October is right around the corner.  As it gets colder here in the Midwest, I am definitely reminded of the change in seasons.  I am most excited about my new task of spreading the word about the power of nutrition in the fight against breast cancer.   You have all seen my progress, blog development, items that are moved around, Twitter, Facebook, and on and on.  As I keep learning the ins and outs of this, my mission remains strong.  And so it begins, in 3 days!   What is it?  Watch closely and subscribe as we make October 2009 a month to remember.  Empowering you in your fight against breast cancer!

So all this hub bub about cancer survival rates and the time frame given to you after diagnosis - What does this mean to you? 

Don’t let it mean a thing!  Hope  – Positive thinking – An I’m-gonna-kick-this-attitude, can get you a long way.  Besides there are really no individual survival rates – these rates are used in research and research involves groups of people.   Not individuals.

As hard as it may seem, live your life.  Love yourself.  Don’t let yourself be concerned with the survival rates people tell you with your diagnosis.  No one knows what the future brings. 

 So why not be positive – cancer hates positive attitudes!

Look around you…not just right now but what you have been around throughout your day or week.  What is your stress level, are you anxious?  On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the best…where are you at with your nutrition?  Are you getting any exercise?

These are important questions to ask yourself.  It has been shown that our environment and lifestyle choices greatly affect our risk of getting breast cancer and recurrence.  Therefore it is essential to look at your environment and decide what you can change or what you must change.  By adding in exercise, achieving a healthy weight and consuming a less processed diet you can significantly lower your risk of this disease coming into your life. 

I look forward to helping you achieve a better sense of wellness to improve your life!

Since we are on the topic of processed foods, I wanted to see what someone else says about them.  So I spent some time recently reading Michael Pollan’s book, “In Defense of Food” where he discusses fortified processed foods.  Basically these food items are robbed of their original nutrients through processing and then fortified to contain whatever the trend is at the moment  - no trans fat or saturated fats, more omega 3 fats, vitamins, minerals, etc.  This results in a fortified processed food which is at times plugged as being a healthier choice than it’s original whole food?   Confusing! 

We see this many times throughout our TV commercials or shopping in our grocery stores.  When you go shopping, how do you decide which one is best?  We need to put less focus on specific nutrients, instead looking at the big picture of whether these food items are whole foods or processed foods.

So keep these little tidbits from Michael in your nutrition kit to help you choose wisely: 

 *Don’t eat anything your great grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food.

*Don’t eat anything incapable of rotting.

Here’s to the rest of your weekend filled with foods your grandmother would recognize!

Processed foods.  The unfortunate side to most of our days that can mess up our attempts at good health and nutrition.  As we try to ”keep up” with our day to day routines, it seems that choosing processed foods becomes our regular choice.  This will continue to threaten our health until we really get a grip on it.  Remember, the choice is yours.  Adding weight, increased cancer risk, more inflammation, increased heart disease risk, more fatigue and the list of problems goes on and on.  Processed foods rob us of essential vitamins and minerals, that protect us from illness.  I challenge you to take a look in your pantry, fridge, desk drawer, kid’s lunchbox, snack drawer and make some decisions about how you can un-process your diet.