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In this episode, Dr. Carol Lourie, an integrative practitioner, shares her approach to chronic illnesses management using naturopathy, acupuncture, and homeopathy.
She critiques the standard American diet and suggests dietary modifications, such as a ketogenic diet, for overall wellness.
The episode explores the societal and cultural pressures women face, the importance of addressing past traumas, and practical steps towards better health, emphasizing the power of small changes.
For complete show notes and links visit inspiredliving.show/95
She critiques the standard American diet and suggests dietary modifications, such as a ketogenic diet, for overall wellness.
The episode explores the societal and cultural pressures women face, the importance of addressing past traumas, and practical steps towards better health, emphasizing the power of small changes.
For complete show notes and links visit inspiredliving.show/95
Creators and Guests
What is Inspired Living with Autoimmunity?
The podcast for high achievers who want to stay sharp, focused and full of energy despite their diagnoses. Those who know there has got to be something better than simply accepting decline.
Hosted by Julie Howton, a National Board Certified Functional Medicine Health Coach who used to suffer from crippling Rheumatoid Arthritis until she learned the tools and strategies to take her power back from autoimmunity.
In this podcast, Julie brings you interviews with thought leaders in the Functional Health and Wellness space. You will get actionable recommendations to Take Your Power Back and catapult your health. No fluff, just concrete, useful steps to improve your health!
Welcome back to The Inspired
Living with Autoimmunity podcast.
I'm your host, Julie Michelson, and
today we're joined once again by Dr.
Carol Lourie.
Dr.
Lourie is a dedicated practitioner
with over three decades of clinical
experience as a naturopath,
acupuncturist, and homeopath.
She's helped hundreds of women
recover their health and restore
their life through her holistic
protocols involving focus, nutrition,
targeted supplementation, lifestyle
changes, and a centered mindset.
Carol specializes in complex and chronic
disease management, focusing on women's
health, specifically breast cancer.
Fertility for older women
and autoimmune illness.
I'm excited to have her
back on the podcast.
If you haven't listened to episode
six, I encourage you to check it out.
We had a great conversation Today.
We are continuing to discuss the out
of the box integrative approach that
goes beyond tra traditional medical
oncology to truly create wellness.
Listen in to find out why you don't
wanna be in the middle of the bell curve.
Dr.
Lourie, welcome to the podcast.
I, I'm so excited and happy to be here.
Thank you so much for having me.
I am so thrilled to have you back on.
I almost fell over when I realized
that it's been close to two years since
our last conversation on the podcast.
And that was such a great conversation.
I know that listeners are gonna get
so much value from digging deeper.
And as we were saying before I
hit record, we evol, we evolve,
and we grow and we keep learning.
And, and so let's jump into to part two
for listeners that didn't hear that first
episode we did together I'd love to have
you share a little bit of your journey
of, you know, how did you get into this
integrative world and, and just so deep.
Well, I always wanted to be
a doctor for some reason.
And initially I thought I was going to
medical school, and then I ended up living
in a spiritual community in New York in
the seventies, and that was before the
world word detoxify became a household
word, and I ended up working with this
chiropractor who used iridology to
diagnose areas of imbalance in our bodies.
And for those of you who don't know what
iridology is, It's a very old science that
where they map out the eye into specific
different sections and you can look at
these sections and see, depending on
how your iris looks, if you have toxins,
if you have buildup, what's going on.
And he would do that and then put
people on detoxifying diets Now.
When I first started working with him,
this young girl came into the office
and she had bad skin, and I thought
to myself, what is the big deal?
You have bad skin, you take antibiotics.
That's like, why is she even
here eating these blended salads
and drinking these juices?
And that was how naive I was
because she came back a month
later and she had lost weight.
Her skin was much better.
And I began to see this from
people who had not, either not been
helped through the regular medical
treatment or who had been damaged.
And so my eyes and my mind beca be
really began to do a radical shift
away from symptom A equals drug B.
Yay.
Yes.
Yay.
And then one day I was going through
this big stack of papers and I lifted up
a paper and there was a catalog to the
National College of Naturopathic Medicine.
And that was like a bell ringing moment.
I thought, oh, maybe I should go here.
It was in Portland, Oregon.
And I applied and I got in and
that was the beginning of my.
Really gathering the tools that I needed.
I graduated from the National College of
Naturopathic Medicine in Portland, Oregon.
I moved to California and there wasn't any
licensing for naturopaths at that point.
And I got my acupuncture license.
And I opened up my clinical
practice, you know, in the late
eighties and I specialized in
women's health and chronic disease.
And then one day, recently,
well actually it's 15 years now.
A dear friend called me up and I
didn't understand what she was saying.
And then finally I realized she
was saying they found a lump.
And this is a woman who ate healthy
and she said, what the heck's going on?
I eat organic.
Why did I get this?
And I said to her, don't
worry, you're not alone.
I'm, and I attended every treatment
session of 18 months with lumpectomy
chemotherapy, radiation for her.
And I got an up close and
personal perspective of what
was great about medical oncology
and what really was lacking.
And one of the first areas I realized
that was lacking is when we went
into the chemotherapy infusion room.
Now there is this, Medical proven
science fact that sugar feeds
cancer, it's not negotiable.
It was discovered by Otto
Warburg in the 1920s.
He won the Noble Medicine
Peace Prize for this.
Given cancer cells given a choice
between oxygen and ca sugar or glucose,
always choose sugar even though they
have to work twice as hard for it
and they get less energy or a t p.
Just like humans.
yeah, exactly.
we go into U C S F chemotherapy infusion
room, and sh they look at her and
they go, oh, you're a little thin.
Would you like some?
Ensure?
Ensure is the number one
ingredient is glucose.
And then they offer a lollipop.
They offer Gatorade, they offer cookie.
And when you're done, they
wanna give you a cupcake.
Five times during the infusion was
she offered sugar and we came with
our ginger tea and our smoothie.
And our peeler broth and
we kept saying, no thanks.
So that was the beginning.
Oh, and then there was the time
when the candy cart walked by.
That was the beginning of
my eye awakening towards.
The, the disparaging information, the
disconnect between medical oncology
and natural or integrative medicine
and which are, which is science backed.
We're not like making stuff up, right?
woo woo, right.
So, so I began to Really work with
her from an integrative perspective.
And we were in her medical oncology
appointment and her oncologist looked
up at looked at her blood work and then
looked at us and said, what are you doing?
And I got, got alarmed.
Is there a problem?
And I said, is there a problem?
She said, no, your blood work does
not look like the blood work of
somebody in the middle of chemotherapy.
Your white cell count is great.
You're not anemic.
You look great.
What are you doing?
I want all of my patients
to be doing that too.
I wish every doctor were that on it and
open to even ask, what are you doing?
right.
So that was the beginning of, she
referred a lot of her patients to me
in my practice in Berkeley, California
at the time, really began to focus on
breast cancer and then the individual
need expanded beyond what I could handle.
So I created an online program.
To provide women with this really
lifesaving and life-changing
information that's called Empowered
Against Recurrence at this point.
And there's other aspects
of that in development.
But on a deeper level, let's talk about
what breast cancer is on a deeper level.
Breast, it's a disease
of the feminine, right?
It's the breasts and the feminine.
In our culture right now
is not doing so great.
It's better than it was.
Unfortunately.
There's still this conflict between what
men think we should be, should and how we
want to live, and we can see that about
how that's happening in the political
arena regarding the Roe versus Wade.
We can see that in the messaging
that we get from television.
Perspectives on women being depressed,
the ads for psychiatric antidepressants.
A woman is depressed.
What does that look like?
The house is a mess, quote unquote.
What does that look like?
There's dishes in the sink.
The beds aren't made.
There's laundry.
And when I first saw that commercial, I'm
screaming at the television to myself.
I'm not depressed.
And when I had a child,
I had dishes in the sink.
My beds weren't made.
And you know, I had piles of laundry
and, and then she takes a pill and
everything's quote unquote spec and span.
So I'm thinking, why is
it just the woman's job to
take care of all this stuff?
Where's the partner, whether
that partner's a man or a woman?
And why does that equal depression?
right.
And what happened before?
This mess of a house, quote unquote,
that made this woman feel unwell.
What kind of stress was she on under?
Was she being harassed at work?
Was she having difficult
communication in her relationship?
Were her children suffering
from some ailment?
I mean, there is always a
reason for depression, right?
Absolutely, and it's never
a lack of antidepressants.
It's, it's never the cause of depression.
Right.
Too many women go into their
doctors and they're not complaining.
