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3+Essential+Steps+GuideCancerprevention
3+Essential+Steps+GuideCancerprevention
CANCER RECOVERY
AND PREVENTION
Effective nutrition & lifestyle changes to reduce
cancer risk + feel better faster after treatment
www.FlourishAfterCancer.com
WELCOME!
It is my soul-purpose on this planet to educate women on how to truly FLOURISH after
cancer treatment with evidence-based high-quality information that works for THEIR life.
Not Sandra down the street. Not Krista on the internet. But to truly teach her to
understand her own body and exactly what she needs to do and how to do it in order to
live her best life after cancer.
Wherever you are coming from in your cancer journey, I promise that by following the
information I’ve listed out for you here, you will begin to see a transformation that will lead
you to feeling more empowered and in control of your health, as well as help you to reduce
your risk of cancer ever coming back.
They ask their doctors what they should do to keep cancer away and are told to “just eat
healthy and exercise”. So they get back into their typical pre-cancer routine and push
through their day with the hopes that eventually their health will return, struggling for
months and sometimes years to regain their energy, stamina, and happiness.
Or, they hit the books. They dive into doing their own personal research, trying to figure out
what “eating healthy and exercising” really means. They search for everything that they can
do to feel better and ensure that they never have to go through cancer again. Often these
women make (or try to make) A LOT of changes. In their search for support they come
across plenty of conflicting advice, become overwhelmed with all they feel they need to do,
and sometimes feel more tired and frustrated in the process than they did before they
started looking!
If you’ve finished (or almost finished) your cancer treatment and you’re ready to feel
amazing energy, to be empowered with the right information that works for you AND your
family, to have more confidence in your health routine and future…if you’re ready to run
around with your kids or grandkids again, to be focused and present with your spouse, to
travel with your friends, and to enjoy food…then read on!
I’ve put together in this guide some of the most pertinent changes that have worked for my
clients with their overall health and reducing cancer recurrence risk. These are your
essential first steps to reduce cancer risk and feel better faster after cancer treatment.
After years of believing getting cancer was “just genetics” or “bad luck”, we’ve come to
understand that there is more to cancer than meets the eye. This is due to our identification
of the 10 Hallmarks of Cancer - 10 traits that cancer cells have that are inherent to all the
different types of cancer.
09 Become immortal
So, no matter if it is breast, ovarian, liver, blood, or colon cancer, these 10 Hallmarks are
present within these cancer cells. Day after day, month after month, and year after year,
normal (healthy) cells interact with what you encounter in your day and pick up these traits
in their progress toward becoming cancerous.
Now, this can all sound very scary, but there is a bright side. Because we’ve identified these
Hallmarks, we can change them. We can change what we encounter in our day to prevent
these cancerous changes from happening and we can reverse them, and by doing so you
can take an active role in your own cancer recovery and prevention.
Cancer is smart and resourceful - it will use anything and everything to acquire all these
Hallmark cancer changes to become full blown cancer. That’s why it’s important to
address your cancer prevention and healing with a multi-prong approach to block these
Hallmarks at all angles. In opposition to the 10 Hallmarks of Cancer, I developed my 6
Pillars of Cancer Prevention. These pillars are a guide to allow a proper whole-body
approach to discourage the 10 Hallmarks from all possible angles.
*Epigenetics (the study of how our environment can influence our genes)
When we find balance in these 6 key areas of our health, we create conditions within the
body that block and discourage the 10 Hallmarks of Cancer from taking place and/or help
to reverse any that have already happened. We create an environment that is inhospitable
to cancer. Not to mention optimize the overall function and health of your body so you can
feel amazing too
In this guide, I’ll touch on two of these important pillars, Nutrition (Essential Step #1) and
Mindset (Essential Step #2).
Although I could go on for days about ways to decrease one’s cancer recurrence risk and
recover faster after treatment using nutrition, lifestyle, and other whole-body approaches,
I’ve put together my TOP 3 ESSENTIAL FIRST STEPS to get you set up and on the right
track.
