Meaning and Moxie After 50
Looking for more inspiration and possibility in midlife and beyond? Join host Leslie Maloney, proud wife, mom, author and teacher, as she talks with people finding Meaning and Moxie in their life after 50.
Meaning and Moxie After 50
#8 of Top Ten from 2024/ Lisa's Guide to Navigating the Path to Wellness
Imagine facing severe health challenges without clear answers from the medical system. That's the reality Lisa Roers confronted, sparking a journey that transformed her life. In our conversation, she shares the profound impact of self-advocacy and alternative healing practices she discovered after experiencing unexplained health issues beginning in 2017. Lisa's story is a testament to perseverance, as she navigated debilitating symptoms, consulted numerous specialists, including at the Mayo Clinic, and ultimately turned to her own research and intuition to find answers. Her experiences underscore the importance of being proactive in health matters and the incredible potential of natural healing methods.
We unravel the hidden challenges posed by modern agriculture, exposing how current practices may be diminishing the nutritional value of our food and increasing our toxic load. Lisa's personal battles with autoimmune issues highlight the necessity of informed lifestyle changes, emphasizing a move away from symptom management towards addressing root causes. Through this lens, she explores the potential of nourishing our bodies with whole foods and the importance of reducing environmental toxins for long-term wellness.
We discuss how every individual is unique, requiring tailored approaches to diets and health practices while advocating for critical thinking in a world flooded with conflicting information. From the role of fasting and autophagy in promoting healing to the significance of small, consistent steps towards better health. Her story encourages listeners to trust their bodies, make informed decisions, and embark on a thoughtful path toward health and wellness.
All things related to Lisa Roers can be found below.
https://www.lisaroers.com/
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Hi everybody, it's Leslie, and this week, on our countdown of our favorite episodes of 2024, we are on number eight and we're going back to the interview I did with our guest, Lisa Roars. Oh, there's so much good stuff in this particular interview, especially regarding health. So Lisa's story is a light for anyone navigating the murky waters of health challenges and boy they can be murky, can't they? At times. It underscores the essential role of being your own advocate and the power of alternative healing modalities when conventional medicine provides no clear answers. Give it a listen. I know you'll enjoy it.
Speaker 1:So are you looking for more inspiration and possibility in midlife and beyond? Join me, Leslie Maloney, proud wife, mom, author, teacher and podcast host, as I talk with people finding meaning in Moxie in their life after 50. Interviews that will energize you and give you some ideas to implement in your own life. I so appreciate you being here. Now. Let's get started. All right, everybody, Welcome back to the meeting at Moxie after 50. I'm so excited. This morning I have a very special guest with me, Ms Lisa Roars. Let me give you a little bit of background about her. She is an executive coach and also a health coach, a Bible enthusiast wife, mom, Mom to how many?
Speaker 2:Just one beautiful young man. And how old he's 14. I shouldn't say beautiful. He would not like it if I said that One handsome young man.
Speaker 1:Handsome, handsome young man. She is a musician, host of the Sunshine Cafe podcast launching on December 30th 2023. So let's just start there. Let's just talk about, in 2017, what happened in your life that kind of turned it upside down and led you on this journey of being a health coach. Deepening your faith, for sure, and not finding a lot of answers along the way, as you visited many, many different doctors, really led you on this journey of self-healing and realizing that health is wealth. So can you talk a little bit about that?
Speaker 2:Lisa, absolutely. First and foremost, les, I just want to say thank you so much for having me on your program. We've had a few conversations and I just have always enjoyed the time with you, so thank you for having me on your program. So yeah, we're excited.
Speaker 1:It's an honor.
Speaker 2:It's funny how and I think your listeners will agree how we create all these different plans and things we're going to accomplish and things that we're going to do, and we should do those things, but how many times is it that God has a different idea and our, our plans get derailed?
Speaker 2:Well, that's what happened to me on February 11th 2017. It sounds like a car accident or something like that, but I really woke up on that day and I couldn't move. It was that quick where I was like I thought maybe I just slept wrong or something, cause I had such a kink in my neck and such I was just had so much pain in my upper back neck area, so I decided, all right, I'm not sleeping in that bed tonight, I'm just going to sleep somewhere where I know like a nice hard surface. I have tried another mattress in our house that's a little tougher, tried the couch, tried the floor, tried everywhere I went. It just got worse and worse and it progressed and progressed and kind of moved from my neck to the back of my ribs, kind of where behind your back, where you kind of take a deep breath.
Speaker 2:I couldn't breathe in like that, because there was just so much pain and inflammation. Then it came down into my hips and then finally settled in my knees and hips. I couldn't walk and of course, when something like that happens, you start looking at what did I do? Did I, for example, did I sleep wrong? Did I, you know, did we do something yesterday that I pulled something or muscle or pinched a nerve or something? So I went through all of those we had. There was no, no answers. So then I started checking allergies or whatever else, and it just became this litany of questions that never ended. Of course, I went to my doctor eventually, because it was to the point where I was not able to walk. I had, I had a walker in my house because of my mother who was dealing with some health issues, so I'd use her walker to just move around the house because walking was so painful.
Speaker 2:Well, it was middle of the summer by the time I finally thought okay, I got to go down to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester. They are the. They're the experts. Their team of doctors will certainly know or be able to figure out what's going on. But it's like June and I set up that meeting at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester and the earliest they could get me in was like December 27. So I set it up six months later and between the June and the December, I just went doctor after doctor functional medicine, neuropathic, a naturopathic, rather all these different internal medicine doctors just trying to see what was going on, and the best they could give me was yeah, your markers are off the charts. So we know, you've got inflammation all over. We have no idea why.
Speaker 2:And it culminated at the Mayo Clinic. I was so. Everything was like my mind was just focused on those three days at the Mayo Clinic. I had 18 appointments set up over three days and I stayed overnight. You know did? I was just that was my goal. I was like certainly I'll get some answers there. Three days, 18 appointments, 33 vials of blood. 18 appointments, 33 vials of blood Really frustrating, because that was kind of like, surely this will come to a head and I'll understand what's going on.
