Episode 73- Why I'm Starting a Ketogenic Diet as a Proactive Cancer Protocol
Episode 73 Show Notes
In this episode of Strong Like a Mother, we dive into an honest and insightful conversation about my decision to embark on a ketogenic diet as part of a proactive cancer protocol. I share the details of my health journey, the reasoning behind this dietary shift, and the challenges and benefits I've encountered so far.
What You’ll Learn in This Episode:
Why my third abnormal pap smear and concerning blood work led me to explore a naturopathic cancer protocol.
What the ketogenic diet really is and understanding the science behind keto—how it creates an unfavorable environment for cancer cells by cutting carbohydrates and producing ketones for energy.
The short-term purpose of the ketogenic diet: Combining a five-day water fast with a month of keto to starve potential cancer cells of sugar.
The challenges of the Keto diet
The relationship between insulin resistance, sleep, and long-term health. How tracking macronutrients and ketone levels can help personalize the keto experience.
What’s Next After Keto: Exploring a return to whole foods, a Mediterranean diet, or a lacto-ovo-vegetarian lifestyle while maintaining a focus on holistic wellness.
Key Takeaways:
Keto is not a one-size-fits-all diet and requires meticulous tracking of macronutrients.
Long-term, this diet may not be ideal for everyone due to challenges in meeting essential nutrient requirements.
Prioritizing sleep, balanced nutrition, and proactive health measures is critical for overall wellness.
Resources Mentioned:
Join my Rise and Thrive Facebook Group where I share my health journey that led me to starting a ketogenic diet temporarily
Ways 2 Well: The company I am using for a naturopathic, proactive cancer treatment
Check out my previous episodes for insights into holistic health and family life.
If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a review and share it with a friend! Let’s continue the conversation about proactive health and how we can thrive together.
Let’s Connect! I share tons of fitness tips and more behind the scenes on my social accounts.
Website
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Let’s talk a little bit about the ketogenic diet. If you've been following for a minute, I have mentioned this more than once because it turns out most times this is sort of a fad diet where people are like, I want to lose 10 extra pounds. I think I'll cut all carbohydrates out of my life. I'll eat a bunch of bacon and cheese and I'm going to drop pounds and then, you know, move back into eating however I was prior and everything's going to be just fine. All right. Let me tell you my experience so far.
If you haven't kept up, I will put the link in the comment section or note section rather. And you can go to my Facebook group and my health group. You should be there anyway, because it's great. But I kind of detail where my health journey has led me. So in a nutshell, I have had my third abnormal pap smear and I got some blood work back that's like a little alarming. So my practitioner and I decided the most.
aggressive in the terms of a natural pathic setting is going to be to start a cancer protocol and to go through a five day water fast. And after the five day water fast, I will move into a ketogenic diet. And then post that, I will be taking two months of vitamin and mineral therapies, supplementation, and then we will move back into either a whole foods diet, which was where I was before.
or I'm feeling led towards more of a Mediterranean, lacto-ovo-vegetarian style. Like we'll see, I'm just, I'm in deep prayer about that right now, about what I do after the fast and the month of keto. So for now, I have moved into learning more about the ketogenic diet, the ins and outs, the pitfalls, and I thought I would share some of that with you. So first off, I still maintain, unless I learn something different,
that this is not a great lifestyle nutritional plan. Okay. I have been tracking the macronutrients clearly and the micronutrients now for a week. It is impossible to meet ideal fiber levels and ideal micronutrient goals through a ketogenic diet. Yes, I know that you can supplement. Psyllium husk is a great fiber supplement, but even still,
Tiffany Wickes (02:23.85)
at one tablespoon, you are getting eight grams of carbohydrates and you're still only meeting about 25 % of your fiber requirements. Okay. This is why I don't love this long-term because your fiber is so incredibly necessary for gut motility, cleansing of your colon. And granted the satiety is definitely a little bit more there because I'm eating a massive ton of dietary fat.
However, not all of it is like a plant-based fat. A lot of it's animal fat. So there's lots of butter, ghee, tallow, MCT oils become my new best friend because I am having a very difficult time meeting the fat numbers and then staying below the carbohydrate numbers while I'm trying to add in necessary fruits and vegetables. So there you have it. Now, why would you partake in this diet?