They are:
1. Fuel Your Recovery & Balance Blood Sugar, Don’t Focus on Anti-Cancer Foods
2. Take Action To Emotionally Thrive, Don’t Take Action To Kill Cancer
3. Investigate, Personalize, & Strategize Your Own Plan
Continue reading as I go more in-depth with these concepts and give you actionable
strategies to begin today to make a difference in your energy and happiness, and to take
steps toward reducing your risk of cancer recurrence.
ESSENTIAL STEP #1
Fuel Your Recovery & Balance Blood Sugar, Don’t Focus on Anti-Cancer Foods
Too many times, people focus on eating foods to “kill cancer” or “starve cancer” when in
fact the focus should be on rebuilding and strengthening the body. Instead of hoping that
kale will kill cancer cells, let’s think about strengthening the immune defenses, as well as
fueling the repair and energy-boosting processes in the body so that they can help you to
stand strong against cancer.
Most of the research that says specific foods are cancer-killing is performed in petri
dishes or animal models, and these are not designed to apply the same way in the human
body. These research methods are employed to investigate a mechanism of action - HOW
cancer cells die, not IF they die.
It is very easy to kill cancer cells in a petri dish or a mouse, it is not as easy to kill
cancer cells in a human,
I’ve spent many years in a lab doing research in petri dishes and animals and I killed a lot
of cancer cells, many times just by mistake (oops!). And, here is something to know…if
you applied bacon to the petri dish or mouse model of cancer cells in the same way many
“cancer killing” foods are, you will see that bacon also kills cancer (imagine the
headlines!).
What are two big reasons why so many different eating styles have been shown to share
a common goal of reducing cancer risk?
1) they include lots of vegetables that give antioxidants and nutrients to
protect against cell damage, and 2) they lower blood sugar.
Lowering blood sugar is important for cancer prevention and recovery. High blood sugar is
known to:
Raise insulin, a pro-growth hormone that in excess can stimulate the growth of cancer
cells.
Stimulate a pro-inflammatory response that can encourage many of the 10 Hallmarks
of Cancer to take place.
Dampen the immune response. Your immune system is your body’s #1 defense
against cancer. The lower your immune response, the more likely cells with cancerous
potential are to slip by.
Create unstable energy for you throughout the day. If your blood sugar is high, it is
likely to eventually crash. A blood sugar crash will zap your energy and leave you
feeling not so great. The more balanced your blood sugar throughout the day, the
better balanced your energy.
Here is an important note that I don’t want you to miss out on…to lower and
balance blood sugar, this means that you don’t have to fit into a specific
diet to successfully keep cancer away.
One of the hardest things to see in the women who reach out to me is how distraught they
are over how to feed themselves for cancer recovery and prevention AND keep their family
happy with their food choices. On top of that, they are wondering how to eat well while
combating their own food cravings and desires. They are often afraid of eating for fear of
what food may do to cause their cancer to grow.
Get enough protein. Consume at least 1g/kg of your bodyweight in protein daily. For
example, if you’re 70kg, you’ll need 70g of protein. This will have to be modified if you
have moderate to severe kidney damage, but is a minimum requirement for the average
person going through or having gone through cancer treatment. Protein is an essential
building block that is part of all the energy-making and repair processes in the body. You
need a lot of it to fuel all the damage and repair that happens during treatment.
Carbs are ok in small amounts. Consume carbs at only 20-30% of your typical daily
calories. In a 2000 calorie diet, that looks like 100-150g daily. Too many carbs can
raise blood sugar.
Balance blood sugar. Ensure you always have a combination of Protein, Healthy Fat,
and/or Fiber (PHFF) on your plate. Examples…apple (fiber) + almond butter (protein,
healthy fat), salad greens (fiber) + olive oil-based dressing (healthy fat) + chicken
(protein), snap peas (fiber) + hummus (fiber, protein, healthy fat) + protein shake (protein)
Focus on dark colored fruit. If you want fruit, focus on berries as they are higher in
antioxidants for combatting DNA damage, as well as fiber for balancing blood sugar.
Consider the quality of food. The quality of your food (which could be the topic of a
whole other guide!) is important - go organic, pasture-raised and grass fed when
possible. But if this means you skip out on eating meat and veggies because you
can’t get good quality food, then I’d rather see you eat non-organic and non-grass-fed
food. You need the fuel, that’s what’s most important.