Speaker 2:So you know in all along this way. You know, even if you're not someone who really enjoys research, when it's your life and your body and things are falling apart. It's funny how, all of a sudden, you really decide you like research.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:And we've got this amazing thing called the internet these days where, you know, 30, 40 years ago we wouldn't have been able to dive into specific symptoms and find out how other people are experiencing those or what kinds of data is out there. But now we have access to those things. Even like with the PubMed websites, we have access to the scientific data that the doctors have access to. So I started diving into being my own health advocate because I found myself at the end of my like I think I stopped counting at doctor number 33. I was telling them more about my autoimmune issue and what was happening and what was helping and they were like oh wow, I never heard about that. I didn't know that proteolytic enzymes could help the joints. That's amazing, because they are trained to give a medicine to it, a prescription. They aren't trained to heal it. They're really just trained to treat the symptoms.
Speaker 1:And I interject and ask so were they trying to put you on a bunch of different meds and things like that, and how much of that did you go down, you know, go down the trail on, and how much did you reject on that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, great question. So yes, you know I had. They did put me on a prednisone steroid regimen they did try to give me Humira. Otezla was another one they tried to get me on and I just had this. I had really had this anxiety almost against it. I didn't want to put an injection into my body and I looked at the you know, you see this long list of all the side effects and symptoms that you might experience with this drug and I thought my goodness, are those better than what I'm experiencing already? I felt like I was kind of exchanging one side effect for another and I didn't want that. I wanted to get to the bottom of it. Certainly I was a healthy, pretty healthy, 40 old, 40 something year old. I didn't want to just exchange drug for symptoms, I wanted to get to the bottom of it. So their best guess was some sort of vasculitis and of course I Googled that. And if you're listening, don't do, don't Google it. If you're matching mine, don't go, google it.
Speaker 2:The first thing you said is death is likely and I was like, oh good grief, that was scary you know, I took things into my own hands, found some really amazing resources online, leslie.
Speaker 2:That taught me about how our food these days even if it's the exact same thing that our parents ate or our grandparents ate it doesn't have the same nutritional content that it had 30 years ago, 40 years ago. We're over-tilling, over-farming the soil and so those nutrients don't have a chance to replenish. So the same corn that you would get out of a field today just doesn't have the same content of nutrients that it had previously, and it's same with most of our food. And then you add on top of that the pesticides that we put on them, the glyphosate that we use often to harvest things like wheat and whatnot, and all of those toxins. Maybe alone you know, when the FDA approves it alone that item is not going to cause an issue.
Speaker 2:But when you look at our bodies and you consider what I will call a toxic load, all the different things that I'm breathing in, the fumes from the cars, the fragrances and stuff that I was putting on my skin which, you know, our skin is a permeable membrane into the internal part of our body.
Speaker 2:So that beautiful lotion that smells so great has a lot of stuff in it that your body doesn't need so. And again, if it was just that, you'd probably be okay. If it was just the extra pesticides on food, you might be okay, but over and over again, it was all these different things that were creating toxic load. And the biggest indicator that I could find that kind of was my red herring, if you will, or the smoking gun. We'll call it the smoking gun was the fact that I had two root canals in my mouth. That, upon researching root canals, more root canals in my mouth. That upon researching root canals more, there's never a successful root canal that doesn't continue to leak bacteria and infection into your bloodstream. Because if you think about the roots of a tree, you can get the large roots when you're drilling those out as a dentist, but you can't get the tiny little ones.
Speaker 2:You just can't. We're not working on a microscopic level when you're doing a root canal. So those tiny little roots were leaching slowly infection over and over again into my system and I think this is my best guess. I'm not a doctor and I will tell anybody listening consult with your doctor before you implement anything that we're talking about here today. But I but after considering it, that seems like the most likely thing that with that three, two or three years prior is when I had those root canals done and I immediately had issues with it.
Speaker 2:I didn't really think everybody gets broken out. It was a big deal, but that, combined with the other toxic loads and maybe the genetic propensity that I had, cause my mom does have an immune disease autoimmune disease. Maybe those things, together with my situation, created the perfect storm for this. So I've learned so much. But what was changing? My diet and my environment? I got rid of anything in my house that had the fragrances or other things in the ingredients that I couldn't pronounce. Stop using all the different things, for I changed my makeup. I changed my all of the stuff I put in and on or around my body, and then I hyper nourished with a program that just really brought life back. And it was. It was drastic, but not being able to walk is drastic.
Speaker 1:Sure Sure.
Speaker 2:I was too young. I was like I'm not going to live like this for the rest of my life. So, it was a wake up call for me to say, okay, what's more important eating pizza or being able to walk to the event, so I can enjoy the conversations with the people who are eating pizza.
Speaker 1:Right, right.
Speaker 2:Which one am I going to elevate? Am I going to elevate my friends and family and fellowship, or am I going to elevate the food? And I decided you know what my, my friends, my family, the fellowship, the people, the relationships are far more important than the cupcake, the donut or the pizza.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and your health, your health, yeah, I mean, it's so. So many people are being diagnosed with autoimmune illnesses now and I think that what you're saying here about toxic load is so, so important for people to get. And, once again, you know, and we've talked about the journey that I've been on and my family's been on with fasting and diet and things like that, for the very same reason, and it's something that a lot of people don't think about, that a lot of people don't think about, and and our medical establishment in general, allopathic medicine, is not set up to really consider these things. They're more about treat the symptoms, you know, sort of approach. And so you do have to do some digging and and sometimes you can run into doctors that are downright and here again, we are not doctors, here we're just speaking from our own experience and how we found healing and health but you can run into doctors who are downright hostile or maybe hostile is too strong a word in some cases. Just like what are you talking about? Like this is not.