They're reporting, they're sole aching,
and it's taken as complaining, number one.
And number two, the next thing you
know out comes the prescription pad.
And out comes the words, well,
let's just put you on a short
course of X, Y, z, antidepressant,
and let's see how, if that helps.
Yep.
And, and even the, just, especially
in the autoimmune world, the fatigue
just expressing the level of fatigue I.
Out comes the pad for an antidepressant.
It's,
A hundred percent.
Now from our perspective,
you have fatigue.
Let's see what adrenal support you need.
Let's see what's happening from
your, with your mitochondrial.
So, How are they functioning
your mitochondria?
Let's see where your
energy sources are coming.
Let's see if you're eating food that
doesn't agree with your body and you
need to really, you know, clean up
some aspects of what you're eating.
Are you getting enough good sleep?
I.
Are you getting positive movement?
You know what Julie Julie's work
with Autoimmune is very similar to
how I assist women recover their
health and restore their life.
With breast cancer, it's very
similar because the foundation
for all disease is inflammation.
The foundation for breast
cancer is inflammation.
We need to dial back and heal the
inflammation, not suppress, but heal
as much as we can with all of these
areas that we're talking about.
And, and from where I sit.
And I will try to keep calm
through our conversation
we don't have to.
so much of what you say makes sense.
And, and I find, you know, I have
these conversations and amazing
connections and I think the world,
you know, the needle has moved so far
and the world knows and they get it.
And then I, you know, then I see the line
around the corner at the fast food joint
and I think, nope, I live in a bubble.
So.
Yeah.
This, and I love Thank you.
And I know that's how you genuinely feel.
The, the integrative approach
is the best of all worlds.
It's, it's not, this approach is wrong,
you know, it's, it's where can we do
better and what compliments each other.
So to me, I listened to you
and so far nothing you've said
seems out of the box at all.
Where is that kind of
standard oncology care now?
Like has that needle moved at all?
Cuz I haven't met anybody diagnosed with
cancer that was told to watch sugar.
Like, I, I still haven't since.
Are you seeing a shift?
I think one of the most dangerous things
somebody can be told no matter what cancer
they have is eat everything in moderation,
and that is the standard line that.
Women and men are given with cancer
by their oncology nutritionists,
unless those nutritionists have taken
specialized programs and realized that
that is a very dangerous statement.
So, If you have cancer, if you have a
family history of cancer, you do not
want to eat everything in moderation.
That means you can eat
fast food in moderation.
And what's the definition
of moderation for you?
That may mean twice a
week for somebody else.
It may be.
You know, for me it's zero.
I mean, there's certain things
that we need to become very
conscious of making a really good
decision if we're going to blow it.
Like, if you want, if it's your birthday
and you love, you know, smoked meats
and there's this barbecue place that
you, so you go there and you get it
once a year and you don't eat the
bread and you don't eat the mac and
cheese, you just eat the, the meat.
Which is not great, but it's not horrible.
I eat nightshades probably two or
three times a year cause they don't
agree with me and I love them.
Yeah, like if you're in
Italy, you're going to
Yes,
and you're not going to worry about it,
but, or if you're in California or if
wherever you live, you know, there's
this delicious tomato and it's in season,
you're gonna make a decision to eat that.
But you know that if you eat that three
days or five days in a row, you're
gonna wake up and your hands are going.
You're gonna be swollen, you're
gonna have a headache, you're gonna
be not able to move, and then you're
gonna think, well, was it worth it?
The pro, the problem with nutrition
and oncology is it's not always a
one plus one equals two approach.
Where if you eat product A,
you're going to feel bad, but
your blood work will show it.
Your circulating tumor cells can elevate
and that impact can happen months later.
And most physicians, as standard of care,
are not doing circulating tumor accounts.
You know, they don't do that as
standard of care, and we have to
have a serious conversation with
them and present them with studies
in PubMed in order for them to.
Do some of this more thorough
and advanced blood work because
cancer is a metabolic disease.
What that means is there's not
just one thing that goes into
creating cancer, whether it's
breast cancer, ovarian cancer.
Melanoma, it doesn't matter.
There are these pathways where your cells,
instead of staying in the healthy freeway,
they get all discombobulated and the next
thing you know, they have stopped paying
attention to the rules of stop and go.
And they think they can
go wherever they want.
They can over progress.
They can create angiogenesis,
ex extra blood vessels.
And the next thing you know, you have
a severe inflammatory problem and
you have a tumor or blood dysplasia
where your blood is unhealthy.
And so, and it doesn't happen overnight,
it happens over a period of time.
Right.
And that's, I think that's where it
gets tricky and that's where having
some of these advanced labs where
people can see, cuz if you can't
feel it, you think, oh, maybe that
one McDonald's is fine this week.
Or, or whatever your jam is.
I'm picking on fast food just cuz I,
I can't remember the last time I had,
you know, I, I would, I would fast if.
I, I, yeah, I, I would have to
be, yeah, I can't even imagine.
it is so much easier when, you know,
you do feel a, a, a direct impact
where you can connect those dots.
And so I love that idea of, okay, well if
we're following, you know, seeing these
advanced markers, we can sh people can
see, you know, even if they can't feel
it, they're still getting the feedback.
And it's kind of hard to,
I, I have a client who.
When eating, you know, doing the
things working together, cancer
markers were coming way down.
You know, after a long time of him
not doing anything and then he kind
of fell off the wagon and guess what?
Cancer markers started to go back up.
And it was like, okay.
His doctor said to him, now, you
know, what you were doing was working.
And going back to, you know, eating
on the fly is feeding the cancer.
So, you know, there is sometimes a,
a bit of a learning curve and I think
that feedback is, is remarkable.
It's, it's not so easy.
I had, last year I was a speaker
at the Society for Integrative
Oncology in Arizona, and one of the
other speakers was a brain surgeon.
And he came from his office in
Scottsdale and his scrubs, and
he had images that he shared with
the on the presentation of using
ketogenic diet to reduce brain tumors.
So this wasn't like, oh, I'm
gonna tell you a nice story.
This was science-based and
he's about to publish it.
Here is before ketogenic.
Here is after.
And there was a remarkable shift.
In the size of the tumor and where
it was and everything from, not just
one people, but many, many people.
Now, several of the people went
off the ketogenic diet and then
they had a brain scan and that you
could see that the tumor had grown.
And one of his patients said, why are you
talking to me about nutrition and diet?
I'm, you're a surgeon.
I came to you for surgery.
I have a brain tumor, I want surgery.
And the doctor said, well, let's
shrink the tumor first and then see if
you still need, do you know surgery?
Sometimes if it gets small enough, we can
just leave it there if it's not growing.
So Yes, it, it matters what we eat.
And it's very difficult
sometimes to not eat that pasta.
And if you're doing ketogenic,
you cannot eat pasta.
And if you're, if you are staying on
a healthy plan through breast cancer,
you really, really, you don't wanna eat
birthday cake, but, You can make your
own and use a very, very tiny amount
of monk fruit instead of white sugar.
You can make it the, the cake with
te you can have, you know, organic,
unfiltered, heavy cream for a an icing
instead of some buttercream junk.
I mean, there are ways of doing
this once or twice a year where,
We don't have to be deprived.
no, I'm not, it, it's, I don't,
you know, The word restrict
and deprivation are bad words.
It doesn't work for us as adults.
We, I don't think anybody should feel
restricted or deprived in their life.
I think it's about education and
understanding equals you have the
ability to make really empowered choices
for yourself and you need begin to,
and then it's sustainable.
Yeah, it needs to be sustainable
for you and you need to figure out.
Your path.
For example, you know, you have
dear friends and you go over to
their house for dinner all the time,
and the woman makes lasagna and
you, you are not eating lasagna.
And so can you say to her, look, I'm
gonna bring my piece of fish that I've
cooked and I'm gonna eat your salad and
vegetables, and can you stick to that?
When you go out to eat to an
Italian restaurant, everybody
else is getting some pasta dish.
Can you get a piece of grilled
fish with tomato sauce over it?
If you're able to eat that with,
you know, sauteed vegetables
and a salad and be okay?
I mean, I, I, that's what I do.
The only place I don't, I
think that you have difficulty
eating at is a pizza place.
You can't really go to
a pizza place and eat
No, and, and I think, you know,
you talked about EM empowering and
that's, we're both all about that.
That part is a process, especially
for women of saying, you know, like,
why do we feel like it's an imposition
if a friend is hosting us and we're
gonna bring something we can eat?
