Diet and Supplements
“May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through.
May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of
the Lord Jesus Christ.” (I Thessalonians 5:23)
Many believe that their spirit and soul are important to God, but
most of us abuse and use up our body. This verse makes it clear that
though we may separate the body from the spirit and the soul, God does
not!
The more I learned about how I had taken my body for granted the more
I confessed that neglect as sin. To be sanctified through and through,
my body was to be set apart, held to a higher standard than what the
world believes is acceptable. Cancer radically changed my view of
the condition of my body: I was responsible for the shape I was in! I
may not have directly caused the cancer, but I had to face the fact that
I had made drastic, if ignorant and naïve, choices in my life that had
damaged my body and set me up for disease. What had started out in
infancy as a pure and simple and perfect body, I had spent a lifetime
abusing and neglecting. I began to see my body as part of God’s
creation—and I was about to pay a high price to reclaim what had been
lost.
My body became my complete responsibility; it was not up to doctors
or nurses or husband or family, this was my responsibility and mine
alone. I had to know my body inside out. I have learned my body so well
that I can now tell if my body is low on a certain vitamin or mineral, I
can tell long before I am having any symptoms of illness that something
is not right inside of me. At first some of my doctors would laugh
at me when I would say something like, “I really think I need a shot of
magnesium,” but some of them, the ones I trusted the most, began to
listen to me. They were often amazed, because I was always right!
Over and over I want to emphasize the importance of personal
research: your research will have more to do with your survival than
anything else you could ever do. I was diagnosed in 1995, before the
Internet, and the first week I was diagnosed I read more than 40 books
and articles on my particular type of cancer. Now almost 10 years later,
I am still researching, still learning, still testing, still asking,
still knocking, still seeking.
I am truly not the only success story. I know many more people who
are cancer survivors, people given up to die, told to go home and make
their funeral arrangements, those who have chosen their own pallbearers,
only to find themselves going to their friends’ funerals instead of
their own! Always, the mark of these people is that they are
researchers.
One woman, for example, 41 years old, was given up to die by one of
the biggest cancer hospitals in Houston. She is now alive and doing
well—less nine lung tumors, I might add—because her tenacious husband
kept on asking, seeking, and knocking all over the world to find the
best of the best for her. Thanks to this husband’s research, many more
people have found life, and because of what I have learned from his
research, I now realize that with this new information I might have cut
off at least three years of my own cancer trek. Thank you Rob Wyrick for
your bulldog approach! May others follow suit.
Diet and Supplements Facts
Now I am going to begin giving pointed facts on diet and supplements,
but I want you to understand that I’m just going to give bottom line
information and point you in the right direction so you can do your own
research and make your own application. What you are willing to learn
and to do will be your test of how badly you want to live. It won’t be
easy, but begin with the basics and press on!
My first difficult lesson—clean out the pantry:
1. Throw out anything white.
After a four-hour session with one of my wonderful doctors, armed
with new information and a renewed zeal, my husband and I went home, dug
out our trash bag, and began to clean out our pantry. What a shock! Bags
of “food” lay in the middle of the floor—all declared untouchable, not
to be eaten. My husband stood in front of the bags wondering what to do
with them. At first we were thinking of donating it all to a food bank;
then after a short discussion we realized we could not in good
conscience pass what we now considered “dead food” along to even our
poorest neighbor.
Flour makes glue.
If it is white, the food value has usually been processed out of it.
This means white sugar, white flour, white rice, and all of what you
might call “colon glue.” Think about it! When you were in grade school
and your mother ran out of Elmer’s glue, what did she use? My mother
mixed white flour together with water, and I went to work cutting and
pasting! If it makes glue on paper, it can be glue in the body. You may
have years and years of this glue stuck in your colon, a ripe place for
colon cancer to find its home.
Sugar is cancer’s best friend.
Studies have proven that cancer cells actually open up in order to
get fed, and one of their source of food is sugar. All living things
must have a food source, and a cancer cell is a living, growing
organism. So your first line of defense is to get rid of cancer’s food
supply!
My doctors were stricter than most, but I am alive and many others
are not. I can honestly say that I followed 99.9 percent of everything I
was told to do—and the one percent I didn’t follow was because I simply
didn’t understand.
