I just meant overnight fasting glucose. Yes I bought a meter and test strips. However, I do intermittent fasting every day at least 13 hours or as long as I can. I have also done some fasting but 60 hours is the longest I could do. Yes I have read a lot of Vincent Longos studies. I've twice started a fast mimicking diet that I think might duplicate his. I haven't made it beyond day 1 each time. I need to get more prepared food wise and mentally.

I hadn't heard of Elysium. I will look at their site.

Just as an aside, I tried chocolate with stevia and it was awful. Maybe they'd have to put a lot more stevia to make it palatable, which would then raise the glycemic effect.

Twohobbies, how did you manage a 60-hour fast?? That is amazing!

I'm almost done with Radical Remission. I think the story with John of God is fascinating. Interesting that meditation increases melatonin. Also that people take passionflower at the center. I just bought a sleep aid from France that contains both melatonin and passionflower. Hmmm. I haven't started with it as I'm saving it for when I really need it. Maybe I should re-think that strategy.

I also like the author's take on supplements, that you don't need them forever. The aim, and this is what I've been striving for since I was diagnosed at the get-go with bone mets, is to get your body to a point where you don't need all the extra support. With daily exercise (resistance and aerobic), lots of fruits and veggies, proper sleep, and calorie/carb reduction with ensuing weight loss, enough sun/vitamin D, I am pretty close to that point, I would say, unless my next scan says otherwise. I'm not sure if I'm a radical remitter though because it's possible being oligometastatic (very limited spread) improved my chances greatly (i.e., to more than 25% over 5 years). In any case, it will be 9 years in August so that has to count some.

FYI, Healing Journeys is offering this course that may interest readers of this topic:

Dr. Kelly Turner's Radical Remission
Online Course

For other offerings, see their website or the bco topic that follows.

warm light & love, Stephanie

https://www.healingjourneys.org

https://community.breastcancer.org/forum/79/topics...

Someone mentioned chocolate with stevia. Try Lily's Chocolates. SO GOOD. No sugar and tastes like dark chocolate. Yum.

Hi TwoHobbies,

I too targeted stress when first diagnosed with advanced breast cancer in the early 1990s. As a career activist, I'd been focused on positive change for decades, but looming death focused my attention on immediate goals that included the future of the nonprofit business I'd invested my life in. I willingly made a personal sacrifice to stabilize the business by making it profitable and moving it to a new location where it could survive into the 20th century. We did and the business survived.

But doing it was stressful and my cancer progressed.

A few years later, I retired on Social Security to create a lower-stress, higher-healing life. Few professional or personal commitments pulled on me. For many years I focused on healing allies, practices, processes and choices (isn't so much of stress about feeling victimized? http://alovinghealingspace.blogspot.com/2016/07/a-...) For a period, my personal mantra was, "I've done enough."

But, gradually, I found out that I was a lifetime activist, not just a career activist and that my dedication to being the change hadn't ended but morphed to new ways of being well and supporting others' wellness.

Since then, I lean into difficult situations that many others avoid - with the personal challenge - how can I impart well-being and less stress to embrace inherently stressful situations (life-limiting and life-threatening disease, end-of-life, environmental challenges, food politics)?

When I have a choice and am not a victim of circumstances beyond my control (even the cancer within my body), then the opportunity arises to engage eu-stress (good stress) rather than dis-stress (bad stress). Engaging what's important to me, empowers me and encourages others to engage and grow from what's important to them (which is usually something completely different!).

This is my meditation this morning. There are so many ways of engaging and disengaging stress (eustress and distress) and what's appropriate at one time, isn't at another.

I hope each of us is able to engage whatever healing approaches allow us full, rich lives.

Sending warmest healing wishes, Stephanie

Continued peace and well-being for you too, dear TwoHobbies, Stephanie

Stephanie, I find your posts extremely encouraging. I'm in a great mental place right now--no fear and the feeling that this will resolve in the best way possible are keeping me going. That and your posts.

