Slowly but surely your senses will cease to resist

First solo run = 3k in 30 minutes (it's a start, yo!)

The recurring nightmare in all this is that I dedicate myself to a life of wellness and the cancer still has the nerve to come back. It happens all the time, so for me to think I'm different somehow requires a certain suspension of disbelief. I have to forget that NYC gang members don't dance around with each other and whistle between knife fights. That Bill Murray is just a foul-tempered, nasty-faced asshole without the IMDB listing.That J-Lo and G-Cloon didn't actually hate each other every stinking second of that bathtub scene in Out of Sight.

I'm quite good at ignoring the boom mics and puppet strings. And most of the time, I'm quite good at convincing myself that that living well, having a superhero immune system, and injecting greens into my veins will be enough.

Now that I'm running, playing guitar and trying to meditate on a regular basis, I also have to keep reminding myself that I won't always feel like a schlub in my trainers, a rube with my chord changes and delicate fingertips and an unenlightened ADD case during my ohms. I need to trust it will all come together and push everything in the same good direction.

So if you're juicing, eating more raw, joining a spitball team or just doing something a little different this year that's just for yourself, trust it's doing good. It's not a quick fix or a fast drop or a dramatic twist. It's evidence you have some control over your bod and your own outcome. And shit, man, does anyone really like being pushed around for very long?

Move your arse

I've become a bit of a lazy arse. I used to play team sports. I walked, jogged and ran. I kayaked, swam, rowed, yoga'd, pole-danced. Now I get up, work, eat dinner, work more, then go to bed.

Wow. That sounded a lot more depressing than I meant.

I thought a lot about this post before I sat down to write, because I'm ashamed I haven't found a good enough reason (cancer anyone?) to make exercise a regular part of my life. I'm a big believer that the "I'm too busy" excuse is bullshit. You either make something a priority or you don't. And right now I use any free hour to make Downton Abbey a priority.

But I've become too stupid about this and have to change. I can't expect to keep the c-dawg away for any good length of time if I'm on my ass for the better part of the day.

So here's the thing about exercise - and by exercise, I mean getting your heart going at least three times per week for at least 30 minutes. It jacks up your ability to heal, fills your bod with oxygen, and helps carry away the crap that builds up around your tissues. And this is in addition to what it does for your metabolism, weight control, mood, sleep pattern, bowels, and on and freakin' on.

Over the past 18 months, I've taken up and given up rebounding, tried to get out for a walk at least once a week, danced with my girls on the weekends and gone out for a couple of runs. Nothing except toting the laundry up and down the stairs has stuck. But it all changes tomorrow.

I joined a running clinic for the first time in ever and will run a 10k in April. So I'm forcing myself to get over my pathetic fear of being a pathetic runner and get on with it already.

I bought this great book a year or so ago: The Complete Book of Running for Women:

I've only tackled about a third of it so far, but it has great meditations on motivating yourself to run and breaks down the build up in a manageable way. It makes me want to be a runner. To call myself a runner. There's this and the fact that my old running partner, my cousin, has a life as full as mine and nary a speck of cancer to prompt her and yet manages to make exercise a priority almost every day.

And seriously, there's this 80+ year old woman who jogs up Cadboro Bay Road every day and makes me look even more the chump I am for thinking Downton Abbey (as bloody good as it is) is more important than setting aside an hour every day to move my arse.

Brush my pretty tail and magic things will happen

A lot of what I do now just feels like good bloody sense when you think about it for a mo, but some things are a little strange, need explaining, or are, well, somewhat Swedish. No that there's anything wrong with the Swedes. They're a lovely people rather obsessed with bathing rituals and extreme temperatures.

Enter dry-brushing.

When I hopped on the cancer train, the first place I wanted to stop was lymphatic land to learn a few things. See, you come to realize quickly when you do any amount of reading that disease is good friends with an internal system that tends to get backed up or bloated or sedentary. No big news there. So seriously, if you get constipated regularly and aren't pregnant, you're on a path to danger... the shit is piling up, literally, and you need to work that shit out.