Speaker 2:Yeah, don't. Yes, absolutely against it. Especially, I've seen that a lot in the cancer world. It's like whatever you do, don't eat. Well, yeah, it just seems like that's the most gentle thing you could do for your body, even if you are a cancer patient and you're dealing with chemotherapy and radiation. At the least, the very least you should be able to do is to nourish your body with good fruits, vegetables and, you know, non-processed things that your body give your body the tools it needs to heal. Yeah, I like to think if, if our, if you and our listeners, can we just look at your finger. If you cut your finger in a couple of weeks, it's going to heal right. So if you, if that is so certain and we are so confident in that, why do we ever question that our bodies could do and can do and are doing the same thing on the inside?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that's a great external example about how our bodies do heal. But you can't build a house if you don't have two by fours. Yes, you need your body needs the tools to do the work that it needs to do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it those things seem like when we talk about them, they seem like common sense, Um, and that you know, feed your body what it needs, and we, we all know those basics. But I think we get disconnected from and we're talking about. To me it's this is a like a deep spiritual, spiritual link, a spiritual spiritual connection to god and nature, because, you know, god is the creator of nature and we are all part of that and our body is designed to work to make, to be healthy, Right and so, and understanding how it works and trusting the design of it is really at the heart of a lot of this, which we are, not we are, many of us are disconnected from for whatever reason, and I and as a society, we've lost our way on a lot of that. And so it's. It's finding out this information.
Speaker 1:So what I'm curious about is because, if you just go out and start generally Googling, unfortunately some of this information is actually hidden somewhat and and I'll, and I will use the word suppressed in some, in some ways too, and we can. That's a whole other conversation about why that is. But, um, so you do have to when you go out and you start digging around and doing your own research and you, you, you like, like you, you're kind of brand new at this and like what am I looking at here? And it takes some critical thinking. So how did you navigate that as you started to do the research?
Speaker 2:Excellent question. I'll tell you one of the things you have to keep in mind, and I think people, when they start on this journey of even just diets, it's like, oh, there's all this conflicting information out there. One person says this and another person says that, and yes, and you know why. I have the answer for that, Because every single body is different. So one person might respond really really well to a complete water fast seven days, 10 days, just drinking water and giving your body that break. Another person really may not respond well to that at all. One person might respond really well to completely paleo all meat diet, no vegetables, no carbs. The next person, you know, has an opposite reaction, and so it really comes down to understanding that there are tons of modalities and it's up to you to be your own health advocate. Gently experiment with your own body and learn to listen to what your body is telling you it.
Speaker 2:You know everything that we do, Leslie. I feel so strongly about this. Everything we do is learned, If you think about it. You know raising our son. It's like I'm just shocked sometimes with the things that I have to tell him, but then I'm reminded well, everything is learned. We have to learn how to sit still. We have to learn how to listen in a classroom, we have to learn how to make food, how to cook and how to shovel the driveway. I mean, everything is kind of learned right, and that goes the same with what our bodies are saying. And if you never pause to listen, if you never take note, well, how do I feel after I have that pizza? If you just chalk that up to the fact that, oh, I'm just feeling tired today. There's no reason for it, I'm just tired. That's the marker when you start feeling something like I'm tired today. There's no reason for it, I'm just tired. That's. That's the marker. When you start feeling something like I'm tired today, it's either because you didn't sleep, you didn't drink enough water, you ate something that's dragging you down, or when you're feeling like really like puffy or inflamed. That's a good indicator. Ask yourself, what is it that's making me feel like that, as if you're a, if you're a woman and you're still cycling, you know, is it my cycle? Am I a week before that? Am I leading up to that? Did I eat something really salty? I mean, you've got to start asking these questions of yourself. So when you're out there navigating the internet. To get back to your question, you have to look at what are the things that are going to work for me and how can I experiment with some of those things.
Speaker 2:When you're trying to find data that's valuable, you have to look at who's behind it and where is the money. Always look for the money trail, because the money trail will tell you whether it's believable or not. I learned this as I was doing all of my research. But almost every study, certainly any study that is being referenced by a pharmaceutical drug, was sponsored and paid for by the company that is making money from that study, from that drug, rather. So yeah, they literally are paying scientists. Here's the data. Can you find something in there that says this is healing this symptom or helping this particular symptom?
Speaker 2:So they're not all. I mean, I'm sure there are some independent ones out there, but a lot of them are paid for by the pharmaceutical companies so that they are able to then sell that drug with data behind it that shows it's helping a particular symptom. So we just we have to be just wise to the ways of this world, and this world is, unfortunately, all about money. So if you can find somebody who's offering you information and it sounds like really good information, and they're willing to give it to you for free and they're not making any money off of it and there's no ulterior motive. You can pretty much trust that there's no other reason for them saying what they're saying.
Speaker 2:So that kind of information is that's kind of part of what I did with my litmus test is to try to say, okay, is there any other reason that this person might be telling me these things? Is there any other way they're benefiting from it? Now, with that said, I did pay some coaches, some health coaches, to help me on my journey, and certainly their time is worth money. So I don't discount their data because I was paying for their time. Don't discount their data because I was paying for their time. But so I think you just have to be a critical thinker that way and really look at not only what you're being told, also how you are experiencing it, Because, again, what might work for one person may not work for you, and that doesn't mean the person who's giving you the data is wrong or ill-intended, but you just have to consider is this something that's going to work for my vessel, this body that the Lord gave me this clay pot I get to live in.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so true, so true. And I think your point about follow the money, that's such a litmus test for me and a lot of different things, but particularly in in in health and and and. And it's not hard to read studies Once you get in and you start looking at I mean, there's just some very basic things how many people, how many subjects did they have, how many people were in the study, who paid for the study? It's all in there and you can pretty much just read an abstract which is the summary of a study, at the very beginning of it and and know whether it's going to be decent research or not. But most of it is compromised and that's that's true in a lot of different subjects.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so I don't know. And there's only a couple hundred people or they're not like a diverse group of people and they only looked at you know well, if they looked at just white Caucasian women, you know, maybe that's exactly your demographic and you wanted to know. You want to know how. That is how that group of people is being affected by this particular test. But it's like 100 people really. I mean, I go to church with more than 100 people and if they all had an experience of one thing, I'm not sure if I would trust that data. That seems like there's more of a chance for an anomaly or a you know than than than a reality.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. And and the other point that you were making that I so relate to, is that what I have experienced is that health is simple. Health is simple and it's cheap when you really get down to it, and that's something else that's been obscure. There's a lot of confusion out there. You know eating well, sleeping. You know mind body spirit. You know eating well, sleeping well, exercising those basics mind, body spirit. You know eating well, sleeping well, exercising those basics. That's it. Now, what does it mean to eat Well, that's, you know we can, we're, we're kind of unraveling that, but, um, so what were some of the things that you started to do? Once you sort of you had some health coaches you consulted with, you were doing your research, and then what began to appear for you? For what need your next steps?
