From my Mom...

December 2022…. I just finished riding my horse in a lesson with my coach.nn It was Great! My mom had called me the night before and asked to talk to me after my ride that day.  She didn’t say about what, it didn’t seem like anything too bad.  She walked over while I un-tacked my horse and we stepped aside together for a moment.  She told me that she had breast cancer.  She told me about her appointments, her diagnosis and her treatment plan.  To say the least, I was shocked.  This was NOT something I saw coming.  I always saw my mom as one of the healthiest, fittest people around!  She had just turned 60, she was active…. My mind was blown. 

The first course of treatment for my mom was surgery, in february.  She asked if I would go with her - ABSOLUTELY! This would be followed by weekly chemo treatments starting in the spring and radiation later that summer.  She asked if I would be able to help drive her to these appointments - ABSOLUTELY!

So many questions ran through my mind;
HOW could she have cancer? WHAT caused this? WILL I?

What I discovered… an appreciation for life and family.  A realization that nothing is ever a given and time is precious.  How do I want to be spending it and with who?

On one of our trips to the city for mom’s chemo, I joked that she didn't have to “get cancer” so we could spend more time together.  At that time in my life, these words came out of my mouth too much “I am too busy”.  In the face of my mom having cancer, what am I too busy for?

Without even realizing it was happening, my priorities and values started to change.  The perspective I had on my life, started to change.  I started to realize how TIME is so valuable, it’s not a given and YOU CAN’T BUY IT!  Time started becoming more valuable to me than money.

My perspective started to widen and include MORE of my future, including my body in a different way…. Actually considering my body!  What do I want my life to be like when I am 60, 70, 80, 90? What do I want the quality of my life to be like? HOW can I start creating that now?! What do I want my relationship to be like with my kids, my husband, how can I create that with them now? NOW IS THE TIME.

Looking back, I can see this actually started in November 2022, when I started training in Pilates.  INITIALLY this came from the motivation to actually BECOME an Upper level dressage rider.  Not just give lip service to it, but actually start choosing it and taking action on things that will make it a reality.  PILATES! To strengthen and train my body!  Pilates has changed SO MUCH for me in my life (more on this in a future blog).  It was from my pilates instructor that the answers and information I was seeking about CANCER started to come!

It was spring of 2023, mom’s surgery had gone well and she was starting chemo.  Oftentimes I would schedule a Pilates training session while mom was doing chemo.  After one of our sessions, my instructor mentioned a podcast she thought I would like.  It was Dr Mindy Pelz and she was talking about a fasting lifestyle, how you can heal your body by putting it into a fasted state for different lengths of time.  She also was talking about hormones and how they change and affect everything in a woman’s body throughout her lifetime. 

One question I had was “WHAT caused the cancer?” I remember my mom telling me that her tumor was “estrogen”.  What the heck causes an estrogen tumor in women?

WELLLLLLL Dr Mindy Pelz explained it so well in one of her YouTube Videos - Estrogen dominance.  I WAS HOOKED! This is the information I was looking for! I started Binging Dr Mindy’s youtube channel, taking in all the information that I could about fasting and how to start.  I actually did my first 48 hour fast in end of october, 2023.  Previously I had played with intermittent fasting.  18 hours was doable for me.  I started pushing for more and longer fasts.  Armed with the knowledge of what my body is doing in this fasted state!  I knew this was for me and I wanted to start talking about this with more and more people!  I did my first 72 hour fast in December 2023.

Dr Mindy announced that she was launching her first ever “Fast Like a Girl Certified Coach” training in March 2024.  This spoke so loudly to me! I dove into the course, Studying, digesting and absorbing all of the learning.  The science, the hormones, the magic and healing intelligence that the body unlocks in a fasted state is mind blowing.

If my mom had never received her diagnosis would I have ever discovered this? 

It’s so interesting to me to ponder “these things”.

Stay tuned, I will be coming out with a Lifestyle mentoring program very soon where I would be very honored to work with you!