"How you love yourself is how you teach others to love you."
-Rupi Kaur What is self love? Self-love is a state of appreciation for oneself that grows from actions that support our physical, psychological and spiritual growth. How can we practice self love?
When you practice self love, you are loving yourself and your body and this will help you become the most authentic version of yourself.
0 Comments
Many breast cancers are found by women when they notice a lump or change in their breasts. Monthly self-checks can help you familarise yourself with what is normal for you, and help you detect and treat breast cancer as soon as possible. Self-checks, combined with screening mammograms every two years, from the age of 50 play an important role in early detection of breast cancer and increased survivorship rates. Check4cancer is a UK based initiative who has a great resource for self-examination. Please follow the six steps below each month.
Breast cancer is the most common cancer affecting women. It's important to understand your breast cancer risk so that you can start screening at the appropriate time, check your genetics, and reduce your modifiable risk factors. We know that increasing exercise, maintaining a healthy weight, avoiding alcohol and cigarettes reduces breast cancer risk. Taking a personal inventory of your current life style and how to improve your health can not only improve your sense of wellbeing today but can also reduce your risk of breast cancer. iPrevent is a validated breast cancer risk assessment and risk management decision support tool designed to facilitate prevention and screening discussions between women and their doctors. Do a risk assessment now, print the results, and discuss them with your GP today. As a breast cancer survivor I can't help but feel a sense of gratitude each October. Many people now associated October with a pink ribbon. October has for many years, been a month dedicated to breast cancer awareness and raising money to support breast cancer research and resources for those affected. For survivors, it's a moment to pause, reflect, and celebrate life. Breast cancer has transformed into a chronic disease for many women, in large part due the the rapid advances in early cancer detection and the development of new treatments.
Here are three ways to celebrate breast cancer awareness this October: -Support ongoing research by donating to the National Breast Cancer Foundation. - Join us for our free webinar October 16th at 4pm where we will be focusing on breast cancer awareness and self-exam. -Are you between 50-74years old? Have you had your screening mammogram some time over the last two years? If not register today for a free mammogram at one of the 750 locations in Australia. Optimists are people who expect good things to happen to them while pessimists are considered people who expect bad things to happen to them. Researchers have found that optimism has a profoundly positive impact on an individual’s physical and emotional health. In fact, more than a hundred studies have found that overall longevity, survival from a disease, heart health, immunity, cancer outcomes, pregnancy outcomes, pain tolerance all improve with optimism. How do you become more optimistic? Follow these tips suggested by the University of Rochester Medical Centre:
In recent years a lot of emphasis on the psychological and wellness fields has focused on the concept of resilience and increasing resilience. Initial research focused on defining and measuring resilience. Resilience is the process and outcome of successfully adapting to difficult or challenging life experiences, especially through mental, emotional, and behavioural flexibility and adjustment to external and internal demands. A variety of factors impact how well people adapt to adversity. These include:
Let’s be clear, being resilient doesn’t mean you won’t experience life stress difficulty. It just means when life gets difficult managing and moving on from hardship will be easier. The good news is that resilience is not a personality trait that only some people possess. Resilience can be learned, cultivated and practiced. Researchers have found four key areas in your life that you can concentrate on to cultivate your resilience. These include:
Over the next four weeks we will be focusing on one of the four elements that are vital to cultivate in your life to increase resilience. A good night’s sleep is critical to your health and wellbeing. A large percentage of us aren’t sleeping enough. Look at the numbers below. Sleep In Numbers • 50-70 million US adults have a sleep disorder. • 48.0% report snoring. • 30% of adults have short term issues with insomnia. • 10% of adults have chronic insomnia • 3–5% of the overall proportion of obesity in adults could be attributable to short sleep • 37% of 20-39 year-olds report short sleep duration • 40% of 40-59 year-olds report short sleep duration • 35.3% adults report <7 hours of sleep • 3–5% of the overall proportion of obesity in adults could be attributable to short sleep The Impact Of Poor Sleep The impact of poor sleep is huge! Regular poor sleep puts you at risk of serious medical conditions, including: • obesity • heart disease • diabetes • Shortened lifespan In the UK, researchers have found that adults who sleep less than 6 hours a night have a 13% higher morality risk. They also found that adults who sleep less than 7 hours a night are 30% more likely to be obese. Are you not getting enough sleep? Check out one of my wellness series episodes on how you can improve your sleep. I’ve struggled with my weight my whole life. Most recently, I’ve struggled to lose 30kg after gaining that weight from steroids I had to take during chemotherapy for cancer. I thought if you got cancer it meant you’d get skinny. Boy was I wrong! I’ve also seen my patients struggle with their weight, and trying to lose weight to improve their health. I’ve always been open with my patients about my own journey to maintain consistent habits of healthy eating and exercising as I advise them to also adopt these habits to improve their health. I suppose we are in the trenches together fighting the battle of the bulge! Five Truths To Embrace to Help You Develop Better Exercise Habits