You know, that takes train retraining
and reprogramming to, to realize
like, I am allowed to make the
choices for my own body and, and
you know, it's nobody's business.
Also.
You're not asking
somebody to cook for you.
Right.
And what's the big deal about taking
it out, putting it on your plate,
and then bringing it to the table?
I mean, I, I just, you know,
oh, I'm gonna upset the hostess.
Yeah.
We're trained, you know, or ex
holiday need, like you say, you
know, you have to have birthday
cake, like gross birthday cake.
And I'm, I guess I, I am just anxious.
I hope it's in my lifetime of where
there's this tipping point where instead
of, You know, shaming people, people
that are trying to protect their health.
You know, get curious and, and
like, where's the trickle down?
And there is some I remember I, I had
a border colleague a few years ago.
Who was, she?
She had been, she'd had been
a perfect candidate for you.
She was born in a shelter.
Sick.
The only one in the litter who lived
in foster care for a year and a half,
cuz she was so shy and, and you know,
high stress, just high, high stress.
And we gave her, thank goodness,
you know, she had a wonderful
family and we got her no pressure.
We adopted her with her foster sibling and
Oh, nice.
she loved dogs.
She was totally comfortable with dogs.
And we were like, I don't need to pet you.
I don't need to, you know, of course
ended up like the biggest love bug in the
Oh, that's so sweet.
That's very healing story.
well, it, it's, it does, you
know, the animals go through
the same processes, right?
And I remember this, we found out
she had a tumor and the second I
found out, now this is me telling on
myself the second I found out she had
a tumor, I put her on a keto diet.
I had a custom keto diet made for her,
for the dog.
for the dog.
We then found out that it was
hemangiosarcoma and it was gonna be
very aggressive and, I I was not go,
and I'm not saying all key for this
dog at this time in her life, and this
was in the be just in the beginning of
shutdown and covid, like, I couldn't
even go in the vet with her, which was
Oh my goodness.
Oh my goodness.
the, the surgical oncologist really
did such a good job on selling me for.
You know, if you don't do chemo for
this dog, for this kind of cancer, she's
got three months to live and that's it.
And I made the decision for her,
there'll be three happy months.
She feels well, and she lived three years.
And what I did was I came home and I put
my other two dogs on a keto diet because
did I love her more than the other dogs?
was eating the same food.
So it didn't have to be, she
didn't feel bad and it, it wasn't
because she'd feel awkward.
She was eating crappy kibble
and it was high quality.
It was already, she was already paleo.
So, you know, shocker, my dog was paleo.
She had an integrative vet, you know?
Right.
Well, they're part of the family.
You know, the animals
are part of the family.
But I brought her up because I, I know,
and I, I really encourage listeners
to go back and listen to our first
interview from, from 2021 because this
dog exemplifies us of, you know, all
she had, all of those things aligned.
How we end up with cancer,
autoimmunity, chronic illness, you
know, name it, which whatever it is.
From, you know, just the trauma,
the stress, all the things.
All right.
Life.
Yeah.
And so I, I'm waiting, you know,
that, that's my hope is that, that
instead of, you know, it's that
now all my dogs and they still are,
all my dogs still are clean eaters.
And watch cuz why not?
I was gonna say, why not?
I mean, and when I talk to people about
changing how they eat, There's a couple
objections which I want to bring up.
One, it's going to be more expensive and
actually it isn't because when you go into
the regular grocery store and anything
that you buy that's processed and you pick
it up in this box and you read the list of
ingredients that are in there, and most of
those words nobody has ever heard before.
Right.
You're paying for that fake
junk to be put into the food
re and you're paying for that.
People who design the box, the
packaging, the label, the putting it,
transporting it to the supermarket,
all of that, you are paying for that.
Yeah.
You can make your own crackers if you
want, or you can, you know, go get gluten.
A few gluten-free crackers, which you
are going to eat very infrequently cuz
even though it's gluten-free, it's still
high glycemic from the health food store.
But you don't need to be eating
cereal in a box's sort of like
eating, you know, paper eating
cereal is like eating paper with.
House milk, which nobody
needs to be eating anyway.
So there's a lot of messaging
that we've been brainwashed.
So.
Why does diet the American diet
need to start in breakfast?
Breakfast with a pop-tart, a waffle,
cold cereal, hot cereal, bacon
and eggs, which are not that bad
as long as the bacon doesn't have
nitris in it and it's organic.
Why does breakfast need
to start like that?
Why couldn't it be a smoothie
that has a protein base in it?
Why couldn't it be leftovers from
dinner, which is protein and vegetables?
Why does it have to be some
carbohydrate with sugar in it and
coffee with, yeah, it's very draining.
from mar marketing marketing to children.
Right from, from day one,
that sugar for breakfast.
I, yeah.
You mentioned like even oncology,
nutritionists, unless they have
special training, You know, saying
eat everything in moderation.
I had a, a client with type one
diabetes who saw a diabetes coach,
and for those of you listening
on audio, I'm using air quotes.
I, I don't know what
kind of training she had.
And this woman was shocked to
learn with type one diabetes.
That oatmeal for breakfast
was not a good choice for
Oh, I'm so happy.
I'm so happy you brought that up
because one of the things that
drives me crazy is when I do my life.
Presentations for my Empowered
Against Recurrence program.
I have women put in the chat,
what did you eat for breakfast?
And it's amazing to me what is
seen, but I'd say 80% is oatmeal.
Now let's talk about that.
First of all, there's a, a
colleague who, who has said that
oatmeal is great for breakfast.
Now even there's a
couple of C caveats here.
Even if it's gluten free, even
if it's steel cut oats, oat
oatmeal is still a carbohydrate.
Which means it is processed very
quickly into a sugar glucose.
You do not wanna start your day
with food that's going to be quickly
processed into sugar because then
you're feeding, you've basically been
fasting while you're sleeping, and
then the cancer cells are hungry.
So you eat food that is going to
be processed into sugar quickly,
and the cancer cells go great.
I now have gas for my gas tank.
Thank you very much.
Yeah.
oatmeal is not, oh, I don't really think
anybody should really be eating oatmeal.
I had a woman in my program who
said, I have to have my oatmeal.
And I said, okay, let's make a deal.
Let's have you eat it two or
three times a week for lunch, and
you put a lot of ghee fat in it.
Well,
Yeah.
Nuts
you put a lot of fat in it because that
slows down how the sugar is metabolized.
And that's what she did.
And she used coconut milk and she
of the things that's so frustrating for
me, and I'm sure she learned through
that process, that she probably could
live without oatmeal eventually.
I bet you,
I hope so.
the, the thing that frustrates me,
and that goes back to that marketing.
A lot of pe, most people are eating
oatmeal because they're actually
trying to make a good choice.
Right.
It's not like the Pop-Tart,
you eat a Pop-tart, you know
you're eating a Pop-tart.
Right?
You're eating oatmeal.
Oh, well, I've heard it's
good for my heart and it
And good for lower cholesterol.
Right.
No, it doesn't
With the round paper oatmeal container
with the red and blue Quaker oats.
So that's what we grew up with when
you know, and we thought it was
healthy and it was delicious, my
mom would put white sugar on top of,
Mine would put brown, you know, but
we put white sugar on grapefruits.
Why?
I just had that conversation.
Who started that?
Yeah.
Why?
But it is, so some of it is habitual.
Some of it is conditioning and marketing.
You know, those, those commercials
are just as powerful as the
antidepressant commercials
They are, they are.
There are people who study this.
There's science behind it.
And so unfortunately in the world
of natural medicine, which is what
we're talking about, we don't have
the billions of dollars to put
our commercials up on television.
And I don't even think regular TV
channels would, you know, run them
Well, and social media certainly
would knock it right down.
Well, social media, you
Some of it, if you're, but I mean, You
know, if you're a little too vocal about
it, it's not, it's not the right message.
need a lot of money for Facebook
ads to have it have a large
people see
I mean,
Yeah.
Yeah.
So,
dollars in a month.
No joke.
And then it takes a while because
you're up against people's.
Brain conditioning that
they've seen for many years.
So this brings us back to my.
Philosophy of the bell curve,
which I wanna share with you.
So the bell curve is curved like this,
and any statement you see about breast
cancer, any research about whatever
the topic is, the research is done with
women in the middle of the bell curve.
And what does that mean?
That most American women are.
Overweight to obese.
They don't exercise.
They eat the standard American
diet, which is what Julie and
I have been talking about.
It's filled with processed food sugars.
The meat is not farm to table.