I am doing it. I can just tell you why I am. I am doing it because cancer cells, not that I know I have cancer, but we don't know that I don't either, and after three abnormal pap smears, it is much more likely that I may than I don't. So we're just gonna take it head on and we're gonna move forward with creating an environment in which they don't thrive. right, cancer cells thrive on sugar.
That's what carbohydrates are based off of. So if you starve your body of that and then start creating ketones for energy, which are made in the liver, then that creates an energy source. However, it's also going to come at a cost. I don't know about you, but I have never, because also this is not a high protein diet. and it's definitely not a processed food diet. At least it shouldn't be. If you've seen people online like, yes, I can finally eat all the bacon and cheese I want because I'm keto.
They're doing what's called dirty keto, which means you are very much putting yourself into a dietary risk category by consuming level one carcinogens. All processed meat is a level one carcinogen. If you're still drinking alcohol, that too can be looped in as a level one carcinogen. And not getting enough fiber is another risk factor for cancer. going into this, it's like,
Tiffany Wickes (04:38.754)
Because it's only 30 days, what this does is creates a negative environment for cancer cells to thrive or even live. And in fact, studies have shown over 80 % of cancers can be killed with a five day fast. And then the rest of them can be wiped out with a stent of a ketogenesis lifestyle. Like I say it's a lifestyle, but really it's your diet. That is pretty incredible. And that's why we're doing what we're doing. the pitfalls you have to watch out for.
is, like I said, this isn't a high protein diet, which means you're going to change the way you fitness as well. Previous to this, I was in a bulk cycle. So I had multiplied out my calories. And by the way, I am still consuming the same amount of calories I was before. The macronutrient division is just different. It's way higher in the fat and lower on the protein because this isn't a high protein diet. In fact, if you consume any more than about 120 to 130 grams,
And that would be like at the tippy tippy top end, like whoops, just ate too much chicken this day. Your body will just use that extra protein as a glucose source. So that's not an effective strategy. You really do need to monitor your macros more than ever in a setting. Oops, sorry.
Tiffany Wickes (06:01.72)
forgot to put my phone on do not disturb. And I got a call. Okay, let's see if we can do that again.
You will need to monitor your macronutrients closer than you probably ever would on a dietary, like whole foods sort of approach, okay? Because the carbohydrate numbers have to be pretty tight. Right now, I bought a urine ketone testing kit and my dad, who's been keto for a very long time, and by the way, men are a whole lot more flexible. He will argue this point to the death. Men are...
more metabolically flexible than women are when it comes to fasting and when it comes to ketogenics. So he's been keto for a very long time. He's got my mom on the same nutrition plan, which is abysmal considering she doesn't have a gallbladder. But that's neither here nor there. They don't want to hear anything from me about their dietary preferences. And I try not to give advice to people who don't want it, right? That's generally not received well. So you will have to track far more closely.
because the parameters of the ketosis can be pretty tight. Depending on who you are and how your genetic makeup is and perhaps how effective your body is with the glycogenesis process, there is a range of carbs that you would stay in between. Some people can get away with being in ketosis up to 50 grams a day. And I say up to, that's still a pretty small amount of carbohydrates per day. However,
It definitely wouldn't be anything over that, but most people's sweet spot would be somewhere like 30 to 40. I bought these urine ketone testing strips, and right now they're not giving me a whole lot of data because my body is still burning up all of the stores that I had for sugars like the glucagon and going through the process of glycogenesis. It's burning all that up with my liver right now.
Tiffany Wickes (07:57.454)
So it doesn't really need to produce ketone bodies because it's like, ah, we've got some extra fat. I just did a DEXA scan and I had 31 % body fat, which I ain't mad about it. I'm a breastfeeding woman. And that's at the high end of healthy and normal for women. When you get anywhere below 25%, 24%, I mean,
I think you can get away with 18 or 19 % as a woman, but like the healthy sweet spot where you are still fertile, still energetic, still able to build muscle and hormonally you would be balanced is definitely in the mid twenties range with 31 % being at the high end. So why do I think my body fat was on the higher end of normal? Well, that's an easy answer because my A1C was high.