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh, the biggest revelation was just how slow the body heals. It was a really frustrating process. I will be just very honest. I was so frustrated even in the, even in the, the modalities that I was experimenting with and I say experimenting because I you have to try things out on your body to see what's working I did a hyper nourish program, which basically was you know, those large bins of pre-washed spinach that you can get at the grocery store.
Speaker 2:They're kind of like a foot and a half by maybe 10 inches or so wide. One of those big things, I think, is a pound by weight. I was doing two of those a day of either spinach or baby greens or mixed greens or kale, baby kale, those kinds of things. I was putting those in my Vitamix blender, stuffing them down, literally putting my fist and shoving those things down with a bunch of flax seeds to kind of offset the omega-3s and omega-6s, because mine were way out of whack Just enough frozen fruit to make it palatable, so I could drink this thing at the omega threes and omega sixes, cause mine were way out of whack just enough fruit frozen fruit to make it palatable, so I could drink this thing and sipping on it all day long, and I did that for six months.
Speaker 1:Wow, and strictly that, strictly that, only Wow.
Speaker 2:And when I so, when I started my journey, it wasn't just like, okay, I'm going to do this. I mean, it was definitely a process leading up to it. I started preparing my mind, like in September, I got a group of six beautiful souls that are really good friends of mine and I asked them if they would be my accountability partners in this. I said I'm starting this thing in January. It's going to be the hardest thing I've ever done no-transcript, sitting at the table and my family's having normal food and I'm just sipping on this green goo, as my friend decided to call it. And I was able to, over those couple of months, kind of get my mind into a good place where, like, okay, why am I doing this? I got really clear on that, listed it out, wrote it out, pinned it up on my computer to say these are the reasons I'm doing this. And here are all the things that I know are going to test my endurance and test my willpower. And here's what I'm going to do when this one happens.
Speaker 1:Here's what I'm going to do when that happens when?
Speaker 2:when my family orders the favorite pizza that I just love? Here's what I'm going to do to avoid falling apart.
Speaker 1:So smart yeah.
Speaker 2:So I had my strategy already, you know, already prepared. January one hit and I started, and I with the whole goal of just healing. So I kind of look at our healing journey as kind of a continuum and I, and if you can kind of picture a continuum left and right, and on one far side is health, healing and happiness, and on the other continuum is death, dying, destruction, you know, just disease and depression, all the D's. If every single day that we are on this beautiful earth, our environment, what we put in and on and around our bodies is either nudging us one little step toward health or one little step toward disease. That's simple, plain and simple, toward disease. That's, that's simple, plain and simple.
Speaker 2:So I had decided, okay, the decisions that I have made from zero till now have pushed me really all the way to the other end of the all the way to the D's. I am in the disease right now. I have a whole lot of digging out to even get to the middle point where I am mid. I'm not even toward health yet. I have like just to get to the middle point.
Speaker 2:So, to me. Those six months were getting me to the middle of that continuum, knowing that I had a whole lot further to go, where I was feeling good and had no symptoms. I would have to go through a whole lot further to get close to that really healthy point of the continuum. So that was my six months just downing the green goo in the cold of winter. You know, in the Northern States where it's freezing and you just want something warm, I would do teas, herbal teas and some bone broth to kind of help warm my myself from the inside out.
Speaker 1:But basically it was that green, beautiful goo that god made that my body needed to heal yeah, what great mental preparation you did, because a lot of people kind of jump into these different juice juice approaches or fasting approaches and they yeah, they're because you will hit those days where you're just like, ah, yeah, but it's really, it's moments.
Speaker 1:It's not really full days, that's how, at least for me, it's like a moment, like a bad half hour, like, oh, I really want that, and then it kind of passes, right, I mean. I mean you might have some days you're not feeling good and we'll talk about the healing crisis and what, how the body when it's shedding a lot of that, what it does. But I like your idea of the continuum because, even though you woke up that one morning and you couldn't walk, you had been leading. Now, as you're understanding now you, it had been moving in that direction for a long time, absolutely. So you had to walk yourself back, and I think that's what happens when people get sick they just go. I don't know what happened. Everything started falling apart. It's like, well, let's kind of back that up and take a look.
Speaker 2:Exactly, and that's the same message that I want anyone listening to really hear clearly, especially with cancer. You did not do cancer overnight. This has been a long process building up to that tumor discovery or whatnot, and every single person on this show, every single person listening, has cancer.
Speaker 2:We all do. All of us have cancerous cells. It's just whether or not your immune system is winning and destroying those cells and getting you know able to get rid of them, or whether the cancer is winning because your body doesn't have enough strength to deal with it. So it's. It's really just giving yourself the peace to know that it took you a long time to get here. You can pause and really decide your healing journey and the approach and the modalities that you're going to use. You can take the piece and the time to really think that through and make a very thoughtful approach. You don't need to race into surgery. You don't need to race into chemotherapy and radiation. It's not a, it's not the race.
Speaker 2:You have days to figure this out and I think sometimes oh, I know that the Western medicine way of treating cancer in particular is all about hurry, hurry fast, fast, get in, do the surgery, cut, cut it out, move it out. And it was some one of the doctors that I was listening to had a really good word about that. He said the only thing you're guaranteeing when you cut off a piece of your body because of cancer is that you won't get cancer in that piece of tissue that you took out. Yeah, because there are T cells circulating through our body. There are so many things that are in our body that still have it and we'll create it again unless we reverse the reasons. Our body has started losing that battle.