Ok, ladies I have a question. I have gotten the book, and also Anti-Cancer. For those of you who drink green tea, what brand do you drink? I know they can't all be the same, and the only one I can find in my little town other than Liptons, is Bigelow. Is there some specific brand that is a better tea with more of the good stuff in it?

Ok, thanks, I did not know any of that I will go look on Amazon.

I had recently saved this blog that compares a few Matcha brands, and thought some of you might also be interested.

http://matcha-tea.com/matcha/the-best-of-the-best-...

And here's another article that compares 12 different brands. http://oolongowl.com/matcha-comparison-matcha-tast...

Oh, and if you've never made it, there are several "how to" videos on YouTube. I just learned while watching one tonight that there's also a "Premium" grade, which is in between the two grades I mentioned above.

I receive acupuncture and counseling at an Institute for Health and Healing center in Northern California and am so very grateful that my practitioners abide by these tenets. We share a similar orientation toward life and healing. And we truly care for one another and others who come to the center. http://www.cpmc.org/services/ihh/clinic

xxx

The IHH philosophy is included in this is a really beautiful article on Integrative Medicine:

Wherever the art of Medicine is loved, there is also a love of Humanity. --Hippocrates

The Big Idea Behind Integrative Medicine

--by Alan Briskin, Aug 04, 2016

Integrative medicine is an ecosystem of support for pursuing your own health and well-being. Inside that ecosystem is someone who cares about you. Integrative medicine is emerging from a successful history of treating physical ailments that often eluded Western modalities of care to become an ecosystem of support for health and wellness. Possibly the most visible sign of this development is the increasing attention of integrative medicine to primary care, where prevention and regard for the whole person is most critical.

What distinguishes integrative medicine as an approach is that it distances itself from the traditional model of a patient dependent on an expert. Rather, it embraces a genuine clinical partnership in which both the patient and the care provider have something to offer in pursuit of the patient's optimal health. The care provider embodies not only clinical knowledge, which is the result of his or her training, but also qualities not always associated with experts. These include curiosity, emotional support, collaboration, humor, and the ability to articulate options and alternatives without judgment. Patients are participants as well, offering knowledge of what has worked for them in the past, providing information that can't be quantified on a medical report, and finding meaning and purpose in their response to the challenges faced when confronted by illness.

The power of integrative medicine comes from acknowledging the multiple dimensions that can cause illness and an equal respect for the various modalities that can address healing and cure. Freed from a traditional repertoire of either pharmacological or surgical solutions (pills or knife), integrative medicine practitioners have expanded the treatment landscape to include nutrition, bodywork, chiropractic, mindfulness-based stress reduction, integrative psychotherapy, and ancient healing practices such as Chinese and Ayurvedic medicine. From exploring the optimal chemistry for our digestive tract to treating autoimmune conditions to finding novel ways to address trauma, integrative medicine is showing us a whole new way to educate ourselves about health and take responsibility for our own well-being.

The emerging field of integrative care is as much an idea as a set of practices. The idea is of an ecosystem of support, an intersecting set of relationships that address the whole human package — body, mind, heart, and soul. And at the center of this ecosystem of support are people who care about you. The ability to be seen by a team of providers and staff who value you as a whole person is a central premise permeating all other techniques and practices.

I am reminded of the support that the poet W.H. Auden gave Dr. Oliver Sacks when he was composing Awakenings, a book about his work with a group of patients who had been in a decades-long sleep and were now coming back to consciousness. Auden wrote: "You're going to have to go beyond the clinical. … Be metaphorical, be mystical, be whatever you need." I find here the implication that it is our deep regard for the human condition that moves us beyond the complacent and routine. It is in our profound respect for service to others that we touch mystery and wholeness. At the heart of integrative medicine is a bold invitation to go beyond the clinical, into regions that capture our hearts and imagination. Caring is fundamental. Nothing else really matters without love as an organizing principle. Or as one patient I know told her physician, "I just want someone who gives a damn."

