Kay Blackburn

Friends, I apologize that it’s been two months since my last blog post.  Is it just me or does it seem like we are on a treadmill of life that seems to be going faster and faster every year?  Hello!  It’s almost mid-February of 2019… how did that happen?  We just celebrated the Lunar New Year last week with our traditional hot pot dinner, so to me it feels like the year has just begun.  

Gong Xi Fa Cai everyone! 

Well, as I sit down to write this, I am trying to type fast because in 30 minutes kids start trickling in from school and then as any busy mom knows… it’s hard to get things done. All the afternoon things begin (homework, projects, activities, dinner).  Don’t get me wrong… it’s all awesome, it’s just busy.

So with that treadmill analogy, I have to ask … how many of you started the new year with resolutions of getting healthier, exercising more, getting more rest, etc.   A new diet perhaps?  Lose 10 pounds or so?  I always remember our gym in Idaho Falls that would get screaming busy in January (even at 6am), but it would be about this time in February when things started to lighten up because people start letting up on their new year’s resolutions.  This January, I reflected on how amazing it was that this was the first time in the last 25 years that I didn’t have any new year’s resolution or goal that was diet related…

WHY IS THAT?

I am already living that life.  Instead of a diet, I made a lifestyle shift over a year ago because I had to… it’s what I had to do to survive to see another year.  To outsmart an aggressive cancer that conventional therapy couldn’t even figure out.

Thank God I did, and you know what?  

I am alive…

I am leaner than I have ever been in my life…

 I don’t count anything anymore…

And My body is thanking me.

MY MISSION is to encourage you to look at this new year’s resolution that you may have made around a short-term goal and approach it as a lifestyle change.

·       Focus on how your body feels and what your bloodwork says and less about what the scale says. 

·       Focus less on looking healthy and actually being healthy.

·       Focus on integrating small changes everyday that are sustainable rather than big extreme changes that won’t stick.

For years I did different things to lose weight when I felt heavy. Weighing my food, writing down everything I ate, counting calories, carbs, proteins, and fats, doing double workouts at the gym, I did it all.  Sound familiar?  Little did I know that stressing myself out by being so regimented was doing more harm than the good I was trying to do for myself. 

DID YOU KNOW?

EVERYONE has cancer cells in their body… EVERYONE.  Shocking isn’t it?  It’s the job of the immune system to keep them in check which it does in the body of a healthy person.  But when it gets over-burdened with toxins from chemicals and pesticides, over-stressed from lack of sleep and tension, or under-nourished from lack of nutrition, it starts to miss those cancer cells growing out of control and that’s when the healthy person shifts to being unhealthy.  The unfortunate thing is that there isn’t a big red flashing light that goes off when that happens… it’s more stealthy in the form of aches and pains caused by inflammation in the body, strange cysts that grow, or maybe weird skin conditions that develop. 

For two years before I was diagnosed (before I had abdominal pain that sent me to the ER and they found a tumor the size of a papaya), I had major achy hips.  It was so bad that after sitting on the floor with my daughter, I would get up and literally have to walk slowly for a few steps before I could get going.  I never really thought much of it, but I did complain about it. I also had strange cysts that formed in my eyelids (chalazion) that I had to get surgically removed.  Again, I didn’t think much of it, I figured it was just an aging thing… you know.

So I ask you… What are you waiting for?  

Are you waiting for a cancer diagnosis or some other illness that forces you into a more extreme lifestyle change like me?  I hope not.  Throughout this journey, I have learned that the best way to defeat cancer is to prevent it in the first place and that means being educated about your health.  Get lab work done so you know where you stand, and make small adjustments to your lifestyle today so that you don’t wind up in a situation like mine where you are forced to make major changes that are really hard.

What should you change? 

I spent the entire year of 2018 focused on educating myself on nutrition and trying to figure out how to heal cancer because conventional therapy was not working for me. What I am realizing is that there is more to just healing than nutrition, but that’s definitely a great place to start.  I am going to share information over the next 9 weeks that I have collected over the past year and primarily sourced from this fantastic book I just finished.

In my opinion this should be the first book that people read when they get diagnosed with cancer. If you know of someone in your life who needs hope and inspiration… go get this for them.  It’s called Radical Remission by Kelly A. Turner, Ph.D. 

My new year’s resolution is to post weekly so stay tuned every Thursday to learn about the 9 key factors that will help you on your path to better health.

You only get one body… be good to it!

Onward and Upward,

Kay

“For we are His workmanship [HIS own master work, a work of art], created in Christ Jesus [reborn from above—spiritually transformed, renewed, ready to be used] for good works, which God prepared [for us] beforehand [taking paths which He set], so that we would walk in them [living the good life which He prearranged and made ready for us].”  Ephesians 2:10