So your A1C takes an average of your blood glucose over three months and then comes with a number. When a person typically eats lower carbohydrates, they can have what's called the dawning effect. So if they take their fasting blood sugar first thing in the morning, it will typically look a little bit higher. Mine is usually around 103, can be 104, 105, and that is definitely higher than you wanna see. However, if you are a normal...
low carbohydrate, lower carbohydrate eater, that isn't uncommon. So the dawning effect is where your liver will produce glucose molecules, be like, here, we need energy to get up and start moving. Same reason why your cortisol is a little bit higher first thing in the morning, because it's meant to be, it's meant to get you up and moving and out the door. So that, but when you get an A1C, and that is also high, that takes an average of your blood sugar through the past three months. So.
With that being high, that was concerning and I got the additional testing of a fasting insulin test. So the fasting insulin test shows just how much additional insulin is having to be produced by your pancreas, which by the way puts a strain on it if it's just chugging out insulin trying to force your cells to take in this extra glucose. I mean, I want to say for whatever reason, but that absolves me of personal responsibility in saying, okay, I think I know the reason why my cells have gotten off track.
Tiffany Wickes (10:09.144)
and I think the number one reason is lack of sleep. Now I could technically have controlled how many kids we've had in the last, you know, 17 years we've had seven. That's a lot of sleepless nights. That's a lot of tossing and turning in bed with a newborn or with a big belly. That's a lot. And I have definitely had a lack of sleep, not only a lack of sleep due to children, but I had intentionally previously before.
I really started to understand the value of sleep and how that, if you were to pick anything in this new year to focus on, it would be sleep and quality sleep at that. used to take the mindset like, sleep when I'm dead, know, just keep crushing it, keep crushing it. Well, it has actually crushed me now. So I am having to take a lot of steps back to move forward again.
And a lot of that was because I would stay up too late. You know, moms do that. We're like, we need some time for ourselves. And after the kids go to bed is the only time you get that. Well, that's still true. But now I'm just like, okay, I'm going to go to bed. I realize the 10, 13, 15, 17 year old are still awake. Well, it turns out they probably won't burn the house down. So I'm just going to let them be. And I've got to go to bed. So after I put the youngest four to bed, I go put myself to bed. That's not a lifestyle practice I had adopted.
previous to learning that I was metabolically compromised. So, sleep, number one. Number two is because, like, hashtag homeschooling seven kids, right up until this year it was seven, this year it's five, but that's still a hell of a lot of kids to have in the house all the time with no breaks. I oftentimes would not process my stress very well, and I wouldn't lash out at them per se.
I have enough self control and maturity not to abuse my kids, but I mean, talk about muttering F-bombs under my breath, like grunting and frustration, my jaw tight, my shoulders up to my ears. Like my whole body was just holding onto this frustration. And sometimes I would just go out in the backyard and just scream. Cause I was like, I am so frustrated by, you know, the preteen attitudes, the...
Tiffany Wickes (12:20.846)
toddler, you know, making a mess all the time, the baby not wanting to take a nap or being attached to me 24 seven. Like this is just normal stuff. We moms go through, right? So I was not processing that well. And I think that held onto my body. So what I have done now to remedy that is I have practiced stretching routine and definitely deep breathing and more walking. Cause I really process a lot through my body with movement.
And I think that's incredibly healthy for your body. So you can lift weights to help with your mental load. However, that does create a stress on the body as well. So I lift weights for my mental load. I walk and do yoga for my body load and I pray and have picked up the practice of daily rosary again for my spiritual load. So those are three.
holistic parts of your body that I think you really need to have tuned in. So that is my experience thus far with the ketogenic diet. I am, what is that, like six days I think into it. I think I'm starting to get it a little more. I'm not producing, I'm producing what in my strip say small amounts of ketone bodies right now. So my body's still working through glycogenesis with my liver, but it typically takes like two weeks.
to fully adjust over and I'm doing this now so that when I go through my five day water fast at the end of January, I will, I think do that far more simply and with way less negative effects and then be able to come out the other side of it being strict keto for that next month and then transition into whatever that ends up looking like. Like totally not sure yet.
But it'll either be a whole foods diet Mediterranean or lacto-ovo vegetarian. I will keep you posted but if you want to follow along with the the journey then you can follow me on Instagram or Facebook I will be posting as much as I as much as I can or as much as you're interested in seeing over there But until then listen if this is something that interests you moving into a ketogenic diet Just remember that this is should not be done for vanity metrics
Tiffany Wickes (14:39.18)
because I don't think on a whole it is a healthy and wholesome way to take in nutrition or live your life. But as a short-term therapeutic method, yeah, I'm all for it. So I hope you have a great rest of your day and we'll chat soon friends