It's the kind of meat you get at Costco
or one of the fast food places, which
has been proven to be carcinogenic.
There's, and the Standard American diet
literally quadruples the cancer rate.
So that's the studies and that's
the middle of the bell curve in my
community and through my life coaching
program and in my individual work, I
want you to be out of the bell curve.
That's where the magic happens.
And so it takes a while to
get out of the bell curve.
You have to shift your mindset.
You have to leave all that other stuff
behind, and you have to walk forward
on a new path you are creating, you
know, forging a new path for yourself.
That that can be difficult, which
is why we have live coaching, which
is why I offer individual sessions.
It's as the work with Julie, it's very
hard to separate what you've been.
Taught and how you've grown
up and create new habits.
And there's research that says
it takes a hundred days for an
activity to become a new habit.
And those habits, new habits, it
takes time and energy to create them.
Right,
So you don't wanna do 15 new
things at once because it's all
gonna, you know, not work out.
The plate's gonna break.
You need to choose, I think, the first
one to three most difficult areas that
you have with, and attend to them first.
And you need to realize and understand
at that time that you will be moving
much, slowly, more slowly than
you usually do, because you have
to think about what you're doing.
Yeah, I, I love, there's so many things
that you said that if you hit three
more hours but the, the bell curve.
I, I had an article published a
few months ago about how, and, and
here's one of those we're talking
about outside of the box, right?
Standard of care versus
integrative or functional medicine.
You don't wanna be in the bell curve.
No, you don't want normal li you
don't wanna be in the middle of
the sick population in our country.
And people don't understand that
when they're, I actually had that
just this morning doing a lab
review with a client, he wanted to
know why his omega3s got flagged.
And I said, cuz they're so high.
They're better than the
which is good.
This is what we've been working toward.
Yay.
Yeah.
Celebration, you know?
Yeah, it's not a problem.
It's a good thing.
yeah.
But people see, you know, the, the labs
will flag it cuz it's outside of range.
And so I love this.
This is such a.
An important thing for people to
understand is, you know, that average
is not optimal, and, and this is
not average of top of the class.
This is an average.
You don't wanna be in the middle
I was just gonna say, this is an average.
You don't wanna be part of.
You don't wanna be average.
You do not wanna be
average of your blood work.
You don't wanna be average of your weight.
You don't wanna be average
of your muscle development.
You don't wanna be
average in your stamina.
You don't wanna be average
in how much time you spend on
social media or watch television.
It's a, it's really different
perspective on life because
cancer doesn't happen overnight.
And I try to get women to begin to
have conversations with their cancer.
Like, not just the hell with you.
Goodbye.
It's like, What are you doing here?
How did I get this?
What do you, what am I missing in my life?
What, you know, what
do you wanna say to me?
What do I need to shift?
And it's, that's a very
challenging conversation.
That is not a conversation that your
oncologist has with you, which I
actually think there should be as
part of the oncology team talking to
your breast cancer, what comes up?
Yeah.
Because you'd be surprised.
And you know, one time I always, as
part of my intake, I say to women, have
you ever had any traumatic experiences?
And one woman got very upset
with me and she said, no, I, I've
never had anything traumatic.
And I said, okay, let me change
the word traumatic to upsetting.
Have you ever had any
upsetting experiences?
And she said, well, yeah, but it
happened like, you know, 30 years ago.
I said, oh, okay, so what
could they, what were they?
Do you mind telling me?
And she starts giving me this list.
Yep.
And so every, any one
of those was traumatic,
Sure.
and women are like frogs.
And what that means is frogs.
This is true about frogs.
For those of you who don't know this,
this is the frogs and warm water fact.
If you put a frog in warm water
and you gradually increase the
temperature, the frog will not
realize it is being boiled to death.
Yep.
Women are a lot like that.
If you've had traumatic experiences
as an infant and a child and a
teenager, As a self-protective device.
You acclimate to those and you
don't realize that they were
as difficult as they were.
And then many years later, after
a period of stress or whatever,
all of a sudden your body goes,
I can't hold onto this anymore.
And you have a lump in your breast.
So
And it doesn't have to
be one huge, big thing.
Sometimes it's, it's
a history of stuffing.
I call it stuffing.
Stuffing the little
things, you know, I'm okay.
I'm okay.
The I'm fine syndrome.
I'm fine until you're not.
Right, right.
So there is, you know, there is
validity to unpacking your trauma.
It's like peeling away layers of an onion
and your psyche will allow you to do that
at a speed and a place as you're ready.
You don't need to.
Take a knife and smash the onion
and get everything out all at once.
That's too upsetting.
You need to begin to gradually peel back
the layers and to recover your health
and understand what was happening then.
And that is in addition
to doing medical oncology.
So you wanna do that work and
then you wanna do this work.
So you're taking the best of both worlds.
It's not, in my opinion,
it's not one or the other.
I'm glad you highlighted
that again because Yeah.
That, that is the, that is
what integrative is, right?
It's,
Integrative takes the best of both
yeah.
and we don't wanna diminish the
importance of medical oncology.
No, no, not at all.
And it's just how do we optimize
the, it's, it's, again, the standard
and then optimal and, and when you
marry the two, it's, it's optimal.
There's no either or.
For sure.
For sure.
Amazing.
You, you've given us so many steps
already, but I always like to ask
for the listeners at the end, one.
Step listeners can take today to start
to improve their health or protect it.
Go into your pantry and take
out everything that's in a box
Mm-hmm.
and take a serious look at the labels.
Yeah,
make some decisions about moving forward.
I love that.
if there's too many red dye 54,
yellow number 27, whatever those
big words are that you don't talk,
that you don't use every day,
that box is not healthy for you.
And then think about just
maybe three vegetables that
you can start buying organic.
And
Yep.
That combo is amazing.
right.
It's too expensive.
It's like if you gave up buying
a six pack of soda, how much more
would that give you if you gave up
you know, the Frappuccino or what?
The frappuccino, nobody needs
to be eating a frappuccino.
It's filled with sugar.
all corn syrup and, yeah.
And I've had the, I I also have to remind,
I don't know about you because you were
even in the seventies already kind of in
introduced to this na, more natural world.
But people are always shocked to
find out, like, I used to eat junk.
I grew up on junk food
We all grew up on, oh,
we all grew up on junk
my children on drunk on junk food.
You
When my mom would buy Wonder
Bread, I was very excited.
Oh, wonder Bread and Baloney.
thing, bologna or peanut butter and jelly.
Yeah.
Oh god.
With a
You know, here we are.
We lived through Wonder Bread.
So we, we didn't, we weren't
formed this informed.
And, and I, I wanna circle back just
to, to highlight, you were talking
about change and, and to, you know, the.
It takes energy and it takes effort and,
and you know, you made it clear, but I,
I love to, to underscore, especially so
many of my listeners, You know, don't
have energy, they don't feel well.
So many of the women you're working,
you know, we're talking about mostly
people who are at a point where
they already don't feel well, and
resources are, are at a minimum, and
that's where it's, you know, that
one, each change will give you more
energy to make the additional changes.
a hundred percent.
And so just another, I just wanted to
underscore that for listeners that,
you know, we, we know change takes
effort and energy and it's not easy
Especially if you don't have
a lot of energy and you feel
horrible when you do have it.
Right.
So if you pick, you know, what you
can be successful with, out of that
top three, like the one that'll be
easiest for you to have success with.
And you'll start to improve your
energy and, and all of a sudden
it'll be, oh, what else can I do?
You know?
But I, I just wanted to highlight, we
know that we know you may not have the
energy and just the word change may make
you wanna take into the app, like no.
Yeah.
it's also the time to
call up your friends.
Yes.
say, you know what?
I need some help.
Can you come over and call up three
friends and ask them to come over
different days and spend an hour to three
hours with each one of them and have
them help you clean out your pantry,
have them help you get rid of toxic
cleaning agents in your home, and then,
you know, have them drive you to the
health food store and buy eco detergent
and dishwashing laundry and all of that.
I mean, Ask your friends to help you.
People love to do that,
This is the Yes.
Allowing friends to help.
And that creates that trickle
down we were talking about.
Because they may be like, oh, why are you
throwing away your blue laundry detergent?
Why aren't you using your dryer sheets?
You
No dryer sheets ever again.
conversations and that's how,
that's how we all learn is
That's how change happens.
Yes, you're changing your, your,
your family and then your friend
goes, oh, I don't wanna use
that junk in my house either.
And they, they're changing and
their family will get healthier.
and, and so that's the goal.
That's why we're, that's
why we're doing this.