For us, the first thing out the door was sugar. The list was for
getting rid of sugar was long: the obvious sugar in the tea—gone; table
sugar for the top of cereal—gone. But the not so obvious was more
difficult to discover: sugar in catsup—gone; sugar in fruit—gone; sugar
in salad dressing—gone. Reading labels—was definitely in!
Sugar includes corn syrup, high fructose, and in my doctors’ opinion,
even honey! The only sweetener allowed was grade B organic maple
syrup and a little known herbal product known as Stevia. That was it!
Everything else, overnight, was out of the house. When my cancer was
active, I gave sugar no room!
Raw whole-wheat flour replaced white flour.
And brown rice replaced white rice, boiled oats instead of quick
oats, healthy grains, beans, and legumes replaced hamburger helper and
sloppy jo mixes! As hard as it was, even as sick as I was, if I was
going to eat right I would have to throw out the quickie foods and take
the time to feed my body.
2. Kick the carbonated soda habit out of your life.
Carbonation is terrible for your body. The body does not know what to
do with the bubbles; it creates nasty free-radicals in order to defend
itself against the invaders.
3. Meat is your enemy, not your friend.
I am not a total vegetarian, but my husband always knew when I was
going into a downhill slide, because the first sign was that I would
push away the meat plate. I’m not a doctor, I’m not a scientist, and
perhaps some of the things that I say others can refute, but I was in a
fight for life, and any tidbit of information was taken seriously.
I had one doctor tell me that the shell around the cancer cell was
very similar to the protein shell that surrounded the cell of any meat I
ingested. He explained that at birth I was given a certain amount of
enzymes in my body. These enzymes were to be used to break down protein
shells so that my body would digest whatever meat I consumed. The kicker
is that the only thing that restores depleted enzyme resources is a
lifetime of eating raw fruits and vegetables. I had not had a lifetime
of eating raw fruits and vegetables—for me it had been donuts for
breakfast, macaroni and cheese for lunch, and spaghetti for supper. I
knew my enzymes were crying for help! With this in mind, my immediate
response was to give my system a break—I quit eating meat, so that my
enzymes could focus on breaking down cancer cells rather than working so
hard to break down the meat cells I’d been eating. Made sense to me!
My diet became an 80/20 diet. Eighty percent raw vegetables, 20
percent anything else I ate. Note that I left off fruit—fruit was a
sugar source I wanted to remove out of my body, so I stuck with just
veggies and learned to love them!
The only exception to my meat rule was salmon—not canned fish, but
only good quality salmon, fresh Wild Norwegian Salmon, cooked well done.
There is absolutely no better source for calcium, and your body can
processes every bit of the calcium and omega 3 that the salmon has to
offer you. This helps keep your bones from becoming your body’s protein
source—which is very important.
4. Raw organic vegetables.
As often as possible eat and juice organic produce. A great many
studies have been done on the value of eating and juicing organic
produce, and they are available for any researcher to discover.
For instance, it’s been proven that one bunch of organic broccoli has
at least ten times as many of the nutrients as that of one bunch of
non-organic. One study stated that one organic tomato had the food value
of half a bushel of non-organic tomatoes. This, plus the fact that most
non-organic fruits and vegetables are harvested pre-maturely thus making
the vitamin and mineral food value drastically reduced, is reason enough
to switch to organic produce.
But there are greater reasons. Over the years we Americans have
ingested every known pesticide and herbicide known to man, and as a
result, our bodies are virtual chemical garbage dumps. For years, we
have slathered on creams and lotions and soaps and insecticides, and
some of us have put things into our bodies like silicone breast
implants, drugs, and tobacco. Almost everyone has used or been
exposed to cleaning solvents with chemicals strong enough to take paint
off of wood. Think about it—it’s common sense! If I can take the
chemical load off of my body in just one instance, such as eating
organic vegetables, my body thanks me.
5. Juicing—it’s your life’s blood.
When I first got sick I was so ill that my husband had to turn me
from one side to another; I was so weak that I could not even pull a
sheet on top of myself. Someone else assisted every bodily function. I
had no resources, no strength, no energy, I was told by one doctor I had
three to five months to live.
Urged on by this prognosis, my family determined to find a way. We
read everything about juicing. We learned about the Gerson therapy and
followed it to the letter. We compounded our information with studies
done by George Malcomus and the Hallelujah Acres. We sought my
doctor for his input on juicing, the only thing he found wrong with the
therapies we were considering was the high level of sugar in carrots. So
on his advice, carrots were out, green juices were in.
