following better eating habits. Ideally, it would be wise to keep junk foods and beverages out of your house so as not to be tempted to snack during the day. If you’re worried about getting hungry, keep healthy snacks like carrot sticks, yogurt, fresh fruit, or whole-wheat crackers on hand.
Learn what your body needs
Another great step to healthy eating, when you’re first starting the process, is to take a few moments to learn what foods are the healthiest for you and how they work within the body. To start eating healthily, we must begin by thinking healthily. Most people understand that fruits, vegetables, low-fat meats and grain products are good for you, but few people understand why. The key is learning if you are living with cancer. It is important to know what you can and can’t eat and why. When you understand how specific nutrients work and why you need them, it becomes more reasonable for you to make healthier choices for your body. Knowledge really is power!
Consider meal planning and meal prepping
Preparation is a major key in starting a new healthy lifestyle. You need to take into consideration your schedule for meals, what is good for you, and what you are able to eat, especially if cancer treatments are wearing you down. If you often eat in a hurry at odd times of the day, you are probably more inclined to grab a rushed meal, which may not be as nutritious as you need right now. So plan ahead! Instead of grabbing a fast food lunch on the go, take a bagged lunch to work or prepare your lunch the night before, so it is ready to reach for if you are at home. One way to solve this problem is to plan out your meals for the week. You can do this, or you can get help from a meal plan program or from a coach who focuses on nutrition and cancer.
Change is a process
Initially, you may find it difficult to make those necessary changes to healthier eating. Along with the difficulty of change, you may not know how to implement new eating habits. Start with baby steps. Even if you only replace one soda a day with a glass of water, you are really improving your physical health. If you eat fast food every day for lunch, try replacing that half of the time with better quality foods until you are no longer eating fast food. When you start by taking small steps, you aren’t cutting out all of the foods you love all at once. Remember, it is a process, but it is a very important part of the healing process.
By taking your time to learn about your eating habits and slowly replacing them with better meals, by taking the time to learn and understand why you should be doing that and making the necessary changes in an orderly fashion, you will feel much better within yourself physically, mentally and emotionally and well on the road to becoming as healthy as you can be.
If you are ready to make some changes and to get support, come work with me in my 3 Month Cancer Support Coaching Program that I offer to help people living with cancer, whether you are actively in treatment or are moving into the next stages of reclaiming your life. Working with a Cancer Support Coach is the key to moving beyond just surviving and into THRIVING in life. Go to my website and grab all the details.
I am currently running a Free 3-day workshop, Thrive with Cancer: moving beyond just surviving, once a month so that individuals living with cancer can access my strategies, get to know me, and get some insight into what working with a Cancer Support Coach looks like. It is open to anyone who is living with cancer, is living life after cancer, or is a caregiver. You can register for my workshop here.
Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit my website for more info! You can also tune into my podcast, Living to Thrive with Cancer, on Spotify.
Kathryn White, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine Kathryn White is a Cancer Coach with a passion for serving others. In 2015 Kathryn was diagnosed with Stage 4 Colon Cancer. Almost 7 years later she is living a happy and healthy life which she attributes to her amazing medical team, her belief in her ability to rise above her diagnosis, significant lifestyle changes, and the love of her family.
Kathryn merges her experience with cancer with her former profession as a public school teacher to coach others living with cancer and cancer survivors on how to reclaim their health and happiness. At the heart of her coaching is the belief that we are not our diagnosis and that with the support it is possible to navigate life with cancer.
As a trained teacher, Certified Nutrition Educator, 500 Hour Registered Yoga Teacher, and Certified Holistic Cancer Coach, Kathryn integrates nutrition, movement, mindfulness, and other healing modalities into her coaching. The integration of these modalities truly makes Kathryn's Cancer Coaching a body, mind, and spirit-focused process.
Kathryn has taken her experience and knowledge and shared it with others through workshops and speaking events, where she strives to inspire others to make lifestyle changes that can build health and prevent dis-ease in the body. She is the host of The Living to Thrive Podcast, which is focused on educating people on how to be more health-full and stress-less. Kathryn has built her life with cancer around the mantra: Live to Thrive.