The point is, you need to keep things moving. Not just by working out your quads - although yay if you do - but by working out your lymphatic system. It carries all the garbage away from your cells, helps you fight off disease and delivers the good stuff where it needs to go. If your lymphatic system is broken, the raccoons get into your trash. And that's just plain stinky.

I had my sentinel node removed from my left side (there was cancer in there at the beginning), which means I have the full-time job of trying to keep my left arm in a bubble world. No paper cuts. No cookie pan burns. No thorn pricks when I'm lip-dubbing to Heart in my backyard. If any of these things happen, my lymphatic system rushes to the rescue without realizing there's not enough juice in there to fix the problem, everything shuts down and I risk getting a balloon arm that lasts the rest of my life. This could happen tomorrow or in 25 years. So rather than refrain from lip-dubbing, I've chosen to take matters into my own hands - and honestly, the docs tell you nothing about this shit.

There are a three good ways to keep your lymphatic land in tip-top shape:

• Put a dash of cayenne in a cup of warm water and lemon in the morning
• Rebound on a mini-trampoline
• Dry-brush every day

I've been on the cayenne kick a few times (it hasn't stuck yet), and come and go with my rebounding (although I'm back to it now), but I dry-brush myself like a pretty pony every day of the week. Granted I don't have an infrared sauna to jump into after I dip into my freezing cold lake water, but I do feel rather Abba-like when I do it. Here's what it involves.

Get yourself a medium-handled, natural bristle body brush (I have two - one from HomeSense, one from Superstore) and keep it dry.

Strip down to your one-button suit before you hop into the shower and start brushing from your toes to your neck. Brush always toward your heart (so at your shoulders, brush downward) and do long strokes where you can. I go crazy on my feet and hands because chemo did a number on the circulation in my toes and fingertips, and give the numb parts on the back of my left arm a good scrubbing. Be firm but don't scrub like you're trying to forget a bad date. You want to feel invigorated.

I take 1-2 minutes max on this ritual - as long as it takes for my shower to heat up. Some added benefits? Dry-brushing removes dead skin, makes you glow all over and helps get rid of cellulite. Do you need a bigger endorsement than that?

- Carissa

He ain't heavy, he's my dinner

I'm warning you ahead of time, but this post is a little bit about poop. Just a little, I promise. I can't talk about bods without talking about the end game.

The biggest thing that's changed my health and energy level over the past year and a half, other than the green juice, has been the switch to eating light to heavy. It was also the hardest to adjust to, mostly because it goes against everything I've been brought up on and still read about.

You've heard it, too: fill yourself up in the morning. It fuels you during the day. Don't skip breakfast, you idiot, it kills your metabolism!! I win no prizes with the traditional dieticians for juice fasting every day until lunch. But here's why eating your lightest meal in the morning and the heaviest in the evening just makes sense.

Your body works on a natural digestion and elimination schedule, and like animals, we like to sleep when our bods are doing the most work to process the kibble in our gut. Our nighttime sleep cycle gives us the best opportunity to do nothing else but breakdance on our food for a few hours.

Healthy choices aside, how do you feel when you have a giant breakfast - energized or sleepy? If you said sleepy, ding! Your body is working like a beyotch to blast through the eggs and bacon and coffee and toast and it's all you can do not to have a little lay down after, right? Let's move on to the healthier choices, like steel cut oats or muesli or sprouted grain bread and almond butter. All fantastic grains, but again, they take time to digest, which leads to that idea that they're sustainable fuel for the day. Not bad advice, but again, the energy your body is using to break down those grains could be used for other things, like exercise, creative thought or elimination. Yeah, I said it. Poop.

When your body emerges from its heaviest digestion period, it shifts into elimination mode. Which also requires energy. So eat a heavy grain or let my bod follow its natural cycle?

The big question there is, doesn't your body need something to eliminate in the morning other than water, tea and juice? Of course, lovely. That's where that heavy evening meal comes in.