May all your days be filled with joy. There are so many diets and healthy eating plans out there. I find it very confusing! Even when I talk to nutritionists I refer patients to it’s become very clear that there are different thought camps on how to approach healthy eating and weight loss. The attitude seems to always be I’m right, they’re wrong. You have to do what I say to lose weight and be healthy. There’s no other way. Having been overweight most of my life, I’ve tried nearly every diet. I’ve done low carb/keto, raw vegan, plant based, intermittent fasting, I’ve had weight loss surgery, I’ve had healthy meals delivered to the house, I’ve done commercial diets like weight watcher and Jenny Craig. I’ve done a 5 days juice cleanse and a 48 hour water fast. I’ve had colonics and used detox tea. I’ve lost and gained HUNDREDS of pounds. I thought when I went to medical school I’d learn everything I needed to know to be thin. I was extremely disappointed when I learned that there is a lot of conflicting research about nutrition and with time new studies come out that dispute past studies. Many of the research studies aren’t necessarily done rigourously. Despite the above confusion I had managed to maintain a 40kg weight loss for a number a years with the help of weight loss surgery and then diet and exercise lifestyle modifications that varied year to year. That was until I got breast cancer and gained 30kg from the steroid loading, lack of physical activity due to fatigue and eating mainly a high carb diet as that’s all my body could keep down due to nausea. When I entered the survivorship phase and first met with a plastic surgeon about breast reconstruction and he told me I had to lose 30Kgs to get breasts again. I was devastated. I thought here we go again! He also told me that I would have to maintain that weight loss for life or could have problems with my surgical scars. I felt like after all I’d been through over the last year of fighting for my life, I didn’t know if I had it in me to start another weight loss journey. I also doubted my ability to maintain a normal weight as I hadn’t ever done it long term before. But I knew being obese increased my risk of breast cancer recurrence…substantially. I knew the stakes were high so I had to try to lose weight. Deeply rooted in the reasons why I wanted to lose weight I began my journey. This time it was different, I think because I felt like if I didn’t succeed I would die. The focus was also way more on lifelong weight maintenance than just getting the weight off. I had to lose the weight but also develop habits I could maintain for life. I again cycled through all of the different dietary approaches. As I did, something liberating happened. Instead of trying to follow each diet to the T, I viewed the dietary approach as tools and principles to apply to my own unique life. I also listened to my body more. What did it need? What types of food and workouts did I drop more weight with? I took time to be still and introspective with mindfulness meditation. What was at the core of the issue? I had to accept that my body could not handle processed foods and sugar well and that I was addicted to sugar. It didn’t matter what healthy eating approach I took, if I didn’t deal with my sugar addiction it would be doomed to fail. Acknowledging my sugar weakness was key to establishing rituals and safety nets to help me make better choices. It was no longer a matter of “willpower”. If cookies were in the house I would eat them, and it wouldn’t be one cookie a day it would be five because of the way my body responded to and processed sugar. In the end I combined weight watchers with intermittent fasting, lowered my carbs, and ate a mainly plant based diet with some occasional chicken or fish. I embraced the principles in the dietary research that were undeniable (fruits and veggies are vital, avoid processed foods) and listened to my body to guide the rest of my choices. This has been my journey. I hope you have the courage to chart your own path, get informed, listen to your body and do what’s right for you. Over the years I’ve learned from my personal experiences and the experience of my patients who have shared their weight loss journey’s with me. During this time a number of truths about healthy eating have become obvious. I will share them with you below. 1. Eating fruits and vegetables is vital to your health
2. Avoiding sugar and processed foods is vital to your health 3.You need a calorie deficient to lose weight 4. Processed foods and in particular sugar impacts the rewards system in brain in the same way as addictive drugs and for many people eating these addictive substances long term in moderation is just not possible. If this is you then self-awareness in this area and avoiding trigger foods will be key to your success. 5.There’s no one size fit’s all model only healthy eating principles to tailor to your specific life situation and genetics. 6. Recommitting to healthy eating every day for the rest of your life in whatever form that looks like is key. 7. The focus has to be on sustainable healthy habits more often than not, not perfect eating habits all the time. 8. Some days you will utterly fail to eat as healthy as you know you should and that’s OK. These are the days that loving yourself unconditionally matters even more. 9. What your diet looks like to maximise your health may change over time as your bodies nutritional needs evolve with ageing. 10. Long term change is possible with consistent effort and there’s power in never losing hope. |
Details
AuthorDoctor Katie is an Australian General Practitioner located in Ceduna South Australia on the beautiful Eyre Peninsula. Born in the United States, she is of Cherokee origin and incorporates the philosophy of "walking in beauty" in her approach to the healthcare she provides. That is to find harmony in all things including our relationships and with physical and emotional wellbeing. When not practicing medicine she can be found reading novels by the sea, doing yoga, or cuddling her french and british bulldogs. Archives
February 2023
Categories
All
|