I was depleted of every vitamin and mineral, as well as the enzymes
that destroy cancer cells. We felt we were in a war with no time to
lose. My siblings took their vacations to come and help; it was a
precious time when they all rolled up their sleeves. One sister stood at
the sink from seven in the morning until seven at night cutting up
vegetables, providing me with green drink after green drink. They
weren’t easy to get down, but I did it; I felt I had no choice. I drank
thirteen glasses a day to be exact—30 pounds of raw green vegetables a
day, for months and months.
The good news is as of October 2004, I will have been cancer free for
five years. Truthfully, today I can barely look at a bunch of broccoli
on the plate, but at the time we were in the battle, it didn’t matter
what I liked or didn’t like. I had grandchildren yet unborn, children
who needed direction in choosing their mates, a precious husband who was
not ready to be alone.
I put pictures in front of me. I put verses at my side. I cried. I
groaned. I watched my dear brother-in-law search for any way to help us,
from sewing a torn seam in a rug to repairing a refrigerator gasket when
my husband had no time for such things. Friends joined in the fight,
making meals for the rest of the family, cleaning my house, making me
laugh, making me cry. How could I let them down! So I told myself,
“Drink, and live!” And I did.
I just had a phone call from one of my six grandchildren. Out of the
blue my little three year old lamb called just because she wanted to
tell her Nana that she loved her. Little Laina was listening to “our
song” and just wanted to let me know. After a few minutes two others
wanted their turn to share their day with me. I can only think—oh my,
what if I had turned down even one glass of green juice! I would gladly
drink them all again.
6. Vitamins and other miseries.
I can hardly believe it now, but I really did take 340 supplements a
day! I took one pill at a time in a little bowl that I carried with me
all day long. Yes, you read it right—340 a day!
My doctor said to keep on chugging: vitamin E, A, C, B’s, D—and if
there had of been an X, Y, Z they would have been in the mix also. I had
been depleted of all minerals. Stress flushes magnesium out of your body
like a flood! Potassium had to balance the magnesium, calcium had to be
ingested, along with manganese, copper, etc. I needed herbs for
infection, for boosting my immune system, for helping my kidneys, for
keeping my liver strong, and getting rid of horrible unspeakable
parasites.
Yes, I even had parasites! I took black walnut and artemesia. I took
prescription parasite pills, and I passed things I’d rather not
discuss—but trust me, they grossed my husband out so badly, he would
wash his hands in every water faucet he passed!
I believe finding a good nutritionist should be high on your list
of priorities. A naturopathic doctor would be a good place to begin
your search.
When taking supplements, try to find as natural a product as
possible. Avoid storefront brands such as GNC, and be very wary of
most multi-level marketing products, with a couple of exceptions.
I must say here that I do have preferred brands. I have purposely not
joined any multilevel marketing plans except one, for the sole reason
that I do not want to be perceived as making money on other’s illnesses.
I’ve joined one organization simply as a resource for getting the
product cheaper; I don’t sell to others or try to build a business. I
have chosen many times to pay a retail price rather than join such
groups.
I take to heart I Kings 5:20-27, and desire never to be a Gehazi in
any way. I am sickened by the scams I have seen, I am tired of clinics
and doctors and practitioners charging more than is fair to people who
have re-mortgaged their homes, taken loans out on their life insurance,
and indebted their families for years in an attempt to get well. I am a
patient advocate: I have no loyalty to any single doctor, product,
or facility—I care only for those trying to crawl into the churning
waters of the pool of Bethesda (John 5:2).
Some products I think very highly of:
- Nature Sunshine, especially their herbal remedies
- Bach flower remedies
- Some Bio Active Nutritional supplements
- Products made by Solaray
- Twinlab products
- Natura Herbals
- Products produced by Vegii Research in the Netherlands
- Limu—a nutritional product made from seaweed, (the one
organization I belong to)
- Inner-light pH balancer
- Barley Green
- Champion Juicer
- Amy’s vegetarian frozen dinners
Read product labels, ask the company itself to send you information
on how the products are processed, what kind of fillers are used, what
does “all natural” mean? Strive to discover the products closest to
nature.