That is the goal.
The trickle down effect is a very
powerful way of upleveling not just your
health, but everyone in your circle.
Absolutely.
Amen.
While all of your contact will be
in the show notes, where is the
best place for people to find you?
well, carol laurie.com is my website,
and at the top right is the contact me
and it sends me an email and I always
respond personally to everyone's email.
And my last name is l o u r i e, not l a.
It's very common
that for, for listeners.
Yes.
And
And there's two Ls.
So it's my first name, Carol,
my full last name, laurie.com.
And I, I love hearing from all of you.
It's just really my honor
and pleasure to respond.
Okay.
For anybody who is feeling
called but a little unsure
really, you know, she is amazing.
So if you're called to reach
out, absolutely reach out.
There's no question too small.
Okay.
Love that.
Doctor.
Lourie, thank you so much.
You have again, shared
amazing gold with us today.
Well, thank you so much for having me.
It's been so wonderful to be here.
I.
For everyone listening.
Remember, you can get the show
notes and transcripts by visiting
InspiredLiving.Show I hope you
enjoyed this episode as much as I did.
Have a great week.
I.
Dr.
Lourie welcome to the podcast.
I, I'm so excited and happy to be here.
Thank you so much for having me.
I am so thrilled to have you back on.
I almost fell over when I realized
that it's been close to two years since
our last conversation on the podcast.
And so I'm I, it, that was
such a great conversation.
I know that listeners are gonna get.
So much value from digging deeper.
And as we were saying before I
hit record, we evol, we evolve,
and we grow and we keep learning.
And, and so let's jump into to part two
for listeners that didn't hear that first
episode we did together I'd love to have
you share a little bit of your journey
of, you know, how did you get into this
integrative world and, and just so deep.
Well, I always wanted to be
a doctor for some reason.
And initially I thought I was going to
medical school, and then I ended up living
in a spiritual community in New York in
the seventies, and that was before the
world word detoxify became a household
word, and I ended up working with this
chiropractor who used iridology to
diagnose areas of imbalance in our bodies.
And for those of you who don't know what
iridology is, It's a very old science that
where they map out the eye into specific
different sections and you can look at
these sections and see, depending on
how your iris looks, if you have toxins,
if you have buildup, what's going on.
And he would do that and then put
people on detoxifying diets Now.
When I first started working with him,
this young girl came into the office
and she had bad skin, and I thought
to myself, what is the big deal?
You have bad skin, you take antibiotics.
That's like, why is she even
here eating these blended salads
and drinking these juices?
And that was how naive I was
because she came back a month
later and she had lost weight.
Her skin was much better.
And I began to see this from
people who had not, either not been
helped through the regular medical
treatment or who had been damaged.
And so my eyes and my mind beca be
really began to do a radical shift
away from symptom A equals drug B.
Yay.
Yes.
Yay.
And then one day I was going through
this big stack of papers and I lifted up
a paper and there was a catalog to the
National College of Naturopathic Medicine.
And that was like a bell ringing moment.
I thought, oh, maybe I should go here.
It was in Portland, Oregon.
And I applied and I got in and
that was the beginning of my.
Really gathering the tools that I needed.
I graduated from the National College of
Naturopathic Medicine in Portland, Oregon.
I moved to California and there wasn't any
licensing for naturopaths at that point.
And I got my acupuncture license.
And I opened up my clinical
practice, you know, in the late
eighties and I specialized in
women's health and chronic disease.
And then one day, recently,
well actually it's 15 years now.
A dear friend called me up and I
didn't understand what she was saying.
And then finally I realized she
was saying they found a lump.
And this is a woman who ate healthy
and she said, what the heck's going on?
I eat organic.
Why did I get this?
And I said to her, don't
worry, you're not alone.
I'm, and I attended every treatment
session of 18 months with lumpectomy
chemotherapy, radiation for her.
And I got an up close and
personal perspective of what
was great about medical oncology
and what really was lacking.
And one of the first areas I realized
that was lacking is when we went
into the chemotherapy infusion room.
Now there is this, Medical proven
science fact that sugar feeds
cancer, it's not negotiable.
It was discovered by Otto
Warburg in the 1920s.
He won the Noble Medicine
Peace Prize for this.
Given cancer cells given a choice
between oxygen and ca sugar or glucose,
always choose sugar even though they
have to work twice as hard for it
and they get less energy or a t p.
Just like humans.
yeah, exactly.
we go into U C S F chemotherapy infusion
room, and sh they look at her and
they go, oh, you're a little thin.
Would you like some?
Ensure?
Ensure is the number one
ingredient is glucose.
And then they offer a lollipop.
They offer Gatorade, they offer cookie.
And when you're done, they
wanna give you a cupcake.
Five times during the infusion was
she offered sugar and we came with
our ginger tea and our smoothie.
And our peeler broth and
we kept saying, no thanks.
So that was the beginning.
Oh, and then there was the time
when the candy cart walked by.
That was the beginning of
my eye awakening towards.
The, the disparaging information, the
disconnect between medical oncology
and natural or integrative medicine
and which are, which is science backed.
We're not like making stuff up, right?
woo woo, right.
So, so I began to Really work with
her from an integrative perspective.
And we were in her medical oncology
appointment and her oncologist looked
up at looked at her blood work and then
looked at us and said, what are you doing?
And I got, got alarmed.
Is there a problem?
And I said, is there a problem?
She said, no, your blood work does
not look like the blood work of
somebody in the middle of chemotherapy.
Your white cell count is great.
You're not anemic.
You look great.
What are you doing?
I want all of my patients
to be doing that too.
I wish every doctor were that on it and
open to even ask, what are you doing?
right.
So that was the beginning of, she
referred a lot of her patients to me
in my practice in Berkeley, California
at the time, really began to focus on
breast cancer and then the individual
need expanded beyond what I could handle.
So I created an online program.
To provide women with this really
lifesaving and life-changing
information that's called Empowered
Against Recurrence at this point.
And there's other aspects
of that in development.
But on a deeper level, let's talk about
what breast cancer is on a deeper level.
Breast, it's a disease
of the feminine, right?
It's the breasts and the feminine.
In our culture right now
is not doing so great.
It's better than it was.
Unfortunately.
There's still this conflict between what
men think we should be, should and how we
want to live, and we can see that about
how that's happening in the political
arena regarding the Roe versus Wade.
We can see that in the messaging
that we get from television.
Perspectives on women being depressed,
the ads for psychiatric antidepressants.
A woman is depressed.
What does that look like?
The house is a mess, quote unquote.
What does that look like?
There's dishes in the sink.
The beds aren't made.
There's laundry.
And when I first saw that commercial, I'm
screaming at the television to myself.
I'm not depressed.
And when I had a child,
I had dishes in the sink.
My beds weren't made.
And you know, I had piles of laundry
and, and then she takes a pill and
everything's quote unquote spec and span.
So I'm thinking, why is
it just the woman's job to
take care of all this stuff?
Where's the partner, whether
that partner's a man or a woman?
And why does that equal depression?
right.
And what happened before?
This mess of a house, quote unquote,
that made this woman feel unwell.
What kind of stress was she on under?
Was she being harassed at work?
Was she having difficult
communication in her relationship?
Were her children suffering
from some ailment?
I mean, there is always a
reason for depression, right?
Absolutely, and it's never
a lack of antidepressants.
It's, it's never the cause of depression.
Right.
Too many women go into their
doctors and they're not complaining.
They're reporting, they're sole aching,
and it's taken as complaining, number one.
And number two, the next thing you
know out comes the prescription pad.
And out comes the words, well,
let's just put you on a short
course of X, Y, z, antidepressant,
and let's see how, if that helps.
Yep.
And, and even the, just, especially
in the autoimmune world, the fatigue
just expressing the level of fatigue I.
Out comes the pad for an antidepressant.
It's,
A hundred percent.
Now from our perspective,
you have fatigue.
Let's see what adrenal support you need.
Let's see what's happening from
your, with your mitochondrial.
So, How are they functioning
your mitochondria?
Let's see where your
energy sources are coming.
Let's see if you're eating food that
doesn't agree with your body and you
need to really, you know, clean up
some aspects of what you're eating.
Are you getting enough good sleep?
I.
Are you getting positive movement?
You know what Julie Julie's work
with Autoimmune is very similar to
how I assist women recover their
health and restore their life.
With breast cancer, it's very
similar because the foundation
for all disease is inflammation.
The foundation for breast
cancer is inflammation.