Click here to download a 7-Day Cancer Recovery Meal Plan with recipes that are designed to
balance blood sugar, encourage healing, and diminish cancer-promoting inflammation.
Although I could go on for hours about nutrition for cancer recovery and prevention, let’s move
on and dive into Essential Step #2: Take Action To Emotionally Thrive, Not To Kill Cancer.
Not only is cancer and cancer treatment a physical burden on your body as it damages
tissues, encourages inflammation, and overall disrupts your physiology, it is also an emotional
burden. The stress that cancer brings from diagnosis onward can often feel too great to
overcome.
The trauma of changes to your body and having your future unknown, the pain experienced
during treatment, the time lost to treatment, the fear of food and figuring out what you can
eat, the confusion about what you can do to optimize your health and keep cancer away…it’s a
lot, to say the least.
The research is starting to build a case that stress can be a factor in worsening cancer
prognosis and survival rates. Numerous articles have shown that people who report lower
levels of stress tend to have better outcomes from treatment.
1. The circadian rhythm (your sleep and wake cycle involving melatonin and cortisol)
2. Blood sugar regulation
3. The immune & inflammatory response
4. Gut health
5. Gene expression
Let me ask you this…How many times have you said (out loud or in your head)...
Do you see a common theme here? Cancer becomes a large part of your vocabulary. And of
course it does, it has completely disrupted your life!
But to move forward and to lessen the grip that cancer has on you, it’s important to start
training the brain to “think positively”.
I know it doesn’t feel this way right now, but your cancer recovery and prevention goals
should NOT be all about cancer. A lot of the changes you’ll make are going to help your body
to function better and you to feel better overall. Healthy changes are important for cancer
prevention, but also for preventing other diseases, healing side effects from treatment, and,
very importantly, living a great life with those you love.
This way of thinking I’m suggesting to you won’t come naturally and you will have to practice
and keep at it for several months before it becomes second nature. We human beings are
naturally programmed to dwell on the negative.
Manageable step-by-step changes (too much at once will overwhelm you and
unmotivate you - accomplish a small step before moving on to the next).
When you feel your feel-good reasons for healthy changes in your bones and once you
become more practiced in positive thinking, then the changes really take off. You have more
mental clarity, energy, and motivation to continue on with more and more improvements. You
may even find joy in the time spent prioritizing your health.
This all plays a part in helping you to feel safe again and to reduce the impact of stress on
your body, thereby helping you to reduce cancer recurrence risk.
ESSENTIAL STEP #3
Although I’ve covered two essential steps that were necessary steps in the cancer recovery
and prevention plan for all of the women I’ve worked with thus far, a big point I want to
hammer home is that just because you had the same cancer and/or treatment as someone
else, doesn’t mean you need the exact same recovery & prevention strategy.
One part of exploring is doing a deep dive to assess objective markers of health and look at
comprehensive blood work that investigates parameters like blood sugar regulation,
inflammation, immune health, cancer markers, organ health, toxic burden, hormones, and more.
In addition to blood work, other specialty testing may be beneficial in certain cases to look at
aspects like gut health (stool test), epigenetics (a cheek swab), and heavy metal testing (urine
test preferred). Having all this information can help give a very comprehensive picture of your
underlying physiology, and therefore your health strengths and weaknesses.
1) helps to formulate a simplified plan based on YOUR unique cancer strengths &
vulnerabilities, and
2) helps to monitor progress along the way and gives you feedback to let you know if
you’re on the right track.
This information gives you confidence by knowing what is strong and healthy for you (trust
me, there will be parts of your health that are working great!) and directs energy, time,
money, and brain power into what is truly important for you to reduce your recurrence risk
and feel your best.
To help you with formulating your plan, click here to get a list
of tests that I commonly recommend for my patients.
To highlight the information I shared and to help you with understanding more about how it
can be applied in cancer recovery and prevention, I’ve outlined “Michelle’s” journey (the name
has been changed for privacy).
Michelle was 42 years old and 6 months post-chemotherapy and still in radiation treatments
when she came to work with me and my team.