Caring relationships can and should be with our care providers, but they must also be evident in our social networks, our family, and our community, and in our relationship with nature. Beyond the particular type of care we receive is a broader view of health that includes the social and relational. Caring is about how we manifest love in the form of looking out for each other, witnessing, supporting, provoking, and optimizing our capacity to face health and illness, life and death, with dignity. Wise old Hippocrates had it right: Where the art of medicine is loved, there is also a love of humanity.

I had the opportunity to talk about all this with Dr. Jeff Draisin, co–medical director of the Institute for Health and Healing. IHH operates a network of clinics in Northern California and has pioneered integrative medicine practice there for nearly 25 years. Here are seven distinctions he articulated about the emerging field of integrative care. I think he captures something here of essence, particular themes that direct our attention to what matters most and the attributes that together make a whole. Integrative care does the following:

* It shifts our understanding of care from a focus on illness and shortcomings to a focus on well-being, personal growth, and transformation.

* It cares for the whole person by addressing mind, body, and spirit as three interacting elements that together result in health and well-being.

* It helps individuals craft healthy relationships with their physical bodies, mental outlook, and emotional well-being. Beyond fitness and exercise is the relationship we have with our whole self.

* It treats nutrition — what we put in our body — as medicine. Beyond diets and supplements is an understanding of what helps our body to feel vital and how best to decrease the effects of toxins.

* It embraces the latest discoveries of neuroscience and mind-related health for personal well-being — from mindfulness stress reduction to the benefits of awe and wonder.

* It creates a true partnership that joins the best of Western medicine with ancient healing traditions and complementary modalities. The guiding intent is to restore harmony and address imbalances that detract from optimal health.

* It values psychological and spiritual forces as food for the soul. Feeling valued, having purpose, and finding meaning are all essential elements of healing and health.

If we pursue health practices and policies along these lines, we will transform health care and bring the art of caring into the heart of medicine.

xxx

Alan Briskin is the co-founder of the Collective Wisdom Initiative, and a consultant, artist, and researcher. His co-authored book, The Power of Collective Wisdom, won the 2010 Nautilus Award in the category of Business and Leadership. Follow him on Twitter.

http://www.dailygood.org/story/1353/the-big-idea-behind-integrative-medicine-alan-briskin/

I took disability years ago, about 2002, for Lupus and secondary chronic anemia. And I can tell you there are days when I would give almost anything to have a job to go to!

Question to you ladies. I have been a coffee drinker my entire life, my dad started me off at about 10 with half coffee half milk. To this day I take my coffee with cream and sugar. I have a serious problem getting started in the day without it and then I crave it if I don't have it. Considering the suggestions to change to tea, I wonder if one cup of coffee with cream and a sugar substitute (thinking coconut sugar) will still mess with my immune system? Any ideas would be wonderful

Thanks dlb I use a regular coffee cup only, so probably a little over 8 ounces, maybe 12 total. Does maple syrup cause the sugar spike? Will try that! I love maple syrup. I am adding a couple of cups of green tea (Matcha) daily, so hopefully that will offset my coffee intake. I do have hobbies, scrapbooks, knitting, etc., but right now I just can't keep my mind on anything for any period of time. I hope that gets better! Thanks for your answer

Have a great day!

Gracie, coffee is good for you. Seriously. Also, about the sugar. I avoid sugar. BUT, I don't think a spoon of sugar a day is going to do anything terrible. What is bad is eating a lot of processed crap with hidden sugar, drinking sugary drinks all day and eating donuts etc as a regualr thing

Morning all

Gracie I was a heavy coffee drinker it took a few months and a few headaches but now I'm coffee free. Once in a while I treat myself but most mornings it's smoothies or juicing and I don't miss it at all. I was a big sugar hound too and now if I eat something sweet I find it horrible. Our tastes can change and we can find those fresh cherries as wonderful as we found that oh Henry bar in the past. I feel great and wish I would have changed my diet sooner . But hey better late than never right?😁

Wendy