We need to dial back and heal the
inflammation, not suppress, but heal
as much as we can with all of these
areas that we're talking about.
And, and from where I sit.
And I will try to keep calm
through our conversation
we don't have to.
so much of what you say makes sense.
And, and I find, you know, I have
these conversations and amazing
connections and I think the world,
you know, the needle has moved so far
and the world knows and they get it.
And then I, you know, then I see the line
around the corner at the fast food joint
and I think, nope, I live in a bubble.
So.
Yeah.
This, and I love Thank you.
And I know that's how you genuinely feel.
The, the integrative approach
is the best of all worlds.
It's, it's not, this approach is wrong,
you know, it's, it's where can we do
better and what compliments each other.
So to me, I listened to you
and so far nothing you've said
seems out of the box at all.
Where is that kind of
standard oncology care now?
Like has that needle moved at all?
Cuz I haven't met anybody diagnosed with
cancer that was told to watch sugar.
Like, I, I still haven't since.
Are you seeing a shift?
I think one of the most dangerous things
somebody can be told no matter what cancer
they have is eat everything in moderation,
and that is the standard line that.
Women and men are given with cancer
by their oncology nutritionists,
unless those nutritionists have taken
specialized programs and realized that
that is a very dangerous statement.
So, If you have cancer, if you have a
family history of cancer, you do not
want to eat everything in moderation.
That means you can eat
fast food in moderation.
And what's the definition
of moderation for you?
That may mean twice a
week for somebody else.
It may be.
You know, for me it's zero.
I mean, there's certain things
that we need to become very
conscious of making a really good
decision if we're going to blow it.
Like, if you want, if it's your birthday
and you love, you know, smoked meats
and there's this barbecue place that
you, so you go there and you get it
once a year and you don't eat the
bread and you don't eat the mac and
cheese, you just eat the, the meat.
Which is not great, but it's not horrible.
I eat nightshades probably two or
three times a year cause they don't
agree with me and I love them.
Yeah, like if you're in
Italy, you're going to
Yes,
and you're not going to worry about it,
but, or if you're in California or if
wherever you live, you know, there's
this delicious tomato and it's in season,
you're gonna make a decision to eat that.
But you know that if you eat that three
days or five days in a row, you're
gonna wake up and your hands are going.
You're gonna be swollen, you're
gonna have a headache, you're gonna
be not able to move, and then you're
gonna think, well, was it worth it?
The pro, the problem with nutrition
and oncology is it's not always a
one plus one equals two approach.
Where if you eat product A,
you're going to feel bad, but
your blood work will show it.
Your circulating tumor cells can elevate
and that impact can happen months later.
And most physicians, as standard of care,
are not doing circulating tumor accounts.
You know, they don't do that as
standard of care, and we have to
have a serious conversation with
them and present them with studies
in PubMed in order for them to.
Do some of this more thorough
and advanced blood work because
cancer is a metabolic disease.
What that means is there's not
just one thing that goes into
creating cancer, whether it's
breast cancer, ovarian cancer.
Melanoma, it doesn't matter.
There are these pathways where your cells,
instead of staying in the healthy freeway,
they get all discombobulated and the next
thing you know, they have stopped paying
attention to the rules of stop and go.
And they think they can
go wherever they want.
They can over progress.
They can create angiogenesis,
ex extra blood vessels.
And the next thing you know, you have
a severe inflammatory problem and
you have a tumor or blood dysplasia
where your blood is unhealthy.
And so, and it doesn't happen overnight,
it happens over a period of time.
Right.
And that's, I think that's where it
gets tricky and that's where having
some of these advanced labs where
people can see, cuz if you can't
feel it, you think, oh, maybe that
one McDonald's is fine this week.
Or, or whatever your jam is.
I'm picking on fast food just cuz I,
I can't remember the last time I had,
you know, I, I would, I would fast if.
I, I, yeah, I, I would have to
be, yeah, I can't even imagine.
it is so much easier when, you know,
you do feel a, a, a direct impact
where you can connect those dots.
And so I love that idea of, okay, well if
we're following, you know, seeing these
advanced markers, we can sh people can
see, you know, even if they can't feel
it, they're still getting the feedback.
And it's kind of hard to,
I, I have a client who.
When eating, you know, doing the
things working together, cancer
markers were coming way down.
You know, after a long time of him
not doing anything and then he kind
of fell off the wagon and guess what?
Cancer markers started to go back up.
And it was like, okay.
His doctor said to him, now, you
know, what you were doing was working.
And going back to, you know, eating
on the fly is feeding the cancer.
So, you know, there is sometimes a,
a bit of a learning curve and I think
that feedback is, is remarkable.
It's, it's not so easy.
I had, last year I was a speaker
at the Society for Integrative
Oncology in Arizona, and one of the
other speakers was a brain surgeon.
And he came from his office in
Scottsdale and his scrubs, and
he had images that he shared with
the on the presentation of using
ketogenic diet to reduce brain tumors.
So this wasn't like, oh, I'm
gonna tell you a nice story.
This was science-based and
he's about to publish it.
Here is before ketogenic.
Here is after.
And there was a remarkable shift.
In the size of the tumor and where
it was and everything from, not just
one people, but many, many people.
Now, several of the people went
off the ketogenic diet and then
they had a brain scan and that you
could see that the tumor had grown.
And one of his patients said, why are you
talking to me about nutrition and diet?
I'm, you're a surgeon.
I came to you for surgery.
I have a brain tumor, I want surgery.
And the doctor said, well, let's
shrink the tumor first and then see if
you still need, do you know surgery?
Sometimes if it gets small enough, we can
just leave it there if it's not growing.
So Yes, it, it matters what we eat.
And it's very difficult
sometimes to not eat that pasta.
And if you're doing ketogenic,
you cannot eat pasta.
And if you're, if you are staying on
a healthy plan through breast cancer,
you really, really, you don't wanna eat
birthday cake, but, You can make your
own and use a very, very tiny amount
of monk fruit instead of white sugar.
You can make it the, the cake with
te you can have, you know, organic,
unfiltered, heavy cream for a an icing
instead of some buttercream junk.
I mean, there are ways of doing
this once or twice a year where,
We don't have to be deprived.
no, I'm not, it, it's, I don't,
you know, The word restrict
and deprivation are bad words.
It doesn't work for us as adults.
We, I don't think anybody should feel
restricted or deprived in their life.
I think it's about education and
understanding equals you have the
ability to make really empowered choices
for yourself and you need begin to,
and then it's sustainable.
Yeah, it needs to be sustainable
for you and you need to figure out.
Your path.
For example, you know, you have
dear friends and you go over to
their house for dinner all the time,
and the woman makes lasagna and
you, you are not eating lasagna.
And so can you say to her, look, I'm
gonna bring my piece of fish that I've
cooked and I'm gonna eat your salad and
vegetables, and can you stick to that?
When you go out to eat to an
Italian restaurant, everybody
else is getting some pasta dish.
Can you get a piece of grilled
fish with tomato sauce over it?
If you're able to eat that with,
you know, sauteed vegetables
and a salad and be okay?
I mean, I, I, that's what I do.
The only place I don't, I
think that you have difficulty
eating at is a pizza place.
You can't really go to
a pizza place and eat
No, and, and I think, you know,
you talked about EM empowering and
that's, we're both all about that.
That part is a process, especially
for women of saying, you know, like,
why do we feel like it's an imposition
if a friend is hosting us and we're
gonna bring something we can eat?
You know, that takes train retraining
and reprogramming to, to realize
like, I am allowed to make the
choices for my own body and, and
you know, it's nobody's business.
Also.
You're not asking
somebody to cook for you.
Right.
And what's the big deal about taking
it out, putting it on your plate,
and then bringing it to the table?
I mean, I, I just, you know,
oh, I'm gonna upset the hostess.
Yeah.
We're trained, you know, or ex
holiday need, like you say, you
know, you have to have birthday
cake, like gross birthday cake.
And I'm, I guess I, I am just anxious.
I hope it's in my lifetime of where
there's this tipping point where instead
of, You know, shaming people, people
that are trying to protect their health.
You know, get curious and, and
like, where's the trickle down?
And there is some I remember I, I had
a border colleague a few years ago.
Who was, she?
She had been, she'd had been
a perfect candidate for you.
She was born in a shelter.
Sick.
The only one in the litter who lived
in foster care for a year and a half,
cuz she was so shy and, and you know,
high stress, just high, high stress.
And we gave her, thank goodness,
you know, she had a wonderful
family and we got her no pressure.
We adopted her with her foster sibling and
Oh, nice.
she loved dogs.