Speaker 1:So big, so big and so key, so key, and it's, and it's I, and I think we all have probably witnessed, I've certainly witnessed family members diagnosed with cancer and it was the same kind of rush, rush, rush got to do and they weren't really necessarily on board, but it all, and they get. They get scared, yes, and all of a sudden these doctors are telling you you have to do they get. They get scared, yes, and all of a sudden these doctors are telling you you have to do this, you have to do this now, and it just it's like a, it's like a a train running down the track, yeah, and just I, numerous times, my sister, my both my husband's parents, you know, I mean we just had to step back and you know their decisions are their decisions, but you it, it. They kind of become overtaken by by the Western medicine and the approach there.
Speaker 2:Right. Well, and that's the part that most concerns me is I don't think a lot of cancer patients are making their own decisions. I think they're being brainwashed into being so freaked out and so scared that they're just you. Just tell me what to do, doctor, and I'll do it. Instead of pausing to say prayerfully consider what are all of the modalities that are possible for treating this.
Speaker 2:What are all the possible ways that I can give my body the best chance for long-term health. Does it make sense to light an atomic bomb on the inside of my body and kill a lot of good things as well as bad things? Maybe?
Speaker 2:but, maybe not, and it is a personal choice. It is a personal decision that people really need to ponder, but my concern is that they're not, that they're so freaked out and they're so scared that they're not making their own choice. And I have multiple family members who have died from cancer, multiple super close to me my grandmother, my mother-in-law, my dad and I don't think any of them paused to make a decision on how to do it.
Speaker 2:And I truly believe, at least in two of the cases it was the treatment that ended their life versus the cancer. You just don't. You have to make a personal choice, for sure. But I guess I just, out of all the things we were saying, I just want to encourage anybody listening that you have time to ponder it, to think, to do some of your own research, to look at the how have other people healed from cancer? Cause there have been people who have hundreds and thousands of people healed just naturally.
Speaker 2:It is possible. Consider that maybe it's not the right path for you, but maybe it is and it's worth considering on an individual level.
Speaker 1:Sure, sure, yeah, and I think that this is a real quick. I'm thinking of my sister-in-law too. Same thing, she got swept up in that and it just it's hard to watch. It's hard to watch when you're not sure. It's one thing if it's their clear decision, it's another thing to see them get picked, get picked up and carried off with with, uh, with the whole, the whole story.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and more often than not I it feels like I see cancer patients who get the diagnosis and immediately start planning to die instead of fighting to live.
Speaker 1:Yeah, cause I feel like it's too late, and and and I always I've heard stories from different friends and and where you know the I and I consider it arrogance of a doctor to say you only have two months to live or you only have six months to live, like, really, like that's arrogant.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and what a problem to plant in someone's mind.
Speaker 1:Right, If nothing else. I mean, why would you say that to somebody when we know the connection between mind, body, spirit is so incredibly strong?
Speaker 2:Powerful Right.
Speaker 1:So I just um it. Yeah, that's, that's very unfortunate for people who have that experience. So tell us about so, let's go back. So so January one hits and yeah, you're not still not walking, you're using the walker at this point. Are you kind of getting around or it's kind?
Speaker 2:of one of those. Let's call it hobbling.
Speaker 1:Okay, so you're hobbling around, you've made, you've mentally prepared, you got everything in the kitchen figured out and off you go. So what was that? Like those first few weeks.
Speaker 2:Hard, really hard. I mean. I grew up meat and potatoes, we hunted, we fished it. You know, I honestly I'll admit this to you and I guess I'm admitting it to anybody who's listening. But I remember being in college and everybody talking about carbohydrates and proteins and vegetables and I'm like I don't even know what was a carbohydrate and what was a fruit Okay, which ones really are fruits and which ones are vegetables and I had no. I really had no.
Speaker 2:Whatever they taught me in school was not I knew what breads were. You know, I knew carbs really well and we grew up really, really poor. We were on food stamps and free food at school. So we got all the government things that they give out, which were all you know, powdered milk and free, you know bread and just cheese, lots of cheese. So, letting you know, there was a time the doctor that was guiding me through this she was saying how she was, at one point, a cheese addict and I'm like, oh yeah, sign me up, I'm on that board for sure. And she said, but she doesn't crave it at all anymore. And I'm like, right, as if I'm never going to not cheat. You know, crave cheese, I love my cheese. Give me some tortilla chips with melted cheese.
Speaker 2:I'm a happy camper, but I'll tell you what I no longer crave cheese.
Speaker 1:It is possible, it's possible.
Speaker 2:Oh, my God, you told me a year ago that I was going to have that revelation. I would have completely argued with you until I was there. Yeah, it was. It was really hard. It was a hard journey to give up. Because here's, here's the thing, leslie, I had always married food and fun. Like to me, food was the fun, that was the entertainment, that was what we did. I never had realized how much I was missing of the time and family with family and the fellowship with friends Because, quite frankly, I was just looking forward to the you know spinach dip that I was going to get during the bread that comes with the meal. So it's really actually put my relationships where they should be way in front of food, way at the forefront, where food was really an afterthought instead of being the main focus. And that was definitely not something that I just oh, I just changed my mind overnight on that one. No, it took me kicking and screaming and dragging myself through those six months to even start thinking differently.
Speaker 2:And I sure on top of that six months, I did three 60 day juice fasts, or all I did for 60 days was make and drink my own juice with vegetables and high nutrient, high organic protein, or, sorry, organic vegetables and fruits. So it's not like it was just oh, six months, months and I was there. This has been a process over the last five, six years to get to the point where I have completely changed the makeup of my body I mean quite literally, since our bodies are always renewing themselves and because of that long journey, I can now say that I really don't crave sugar. Cravings don't own me like they used to really own, like I'd be sitting here in my office and I'd hear the kitchen counter calling me because there's cookies sitting on it. You know I don't have that anymore. I don't have the craving for the cheese that I used to always have.
Speaker 2:So, while it was hard and difficult, I never thought that I was going to be able to do it. It's like I don't have willpower to do that, but but when you plan and you thoughtfully prepare, you really can get there. It's so worth it If I could just convey that to anybody listening. It is so worth it because it doesn't matter how much money you make or how many fantastic vacations you have set up. It doesn't matter anything else. If you can't walk and you cut your life short because your health is bad, none of that other stuff matters.
Speaker 1:It really doesn't matter.