When I say heavy I don't mean a plate of pasta from Anton's every night. I just mean you eat your hardest to digest foods (i.e. grains, meat, cooked food) in the evening so your bod doesn't get bored while you're dreaming of sharing a glass of whiskey with Bill Murray in your bathrobe (just me?). See, there's quick exit and slow exit foods. Fresh-pressed juice, raw fruit and veggies, some grains, like quinoa and millet, some lightly sauteed/steamed veg, soups are all quick/medium exit foods. Meat, rice, pasta, oatmeal, all slow exit.

So here's what I try to do on my ideal day:

• water/tea/green juice in the morning
• some kind of big salad at lunch (yes, Elaine, the bigger the better)
• fish, veggies & brown rice for dinner (varies widely, of course and I almost always have seconds)
• muesli (I make it myself, yo!) as an after dinner snack

The muesli I make has these things in it (I don't measure, just throw it all in a big glass jar and keep it in the fridge):

• Bob's Red Mill gluten-free oats (I use the largest amount of these for the mix)
• unsweetened coconut
• hemp hearts (psychedelically good)
• raw sunflower seeds
• raw pumpkin seeds
• raw whole almonds
• goji berries

To make it, scoop about 1/3 cup into a bowl, just cover it with your favourite non-dairy milk, like almond milk (we'll get to why cow's milk is narsty unless you're a baby cow another time), cover it with something (I use a little plate or a piece of plastic wrap, and stick it in the fridge for at least 30 mins. The longer it sits, the softer it gets. When I take it out, I add a bit more milk and some fresh fruit (berries or half a banana) and eat it up.

I've eaten light to heavy almost every day (except for the occasional pancake or benny extravaganza) since I started juicing and I wouldn't have it any other way. I have gigantic energy during the day, never feel sleepy anymore, even when I've had a shitty sleep and can't remember the last time I've wanted a nap. And I'm a McCart, yo! My weight is stable, and when I go crazy over the holidays or when I'm on vacay, it's super easy to get back on the system without feeling like I'm denying myself anything.

If you need to read more about this kind of eating, I read Fit for Life and Detox 4 Women, both of which changed my bad self for goodz.

- Carissa

Water: not just for sissies anymore

I have yet to find a detox program with prosecco on the menu, so this week, while in Vancouver at a conference, I had to abandon my fermented grape-free diet to partake for one evening. And when you consider the stats that show regular alcohol consumption (which is 3 to 4 bevvies per week) could increase a girl’s risk of breast cancer reoccurrence and eventual death by up to 50%, it means I really, really liked the people I was with drinking with.

But besides the lovely risk of it all, the drinking reminded me about the multi-talented ways of water. For every glass of wine I drank, I more or less downed a glass of water and had no Maori tattoos on my face the next day. So there. Need further convincing that water is the shits?

Besides being the stuff most of your bod is made up of and hydrating you inside and out, it helps even out your temp and acts as a river of gold to your cells for all the good nutrients you stick in your gullet. It cleans you out, removes the cobwebs, and makes your arms and legs work better. Some say it even kickstarts your metabolism. So basically, there’s nothing the big wa-dog can’t do.

How much is enough

I think most of us have grown up on the eight glasses a day rule, but many docs, dieticians and nutrition wizards, including Kris Carr, my cancer guru extraordinaire and author of Crazy, Sexy Diet, recommend consuming half your body weight in ounces of filtered water each day.

If you’re 140 lbs, drink 70 ozs or about nine 8-ounce glasses. But don’t down it at once like a circus freak or, well, you’ll die. Sip it, my lovelies. BTW - Coffee and black tea don’t count, but fresh-pressed juice and herbal tea do.

When I was looking at a way to transform my eating schedule to follow a light to heavy pattern (more on that another time) and start my morning without Earl Grey, cereal or toast or really anything at first, I rediscovered the wheel. Having a big glass of water (16 oz) first thing in the morning has now become the way I start every day, no matter where I am or how much crap I’m eating following that.