She was totally comfortable with dogs.
And we were like, I don't need to pet you.
I don't need to, you know, of course
ended up like the biggest love bug in the
Oh, that's so sweet.
That's very healing story.
well, it, it's, it does, you
know, the animals go through
the same processes, right?
And I remember this, we found out
she had a tumor and the second I
found out, now this is me telling on
myself the second I found out she had
a tumor, I put her on a keto diet.
I had a custom keto diet made for her,
for the dog.
for the dog.
We then found out that it was
hemangiosarcoma and it was gonna be
very aggressive and, I I was not go,
and I'm not saying all key for this
dog at this time in her life, and this
was in the be just in the beginning of
shutdown and covid, like, I couldn't
even go in the vet with her, which was
Oh my goodness.
Oh my goodness.
the, the surgical oncologist really
did such a good job on selling me for.
You know, if you don't do chemo for
this dog, for this kind of cancer, she's
got three months to live and that's it.
And I made the decision for her,
there'll be three happy months.
She feels well, and she lived three years.
And what I did was I came home and I put
my other two dogs on a keto diet because
did I love her more than the other dogs?
was eating the same food.
So it didn't have to be, she
didn't feel bad and it, it wasn't
because she'd feel awkward.
She was eating crappy kibble
and it was high quality.
It was already, she was already paleo.
So, you know, shocker, my dog was paleo.
She had an integrative vet, you know?
Right.
Well, they're part of the family.
You know, the animals
are part of the family.
But I brought her up because I, I know,
and I, I really encourage listeners
to go back and listen to our first
interview from, from 2021 because this
dog exemplifies us of, you know, all
she had, all of those things aligned.
How we end up with cancer,
autoimmunity, chronic illness, you
know, name it, which whatever it is.
From, you know, just the trauma,
the stress, all the things.
All right.
Life.
Yeah.
And so I, I'm waiting, you know,
that, that's my hope is that, that
instead of, you know, it's that
now all my dogs and they still are,
all my dogs still are clean eaters.
And watch cuz why not?
I was gonna say, why not?
I mean, and when I talk to people about
changing how they eat, There's a couple
objections which I want to bring up.
One, it's going to be more expensive and
actually it isn't because when you go into
the regular grocery store and anything
that you buy that's processed and you pick
it up in this box and you read the list of
ingredients that are in there, and most of
those words nobody has ever heard before.
Right.
You're paying for that fake
junk to be put into the food
re and you're paying for that.
People who design the box, the
packaging, the label, the putting it,
transporting it to the supermarket,
all of that, you are paying for that.
Yeah.
You can make your own crackers if you
want, or you can, you know, go get gluten.
A few gluten-free crackers, which you
are going to eat very infrequently cuz
even though it's gluten-free, it's still
high glycemic from the health food store.
But you don't need to be eating
cereal in a box's sort of like
eating, you know, paper eating
cereal is like eating paper with.
House milk, which nobody
needs to be eating anyway.
So there's a lot of messaging
that we've been brainwashed.
So.
Why does diet the American diet
need to start in breakfast?
Breakfast with a pop-tart, a waffle,
cold cereal, hot cereal, bacon
and eggs, which are not that bad
as long as the bacon doesn't have
nitris in it and it's organic.
Why does breakfast need
to start like that?
Why couldn't it be a smoothie
that has a protein base in it?
Why couldn't it be leftovers from
dinner, which is protein and vegetables?
Why does it have to be some
carbohydrate with sugar in it and
coffee with, yeah, it's very draining.
from mar marketing marketing to children.
Right from, from day one,
that sugar for breakfast.
I, yeah.
You mentioned like even oncology,
nutritionists, unless they have
special training, You know, saying
eat everything in moderation.
I had a, a client with type one
diabetes who saw a diabetes coach,
and for those of you listening
on audio, I'm using air quotes.
I, I don't know what
kind of training she had.
And this woman was shocked to
learn with type one diabetes.
That oatmeal for breakfast
was not a good choice for
Oh, I'm so happy.
I'm so happy you brought that up
because one of the things that
drives me crazy is when I do my life.
Presentations for my Empowered
Against Recurrence program.
I have women put in the chat,
what did you eat for breakfast?
And it's amazing to me what is
seen, but I'd say 80% is oatmeal.
Now let's talk about that.
First of all, there's a, a
colleague who, who has said that
oatmeal is great for breakfast.
Now even there's a
couple of C caveats here.
Even if it's gluten free, even
if it's steel cut oats, oat
oatmeal is still a carbohydrate.
Which means it is processed very
quickly into a sugar glucose.
You do not wanna start your day
with food that's going to be quickly
processed into sugar because then
you're feeding, you've basically been
fasting while you're sleeping, and
then the cancer cells are hungry.
So you eat food that is going to
be processed into sugar quickly,
and the cancer cells go great.
I now have gas for my gas tank.
Thank you very much.
Yeah.
oatmeal is not, oh, I don't really think
anybody should really be eating oatmeal.
I had a woman in my program who
said, I have to have my oatmeal.
And I said, okay, let's make a deal.
Let's have you eat it two or
three times a week for lunch, and
you put a lot of ghee fat in it.
Well,
Yeah.
Nuts
you put a lot of fat in it because that
slows down how the sugar is metabolized.
And that's what she did.
And she used coconut milk and she
of the things that's so frustrating for
me, and I'm sure she learned through
that process, that she probably could
live without oatmeal eventually.
I bet you,
I hope so.
the, the thing that frustrates me,
and that goes back to that marketing.
A lot of pe, most people are eating
oatmeal because they're actually
trying to make a good choice.
Right.
It's not like the Pop-Tart,
you eat a Pop-tart, you know
you're eating a Pop-tart.
Right?
You're eating oatmeal.
Oh, well, I've heard it's
good for my heart and it
And good for lower cholesterol.
Right.
No, it doesn't
With the round paper oatmeal container
with the red and blue Quaker oats.
So that's what we grew up with when
you know, and we thought it was
healthy and it was delicious, my
mom would put white sugar on top of,
Mine would put brown, you know, but
we put white sugar on grapefruits.
Why?
I just had that conversation.
Who started that?
Yeah.
Why?
But it is, so some of it is habitual.
Some of it is conditioning and marketing.
You know, those, those commercials
are just as powerful as the
antidepressant commercials
They are, they are.
There are people who study this.
There's science behind it.
And so unfortunately in the world
of natural medicine, which is what
we're talking about, we don't have
the billions of dollars to put
our commercials up on television.
And I don't even think regular TV
channels would, you know, run them
Well, and social media certainly
would knock it right down.
Well, social media, you
Some of it, if you're, but I mean, You
know, if you're a little too vocal about
it, it's not, it's not the right message.
need a lot of money for Facebook
ads to have it have a large
people see
I mean,
Yeah.
Yeah.
So,
dollars in a month.
No joke.
And then it takes a while because
you're up against people's.
Brain conditioning that
they've seen for many years.
So this brings us back to my.
Philosophy of the bell curve,
which I wanna share with you.
So the bell curve is curved like this,
and any statement you see about breast
cancer, any research about whatever
the topic is, the research is done with
women in the middle of the bell curve.
And what does that mean?
That most American women are.
Overweight to obese.
They don't exercise.
They eat the standard American
diet, which is what Julie and
I have been talking about.
It's filled with processed food sugars.
The meat is not farm to table.
It's the kind of meat you get at Costco
or one of the fast food places, which
has been proven to be carcinogenic.
There's, and the Standard American diet
literally quadruples the cancer rate.
So that's the studies and that's
the middle of the bell curve in my
community and through my life coaching
program and in my individual work, I
want you to be out of the bell curve.
That's where the magic happens.
And so it takes a while to
get out of the bell curve.
You have to shift your mindset.
You have to leave all that other stuff
behind, and you have to walk forward
on a new path you are creating, you
know, forging a new path for yourself.
That that can be difficult, which
is why we have live coaching, which
is why I offer individual sessions.
It's as the work with Julie, it's very
hard to separate what you've been.
Taught and how you've grown
up and create new habits.
And there's research that says
it takes a hundred days for an
activity to become a new habit.
And those habits, new habits, it
takes time and energy to create them.
Right,
So you don't wanna do 15 new
things at once because it's all
gonna, you know, not work out.
The plate's gonna break.
You need to choose, I think, the first
one to three most difficult areas that
you have with, and attend to them first.
And you need to realize and understand
at that time that you will be moving
much, slowly, more slowly than
you usually do, because you have
to think about what you're doing.