Michelle was really overwhelmed. She was a go-getter so she had done her own research
after not getting the detailed support she desired from her medical team. She was taking 6
different supplements and had stopped eating any meat, which was a problem for her
husband and two teens who weren’t a fan of vegetarian meals. Her energy was rated at 4/10,
she wasn’t sleeping through the night, and she suffered from gas, bloating, and uncomfortable
bowel movements. She said that she “always feels inflamed”.
Her goals were to do her part in reducing the risk of cancer coming back, and to
learn what she could to help nourish her family and keep them healthy for as
long as possible.
With Michelle, our first steps were to gather a full health history - we asked her a bunch of
questions about digestion, sleep, exercise/movement, her nutrition, emotional stressors,
potential environmental exposures, residual symptoms, family medical history, and more. We
asked for copies of her blood work and tests over the last 6 months.
With this information in hand, we ordered more comprehensive blood work, a gut health test,
an epigenetic test, and we started to identify areas that were leaving her more vulnerable to
health imbalances and cancer recurrences.
While we waited for the new test results, we began focusing on nutrition, sleep, and stress.
Michelle and I identified her sleep issues being from overwhelm, worry, and racing thoughts. So
we started some mindset adjustments, sleep hygiene changes, and recommended regular deep
breathing exercises. Her stress was also playing into her digestive distress, as chronic stress can
slow the movement of stool through the intestines, as well as change the gut microflora.
Her blood work identified that her vitamin D was low, her iron was slightly low, and that her
immune system was slightly unbalanced (too many neutrophils, not enough lymphocytes and
overall a low/normal WBC count). However, her inflammatory markers, blood sugar and
insulin, and other vitamin levels were great.
Throughout her 6 months working with us, we did a few additional follow up blood work tests
to continue to monitor her WBCs, vitamin D, iron, and health markers to ensure our
recommendations were making a difference.
And here’s the beautiful part…At the two month mark, Michelle’s energy
became 7-8/10. At 4 months, she started sleeping through most nights and
her gas/bloating disappeared and she could comfortably have a daily bowel
movement.
She had the motivation and energy to take her kids to their sports practices on weekends and
evenings after work. She started to have more stamina and feel like herself again. She felt the
“cancer pressure” lift off her shoulders and gave herself permission to relax in her new,
simplified plan. It’s now been a few years and Michelle is still cancer-free and feeling great.
What I’ve shared with you is just the very tip of the iceberg, and if you’re looking for more
evidence-informed resources on how to truly thrive after cancer treatment, I’d love it if you
connected with me in my Facebook group, “Getting Your Health Back After Cancer” and/or
followed me on Instagram @MeganBernardND. I have many resources there that expand upon
what I’ve shared with you here.
If you’re wanting to take even bigger steps to reduce cancer risk and feel great, check out my
library of information over at www.FlourishAfterCancer.com/resources. Between all the extra
videos and written content, I’ll teach you more about blood sugar regulation, stress reduction
strategies, blood work and testing, and the rest of my 6 Pillars of Cancer Prevention. Learn
simplified but effective ways to feel amazing, get back to running around after your kids or
grandkids, and feel confident that you’re doing everything you can to ensure cancer doesn’t
come knocking again.
CONNECT WITH ME
@MeganBernardND Getting Your Health Back After Cancer
After supporting hundreds of women through their diagnosis and treatment and
then hearing about their lack of satisfaction with post-cancer care in the medical
system, she decided that something great had to be done to help these women to
regain control of their future and to feel their best after cancer.
Once treatment is finished, the medical system kind of just spits you out and you're
left on your own looking for how to improve your energy and chances of staying
cancer-free. It's a big world out there full of misleading information and it isn't easy
to navigate and find what actually works.
So instead of having people bounce around from one fad diet or bad nutrition tip to
the next, Dr Bernard developed her step-by-step educational system that teaches
you how to optimize your health and prevent cancer recurrences - without restrictive
diets and bad lifestyle advice.
Dr Bernard has been published in several scientific journals for her work in breast
cancer and the immune system. She has a Bachelor of Health Science, a Masters of
Science, and a Doctorate in Naturopathic Medicine, all having a focus on cancer.
Her broad education gives her the skill to combine the best of conventional
medicine and holistic knowledge. Most importantly, Megan has a passion for
helping women to make realistic and effective nutrition and lifestyle changes to
prevent cancer and helps them live their best lives.