With the follow-up 16 oz of juice and 16 oz of herbal tea I drink every day, I’m only on the hook for one other big glass somewhere else in the day. Done and done.

I make it worth my while in the morning and take my 2,000 IUs of D with my first water, mostly because it’s the only vitamin I can take on an empty stomach without feeling wretched. Here’s why the 2,000 IUs of D:

·         Blocks breast cancer and colorectal cancer cell growth (esp. in pre-menopausal women)

·         Lowers risk of heart disease in men

I know 2,000 is 1,000 over the Canadian Cancer Society’s recommended daily dose, but I’m willing to risk it – the acceptable level has been going up quickly in the last several years and the daily tolerable upper level, according to Health Canada in 2010, is 4,000 IUs. The darker skinned and less sunlight-consuming you are, the higher your dose should be.

So, you know you’re not getting enough water, right? All you have to feel is thirsty at some point in the day and it's the biggest sign you’re not drinking your fair share. We can discuss the finer points of consumption, like what the temp of your water should be, when we have time to get side-by-side manis and pedis (I drink it room temp from a reverse osmosis system - not as fancy as it sounds) but honestly, just getting enough is the bigger deal.  So let’s instead talk about creating a detox program built entirely around Italian bubbly. We need to start a revolution, people!

- Carissa 

your bod, your temple

When my oncologist (I like to say that like someone in NYC would say "my manicurist") said this past week she didn't want to see my mug again until 2016, I didn't feel what I thought would be abandonment.

Instead my bod expanded like a unicorn heart and fairly floated down the stairs and out to the parking lot where I actually fist pumped like an idiot in my car.

I also felt something else. I knew I had to do like the Doobies and take it to the streets.

Disclaimer:  I get that I'm far from a guru and am not a doctor or even someone who's done all the research and taste tests I need to do to get the right cred. Hell, my kids still think I'm strumming their pain with my kale and would gladly trade me in most days for some cheese sauce.

But I've read some shizz. I've tried some shizz. And now I want to share some shizz.

Since being diagnosed with and kicking the balls out of breast cancer in 2010, I really have come to see my bod as my temple. I don't expect it to take in garbage and somehow deal with it. I got that message loud and clear in the form of tumours one and two (let's save the why cancer, why me for another time), and if I can help just one other person starve the c-dawg out of their own lovely house, losing my eyelashes will have been worth it.

I promise to be bold, honest, helpful and to do the research you don't have time to do.

So won't you join me?

I'm starting tomorrow with a detox of sorts and am double teaming with my man on this one. I was a whirling dervish this afternoon, making up seven bags of green juice ingredients, roasted tomato soup and quinoa & almond salad to last the week. Even portioned out six bags of raw nuts to snack on and bought two big containers of my favorite hummus and rice crackers. I'm as ready as I'll ever freakin' be. I know if I'm not prepared, I'll open a bag of chocolate covered cranberries instead. Fail.

Try this: green juice

If you have a juicer, try this baby out. I promise it's good. It should make about 16 oz of juice and you need to drink it within 24 hours:

• 3 kale leaves
• 2 celery sticks
• 1 sprig parsley
• 1 knob of ginger (about an inch)
• 1 cucumber
• 1 big green apple
• 1 lemon, peeled

 

Why these ingredients? I'm so glad you asked... They have the antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, low-sugar, vitamin-rich, cancer arse-kicking qualities a girl looks for in a juice. Don't buy the stuff on the shelf. It's pasteurized and dead or it's been sitting for longer than 24 hours and dead. Whip it up yourself and drink it slow, yo. I have it as my breakfast and eat nothing solid until lunch. And when you really get into it, try to juice more often than you blend. Blending is good with the fibre and all, but with the juice, drinking it on an empty stomach, the enzymatic super powers go directly to your cells without passing Go or collecting $200. It's gold, Jerry.

It's the best thing I've introduced into my bod over the past year and a half and can't imagine ever living without it now.

So will you give it a try? If you do it already, I'm in love with you. If not yet, isn't it time you started worshipping at the temple of you know who?

- Carissa