Yeah, I, I love, there's so many things
that you said that if you hit three
more hours but the, the bell curve.
I, I had an article published a
few months ago about how, and, and
here's one of those we're talking
about outside of the box, right?
Standard of care versus
integrative or functional medicine.
You don't wanna be in the bell curve.
No, you don't want normal li you
don't wanna be in the middle of
the sick population in our country.
And people don't understand that
when they're, I actually had that
just this morning doing a lab
review with a client, he wanted to
know why his omega3s got flagged.
And I said, cuz they're so high.
They're better than the
which is good.
This is what we've been working toward.
Yay.
Yeah.
Celebration, you know?
Yeah, it's not a problem.
It's a good thing.
yeah.
But people see, you know, the, the labs
will flag it cuz it's outside of range.
And so I love this.
This is such a.
An important thing for people to
understand is, you know, that average
is not optimal, and, and this is
not average of top of the class.
This is an average.
You don't wanna be in the middle
I was just gonna say, this is an average.
You don't wanna be part of.
You don't wanna be average.
You do not wanna be
average of your blood work.
You don't wanna be average of your weight.
You don't wanna be average
of your muscle development.
You don't wanna be
average in your stamina.
You don't wanna be average
in how much time you spend on
social media or watch television.
It's a, it's really different
perspective on life because
cancer doesn't happen overnight.
And I try to get women to begin to
have conversations with their cancer.
Like, not just the hell with you.
Goodbye.
It's like, What are you doing here?
How did I get this?
What do you, what am I missing in my life?
What, you know, what
do you wanna say to me?
What do I need to shift?
And it's, that's a very
challenging conversation.
That is not a conversation that your
oncologist has with you, which I
actually think there should be as
part of the oncology team talking to
your breast cancer, what comes up?
Yeah.
Because you'd be surprised.
And you know, one time I always, as
part of my intake, I say to women, have
you ever had any traumatic experiences?
And one woman got very upset
with me and she said, no, I, I've
never had anything traumatic.
And I said, okay, let me change
the word traumatic to upsetting.
Have you ever had any
upsetting experiences?
And she said, well, yeah, but it
happened like, you know, 30 years ago.
I said, oh, okay, so what
could they, what were they?
Do you mind telling me?
And she starts giving me this list.
Yep.
And so every, any one
of those was traumatic,
Sure.
and women are like frogs.
And what that means is frogs.
This is true about frogs.
For those of you who don't know this,
this is the frogs and warm water fact.
If you put a frog in warm water
and you gradually increase the
temperature, the frog will not
realize it is being boiled to death.
Yep.
Women are a lot like that.
If you've had traumatic experiences
as an infant and a child and a
teenager, As a self-protective device.
You acclimate to those and you
don't realize that they were
as difficult as they were.
And then many years later, after
a period of stress or whatever,
all of a sudden your body goes,
I can't hold onto this anymore.
And you have a lump in your breast.
So
And it doesn't have to
be one huge, big thing.
Sometimes it's, it's
a history of stuffing.
I call it stuffing.
Stuffing the little
things, you know, I'm okay.
I'm okay.
The I'm fine syndrome.
I'm fine until you're not.
Right, right.
So there is, you know, there is
validity to unpacking your trauma.
It's like peeling away layers of an onion
and your psyche will allow you to do that
at a speed and a place as you're ready.
You don't need to.
Take a knife and smash the onion
and get everything out all at once.
That's too upsetting.
You need to begin to gradually peel back
the layers and to recover your health
and understand what was happening then.
And that is in addition
to doing medical oncology.
So you wanna do that work and
then you wanna do this work.
So you're taking the best of both worlds.
It's not, in my opinion,
it's not one or the other.
I'm glad you highlighted
that again because Yeah.
That, that is the, that is
what integrative is, right?
It's,
Integrative takes the best of both
yeah.
and we don't wanna diminish the
importance of medical oncology.
No, no, not at all.
And it's just how do we optimize
the, it's, it's, again, the standard
and then optimal and, and when you
marry the two, it's, it's optimal.
There's no either or.
For sure.
For sure.
Amazing.
You, you've given us so many steps
already, but I always like to ask
for the listeners at the end, one.
Step listeners can take today to start
to improve their health or protect it.
Go into your pantry and take
out everything that's in a box
Mm-hmm.
and take a serious look at the labels.
Yeah,
make some decisions about moving forward.
I love that.
if there's too many red dye 54,
yellow number 27, whatever those
big words are that you don't talk,
that you don't use every day,
that box is not healthy for you.
And then think about just
maybe three vegetables that
you can start buying organic.
And
Yep.
That combo is amazing.
right.
It's too expensive.
It's like if you gave up buying
a six pack of soda, how much more
would that give you if you gave up
you know, the Frappuccino or what?
The frappuccino, nobody needs
to be eating a frappuccino.
It's filled with sugar.
all corn syrup and, yeah.
And I've had the, I I also have to remind,
I don't know about you because you were
even in the seventies already kind of in
introduced to this na, more natural world.
But people are always shocked to
find out, like, I used to eat junk.
I grew up on junk food
We all grew up on, oh,
we all grew up on junk
my children on drunk on junk food.
You
When my mom would buy Wonder
Bread, I was very excited.
Oh, wonder Bread and Baloney.
thing, bologna or peanut butter and jelly.
Yeah.
Oh god.
With a
You know, here we are.
We lived through Wonder Bread.
So we, we didn't, we weren't
formed this informed.
And, and I, I wanna circle back just
to, to highlight, you were talking
about change and, and to, you know, the.
It takes energy and it takes effort and,
and you know, you made it clear, but I,
I love to, to underscore, especially so
many of my listeners, You know, don't
have energy, they don't feel well.
So many of the women you're working,
you know, we're talking about mostly
people who are at a point where
they already don't feel well, and
resources are, are at a minimum, and
that's where it's, you know, that
one, each change will give you more
energy to make the additional changes.
a hundred percent.
And so just another, I just wanted to
underscore that for listeners that,
you know, we, we know change takes
effort and energy and it's not easy
Especially if you don't have
a lot of energy and you feel
horrible when you do have it.
Right.
So if you pick, you know, what you
can be successful with, out of that
top three, like the one that'll be
easiest for you to have success with.
And you'll start to improve your
energy and, and all of a sudden
it'll be, oh, what else can I do?
You know?
But I, I just wanted to highlight, we
know that we know you may not have the
energy and just the word change may make
you wanna take into the app, like no.
Yeah.
it's also the time to
call up your friends.
Yes.
say, you know what?
I need some help.
Can you come over and call up three
friends and ask them to come over
different days and spend an hour to three
hours with each one of them and have
them help you clean out your pantry,
have them help you get rid of toxic
cleaning agents in your home, and then,
you know, have them drive you to the
health food store and buy eco detergent
and dishwashing laundry and all of that.
I mean, Ask your friends to help you.
People love to do that,
This is the Yes.
Allowing friends to help.
And that creates that trickle
down we were talking about.
Because they may be like, oh, why are you
throwing away your blue laundry detergent?
Why aren't you using your dryer sheets?
You
No dryer sheets ever again.
conversations and that's how,
that's how we all learn is
That's how change happens.
Yes, you're changing your, your,
your family and then your friend
goes, oh, I don't wanna use
that junk in my house either.
And they, they're changing and
their family will get healthier.
and, and so that's the goal.
That's why we're, that's
why we're doing this.
that is the goal.
The trickle down effect is a very
powerful way of upleveling not just your
health, but everyone in your circle.
Absolutely.
Amen.
While all of your contact will be
in the show notes, where is the
best place for people to find you?
well, carol laurie.com is my website,
and at the top right is the contact me
and it sends me an email and I always
respond personally to everyone's email.
And my last name is l o u r i e, not l a.
It's very common
that for, for listeners.
Yes.
And
And there's two Ls.
So it's my first name, Carol,
my full last name, laurie.com.
And I, I love hearing from all of you.
It's just really my honor
and pleasure to respond.
Okay.
For anybody who is feeling
called but a little unsure
really, you know, she is amazing.
So if you're called to reach
out, absolutely reach out.
There's no question too small.
Okay.
Love that.
Doctor.
Lourie thank you so much.
You have again, shared
amazing gold with us today.
Well, thank you so much for having me.
It's been so wonderful to be here.
I.
For everyone listening.
Remember, you can get the
show notes and transcripts by
visiting InspiredLiving.Show.
I hope you enjoyed this
episode as much as I did.
Have a great week.