My Battle Plan Takes Shape

I started on the supplements prescribed (and purchased in her shop) that evening. I also began an exhaustive search on nutrition to support cancer healing and found many good books on the subject. The first one I acquired was Beating Cancer with Nutrition by Patrick Quillin

With what I learned from this first book, I devised a diet strategy and this is the basic plan:

• Eliminate sugar from my diet, except from fruit in moderation
• Eliminate all artificial ingredients (nitrates, aspartame,MSG, hydrogenated fats etc)
• Eat mostly raw and steamed vegetables, fresh fruit, fish, chicken, eggs (all organic)
• Only whole grains such as brown rice and whole wheat
• No more convenience foods of any kind - no desserts, junk food, pizza
• Drink more water (filtered only)
• Health shakes made in my new Vitamix Blender each day (details later)
• No red meat, lunch meats, hotdogs, sausage
• Replace sugar for sweetener with Stevia
• Little to no dairy products - some organic lowfat yogurt and a very little organic cheese
• Replace milk with soy, rice or almond milk
• Choose rice cheese over dairy cheese when possible

I had learned that cancer thrives on sugar so that was my motivation to remove sugar as much as possible. In my life prior to cancer, I would consume a good amount of sugar in soft drinks, maple syrup added to several cups of coffee a day, some sweets either in the form of cookies, candy or "energy bars" for volleyball. I was pretty average in weight although I have wanted to drop about 10 pounds for years and never could. I also used to eat a lot of cheese. I was a confessed cheese-a-holic. My favorite cheese was Gruyere. If I didn't have cheese, maple syrup, coffee and creamer, and crackers in my home, I felt there was nothing to eat. I relished my morning coffee with maple syrup and fat free creamer (artificial CRAP). I would often snack on cheese with crackers or just alone and while preparing a meal I would take the edge of my hunger by eating some cheese.

When I started this new diet, I wasn't sure I could survive without cheese and my other "necessities" but I found that once I got going with the mega-nutrition, I no longer craved sweets, cheese etc. I even have cheese in my refrigerator that goes untouched for days. When I do bring it out, I only grate a very little over a salad perhaps and I don't snack on big chunks of it alone as I used to.

On practically a daily basis, I consumed regular and diet Mountain Dew, and ready made Diet Green Tea by Turkey Hill. I felt that I needed the Mountain Dew or Green Tea to perform well in volleyball, which I played at least 3 times a week.

All of these habits - eliminated. And guess what, I play volleyball just fine without the support of "stimulants" that I thought I needed.

In addition to the huge diet changes I made, I also learned of other compounds that had anti-cancer activity and started to add them to my daily regimen. The nutritionist cautioned me and might I say actually chastised me for adding too many other supplements to my routine so I have tried to be conservative and use what I think is the least likely to interfere. I didn't want to not take some of these additional supplements as they each have something to offer.

Here is the list of what I take each day, above and beyond the nutritionist's recommendation:

Selenium
CoQ10
Conjugated Lineolic Acid
DHA/EFA fish oils
Evening Primrose Oil
Turmeric
Melatonin
Kyolic Garlic Detox mix
Panax Ginseng
Vitamin D3
Juice Plus

Occasionally (since I'm not sure if they might interfere)

Cell Forte Max with IP6
MityQondria (Jarrow)

I started to do all of the above around the third week of July, 2006.