Speaker 2:So people say, oh, I can't, I can't spend the money on organic food. Oh really, Okay. The other day I was at the grocery store and I walked down the cereal aisle because I had to grab a little bit of almond flour, which is in the same aisle in my grocery store for Thanksgiving preparations. And this mom, bless her heart, she was in the aisle and guess what cereals they put way down low.
Speaker 1:Probably the worst ones.
Speaker 2:All of the dragons and all of the fun you know boo-boo cereal for Halloween, all these. What are we teaching our kids? We're not teaching them to fuel their bodies. We're teaching them that food is fun and food is a pacifier. What do we do when the baby's crying in the back seat? We pop a puff in their mouth. So, you know, stay quiet. I mean, it's just part of what we do. So back to what I'd said earlier, that we learn everything. We are learning all the time about what those things are so I totally digress, but anyway yeah.
Speaker 1:No, it's, it's, it's. Uh, there's so many, there's so many side, side streets, side avenues to go down with this. I mean it's incredible what you did and you took. You took it into your own hands, which is what I mean. Our health is in our own hands. It's not an external thing. And how empowering is that.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And and those cream. What were you go ahead?
Speaker 2:I was talking about the money side of it. I was just going to say that cereal that's down there at the bottom level it's like seven, eight bucks a box. Yeah, and despite their half a cup serving size, which says that 12 servings or whatever, you're getting like three out of it. Let's be honest.
Speaker 2:You're getting about three or four out of that tiny little sugary box of cereal, whereas, like, an entire head of leaf lettuce is like a dollar and a half. It's like. So we, we are not. We have told ourselves, and we've been programmed, that organic foods are expensive. But I'm, but I'm telling you you're either going to spend it at the grocery store or you're going to spend it at the ER or on the pharmaceuticals, and I'm telling you, I would rather eat green, beautiful, lovely, colorful salad than a bunch of pills that are supposed to sustain my life.
Speaker 2:I would just. Any day I will choose the food over.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, so how, when? So, for those who might be thinking about a fast and there's different types of fasts and you want to, and I think it's important for us to say that you want to start to before you jump into a fast, it's probably a good idea to start to clean your diet up. I mean, you can do. It's going to be a little harder if you don't start cleaning your diet up first and just start, start to get rid of the processed food and things like that and go, you know, fruits and vegetables and clean eating, as clean as possible. And then, once you've done that because that's a change for a big change for a lot of people your body is already going to start to detox.
Speaker 1:Just with doing that and we hold these things, all the exposure that Lisa mentioned earlier that we've had to toxins I mean we live in a toxic environments, some more than others, but it's it builds up in our system. And then there's a point for many people where it's just like the body goes up and it manifests in different ways and and comes out in different ways for people, manifests in different ways and and and comes out in different ways for people. But so, cleaning, cleaning that up and then maybe thinking about moving into a fast, whether it be a juice fast, a water fast. I mean even kind of higher up the ladder, if you will talk about like how the cravings, what that was like in terms of the cravings going away, how you negotiated those situations with people maybe questioning what you were doing too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, there's, oh gosh, there's all kinds of things that come to mind when you mentioned that, those couple of strategies. First of all, on the fasting preparation, like you mentioned, yes, you can dive right into it If you are healthy otherwise healthy and you've talked with your healthcare practitioner. Now, keep in mind your healthcare practitioner is probably going to tell you not to, because most of Western medicine doctors in school and I kid you not are getting six hours of nutritional training. That's all they get. So anything additional that they get is a choice that they're doing for continuing education credits or something like that, but they don't get much training on nutrition. So they're not going to necessarily be built-in advocates for it. So just be aware of that.
Speaker 2:When you go to your doctor and say, hey, I'm thinking about doing this 60 day juice fast, what do you think they're probably going to say you're nutso here, try some opaxin or something like that. So just be prepared that your doctor, your job, has to be to be an advocate and to partner with your doctor. Take their information into consideration, but you shouldn't just be a robot that is programmed by your doctor. You really need to partner with them. Take what they're saying, think for yourself. Put that beautiful brain to work and decide what is going to be the best approach for your overall health. So when you're preparing for a fast, the amount of yuck that you feel when you're fasting will be directly proportional to how much yuck you were putting in your body before the fast.
Speaker 2:Again you'll the worst you feel on the fast is going to be, related to the worst stuff that you were eating before you started the fast. So to Leslie's point if we can slowly move toward a little bit cleaner living, I really encourage people start small. Consider your toxic load. If you can remove one thing this week that is a toxic load Maybe it's diet soda Just get that one thing out of your diet next week. Do diet soda and fast food. Just say I'm just going to go this week with no fast food. Just so slowly get yourself into the rhythm of just slowly peeling the layer of that onion off to to get to the heart of really good eating.
Speaker 2:Because people get overwhelmed and like, oh my gosh, I can't make all of these changes at once. And you know what. You are absolutely right. It's really hard to make all of those changes right when you've been living a very toxic, heavy life, smoking and drinking alcohol and all the different things that we do to our body. They all add up. So choose, choose the low hanging fruit, the thing that you like, but maybe you could do without. Okay, great, get that one out of your life for a couple of weeks and see how you feel.
Speaker 2:So this is not an overnight quick fix kind of a thing. This is a lifestyle change that's going to promise you anybody who tries this. You will eventually have different motivations in your brain. You will start to want different things. But it does take time. So the cravings when I the cravings are okay the first day.
Speaker 2:You have to do a three day fast for anything in order to get really the benefits. So anytime I'm doing a fast, even for the 60 day fasts that I've done, I never started out saying I'm going to do a 60 day fast. I started out saying I'm going to do a three day fast and I'm going to listen to my body and see how I feel on day four. If I feel good, if I feel strong, I'm going to keep going. Second, I would never choose to even try a three-day fast If I had a big event coming up a birthday, a Christmas, a Thanksgiving, something that I know it's just going to be really hard to resist. Don't do that.
Speaker 2:Choose a time where you know you've got a nice quiet season. That's partly why January is such a good one. There's no holidays till like Easter. That's partly why January is such a good one. There's no holidays till like Easter. Yeah, that kind of is helpful. So choose your time well, then know that on day one you're going to start feeling really cruddy, right, leslie, when we start doing our tasks, because your body is releasing all of the toxic stuff that's in trapped in yourselves, fat cells in particular. A lot of people don't know this. They're like little lockers. Picture your high school locker, your hallway in your high school, with all the lockers that are lining the halls right.
Speaker 1:Good analogy.
Speaker 2:Every single one of those lockers is a fat cell.
Speaker 2:And think about all the stuff that our high school students stuff into those lockers. Our bodies do the same thing. They stuff all those toxins away into fat cells because they're safe. They're not bothering the body when they're tucked into these. Well, they're not truly safe, but they're safer, so they're tucked away in these little cells. So when you start losing weight or when you start fasting which you also lose weight on all of a sudden these locker doors open up and guess what? Now you got all of these bullies circling your hallways and making you feel like junk. That's I just want to say. That's that's when you know it's working.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you know right, yeah, and people sometimes get afraid of that because they're like this is not, this is I'm supposed to feel good on this juice.
Speaker 2:Every time I do necessarily sick, right? No, yeah, sick on a fast of any sort. You are absolutely doing the right thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and the cleaner you get, the less you'll have that. I mean probably both of us. Now, when we do our little fast, I, I can do anything on that. I can. I can play tennis, I can hike, I can, I can. I mean it does, I'm not a fact, but it takes a little time for that For sure, yeah, it took me three 60 day juice fasts to get all the junk out of my system.
Speaker 2:But right now, if I were to start a fast even today without doing any preparation, I might have a little bit of a headache day one, but that's about it, because my body has really rid it rid itself of a lot of the junk.
Speaker 2:So if anyone's due to, day one is going to be pretty bad, day two is going to be pretty bad, again, directly proportional to how bad you're living and your environment and food has been. Day three is probably the pinnacle. You're going to start feeling angry. You're going to want my husband and I call it the kill all things mode. When you move into the kill all things mode, you're getting closer to leveling out. Once you get past that, you have no patience, you have no energy, you have no all of that.
Speaker 2:Just trust me, there is beauty on the horizon or comes, and here's this beautiful thing that your listeners need to know about is this beautiful thing called autophagy, which, if you haven't heard about it, I highly recommend you Google it, cause it's fascinating what our bodies God made bodies do. It's this process where we take all the broken cells do. It's this process where we take all the broken cells. This is our body saying I haven't been fed for three days. I need energy.
Speaker 2:Since she's not going to feed me, I'm going to go find all the broken parts. I'm going to go to the junkyard, find the broken cars and get the door that I need to make a new cell in this little car. It's what it does. It goes to the junkyard the fat cells and it finds the broken cells. It tears them apart, discards the broken pieces and uses the good parts for new cell growth, which is exactly what you want. That's where your body's tackling those radical cells that are become cancerous, breaking them down and destroying them and getting rid of them from your body. That's what we want to get to. So that's such an autophagy.
Speaker 1:Yes, look that up, everybody. That's. That's when, that's when the body, at in its beautiful creation, kicks in, and that's where the real healing is happening.
Speaker 2:Right Right A U T O auto phagy P H A G.
Speaker 1:Y P, Y yeah so so so.
Speaker 2:So that was um. So that was how I was handling cravings. It's just like the first two, three days are just hard and then after that it's just a a process of kind of knowing, keeping at the front and center of why I'm doing this why, I'm doing it.
Speaker 2:If I kept that front and center, I was able to endure the cravings and it's funny, but but it's. It is a muscle, your self willpower, if you will, your self-control and willpower. Once you say no and you make it through that 10 minutes of eating that someone else was eating in front of you, because it's really only about 10 minutes and you get past, you're like, oh, I did it. The next time someone's eating in front of you and you choose not to eat, you're going to be like I did this before, I can do this again. You just start building that strength of that muscle to say I'm going to choose something different because I want health versus the same old, same old that I've had.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I want to choose that, and I did have some people questioning me. You asked me about that as well. I still have people who question me when I'm like are you sure this is good for you, are you sure you shouldn't be on this methotrexate, this chemotherapy-like drug that's supposed to help autoimmune diseases, and I'm like, I am so sure, I am so sure.
Speaker 2:So, if you do your research, if you really understand your body and you get really good at listening to it, and if you're making the decision for yourself, you can handle the questions that people throw at you, even the ones from your doctor. My doctor was pushing all kinds of things on me. He wanted me to get COVID vaccinated, which I really didn't want to get, especially in that time because of the research that was showing, especially for people with compromised autoimmune. It was not a good idea.
Speaker 2:So I said no to that and I got lots of pressure from a lot of people, including my family members.
Speaker 1:Sure.
Speaker 2:My husband was probably my biggest win, my biggest supporter, and God bless him he would. You know he would taste the food. He'd be like it's really not that good, you're not missing anything, you know. So funny story.
Speaker 2:We just had a birthday for our family and, and my, my niece, my sweet niece, ordered the same cake this year as she had last year, and last year. I was fasting during her birthday, so I didn't. I didn't get to eat any of it, and my, my husband last year tasted. He's like it's really not that good. You're not missing anything, don't worry about it. Well, this year she ordered the cake again and I was eating it. I was like holy cats. This year she ordered the cake again and I was eating it. I was like holy cats, this is the best cake ever. And I looked over at my husband. I was like you were lying. He's like sorry, you do need a couple of people in your life that are going to help you what you're doing and understand the why, and people who really love you are going to know that you're doing this to try to make a better life for you and them.
Speaker 1:So exactly, and what an example you are, what an example I mean for all those people that have and you don't know, you know, we don't know where are the seeds get planted Right, but just such a great example for for everybody around you.
Speaker 2:Well, and my son has seen me go from 65 pounds overweight and not walking, Because I mean, on top of the fact that my joints were really being affected by the inflammation, I had 60 extra pounds of weight on me which was also weighing down those joints every day. So he saw me from that to losing 65 pounds and walking and running and playing tennis with them again. And he's seen the sacrifices, as I'm sitting at the table drinking green goo while they're eating a yummy pizza.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he's seen it over and over again and he'll um yeah, he's learned a lot from watching me accomplish this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what a great story. What a great story. And I, I, as when we've had a few conversations before this, we could just keep talking and talking.
Speaker 2:We're probably up on time, but it's just been such a treat to share my journey with you. Thank you.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, we're just I'm just so thrilled to have you here and I feel like, yeah, this could be an ongoing thing. Talk about some of the books and some of your like. If you were to throw out some resources, like somebody who's listening that says, yeah, I want to look at this a little more, you know what would what? Where would you send them?
Speaker 2:Beautiful. I've got three that I will tell you and your listeners about and let me just because we were talking about this earlier, let me just tell you I get no money from any of this. About this earlier. Let me just tell you I get no money from any of this. I am not compensated. I don't get a link disc. I don't nothing. I am only sharing these things with you because they helped me and they were a beautiful resource for me.
Speaker 2:Um one in particular is and I recommend everybody go to this Chris beat cancer. C H R I S chrisbeatcancercom. The reason I recommend him highly is his program and his research and his website basically synthesized about 80 different resources that I had found on my own. So I found Chris actually after I had kind of gone through my healing journey, but as I was looking at his website and all the amazing information, he healed himself of stage three colon cancer with nothing more than nutrition. So his story is inspiring, his research is spot on and I just highly recommend it's a great place to start for someone who's looking to just know it doesn't matter if you don't have cancer. Everything's related. Autoimmune is related to cancer.
Speaker 1:All of it's related.
Speaker 2:So if you're not treating cancer, you're preventing it.
Speaker 1:Um it all comes. It's all alkaline or acid, right, and so if we're acidic, it's going to come out in different ways, and so we want to move back towards the alkaline. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So crispy cancer is one Um. Second one would be goodbye, lupus, uh com, she uh. Brooke Goldner is an amazing soul. Again, I don't get anything from this, but she is an amazing soul and her hyper nourishing program is one that I did in that six month of green goo Amazing. She's got great resources on her website that are free and you can really learn a lot from her, and she's got a blog and a podcast, does a lot of beautiful Q and A, so she's a great resource as well.
Speaker 2:And then the third one would be Terry Walls, t-e-r patients with multiple sclerosis. She herself got MS and she changed her diet. She was to the point where she was in a reclining wheelchair because she was so weak she couldn't move. This was a time when nobody thought there was a cure or an answer for MS. She changed her diet, created this thing called the walls protocol, and she is now riding her bike to work and water skiing in the summer, and she is back to being a life filled woman again and it's really excellent. So those are the three I'd recommend.
Speaker 1:Okay, those are the three. I know you had mentioned fat, sick and nearly dead. The guy Chris, is it guests? Joe cross, oh, joe cross, okay, okay that's a great.
Speaker 2:There's a few wonderful shows out there, maybe on netflix or maybe on other places where you even just on youtube, where you're looking for your videos.
Speaker 1:But bat sick and nearly dead is the one that got my attention for sure okay, and we're going to put all that in the show notes, everybody, so you'll be able to find those links and do your own research and check those out. And there's, like you mentioned earlier, there's so many people out there doing this, curing themselves this way. And one of the things we failed to mention is, if you go back and look at all your great religions in the world, they all promote fasting in one form or another, and historically, and some still currently, and so it's, it's something that's been around for a long time.
Speaker 2:It's not a new fad passing through that's going to go away. No, it's been around for a long, long time. I'll also recommend to your, to your listeners, if you're interested in connecting with me or hearing my podcast or anything like that. I am Lisa roarscom. You can spell it any way you want to spell it R O E R S or R O A R S they all go to the same place and my podcast is sunshine cafe and I just would love to to answer questions or encourage you any way I can on your health journey, love to to answer questions or encourage you any way I can on your health journey, and and so are you going to be.
Speaker 1:Is this going to be health focused or a little bit of?
Speaker 2:everything on Sunshine Cafe. So I will do a. I will do a couple of digital courses that are health related, to kind of teach what I've learned and help people.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, one is. I'm not I'm not sure if I'm ready for the full one, but I am going to do a guided fast in the first part of the new year and to to provide some days of education, kind of that mental preparatory, and you could do a water fast or a juice fast. There's lots of different forms of fasting, rather, that you could do to give your body that break and that kickstart to a fresh, new, healthy journey. So I'll be doing that in January, but the podcast itself will have a variety of topics that are just really focused on encouragement. But the first quarter of next year will definitely be focused specifically on health.
Speaker 1:Oh, super so. So for our listeners that are, that are want some support and are interested, yes, go to go to Sunshine Cafe, Lisa Roars, and check her out, and so you're going to be providing a wonderful community of people going through the same thing. Whatever type of fast you're choosing, it can be 12 hours at a time, and I think that's how wonderful to be doing that at the start of the year.
Speaker 2:Thank you. Yeah, I am blessed when I'm able to help other people. That is exactly what lights me up, so I'm really excited to be here.
Speaker 1:Well, like I said, we could just keep talking, but I'm, I'm gonna, I'm gonna end it for today and just so glad to have you on and your wealth, wealth, wealth of information and a lot of it. You know, I think the best information is when you've experienced it yourself. You've walked the walk. You know we got so many people not you know they're telling us stuff, but they really haven't walked the walk. You know we got so many people not you know they're telling us stuff, but they really haven't walked the journey. And that's really the truest information in my book.
Speaker 2:Definitely.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much.
Speaker 2:It's been a joy and we'll just have to do it again.
Speaker 1:Yes, we will All right everybody. Thanks for tuning in. Check out those show notes and remember Sunshine Cafe, Lisa Roars, and she's going to be launching on December 30th 2023. So right around the corner, check it out. We'll talk to you soon. Take care. Bye now. If this podcast was valuable to you, it would mean so much if you could take 30 seconds to do one or all of these three things Follow or subscribe to the podcast and, while there, leave a review and then maybe share this with a friend if you think they'd like it. In a world full of lots of distractions, I so appreciate you taking the time to listen in. Until next time, be well and take care, Thank you, Thank you.