My goal is to educate and empower you to take control of your health. Sign up to hear about my next health webinars and articles on topics related to nutrition and chronic disease.

Improving our healthspan includes addressing how we think, live, eat, and move.

Increasing Your Positive Healthspan

I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to just live a long life, I want to live a long, enjoyable, active, healthy, and fun life!!  So instead of only focusing on lifespan, we should focus on our HEALTHSPAN.

That’s why I trained with Dr. Nasha Winters and became certified in her Terrain Advocate Program. Although Dr. Nasha is famous for her success with cancer patients, her approach and philosophy are all about our overall health or terrain. The best way to treat chronic diseases like cancer, heart disease, autoimmune disease, diabetes, etc., is to prevent them. And if you already have a diagnosis, the Terrain Approach is all about discovering what is out of balance in your body so you can take action to remove the cause, support healing, and restore balance.

My current mission is to help empower, educate and support others on their health or healing journey by offering –

  • Fun and engaging workshops and presentations for groups and organizations so you and your people can make informed decisions about your health
  • One-on-one guidance in implementing a personalized Terrain Approach to improve your health
  • One-on-one support in implementing your treatment plan from a Terrain Certified Network Physician or other functional medicine practicioner

If this sounds interesting, let’s talk! Contact me for a free 30-minute call at Tina@PositiveHealthSpan.com.

Favorite Articles & Guides

Favorite Books

Cancer

  • The Metabolic Approach to Cancer by Nasha Winters
  • Mistletoe and the Emerging Future of Integrative Oncology by Nasha Winters
  • Tripping Over the Truth: The Metabolic Theory of Cancer by Travis Christofferson
  • The Cancer Code by Jason Fung
  • Radical Remission by Kelly Turner
  • Radical Hope by Kelly Turner
  • Anyway You Can by Annette Bosworth
  • Keto for Cancer by Miriam Kalamian

Food and Diet

  • The Big Fat Surprise: Why Butter, Meat, and Cheese Belong in a Healthy Diet by Nina Teicholz
  • The Complete Guide to Fasting by Jason Fung
  • The Obesity Code by Jason Fung
  • Fat Chance: Beating the Odds Against Sugar, Processed Food, Obesity, and Disease by Rober Lustig
  • The Whole-Body Microbiome: How to Harness Microbes-Inside and Out-for Lifelong Health by Brett Finlay

Diabetes

  • The Diabetes Code by Jason Fung

Alzheimer’s

  • The End of Alzheimer’s by Dale Bredesen

Mental Health

  • Nutrient Power by William Walsh
  • Integrative Medicine for Depression by James Greenblatt
  • Brain Energy by Chris Palmer

General Health

  • Unconventional Medicine by Chris Kresser
  • Why We Get Sick by Benjamin Bikman
  • Lies My Doctor Told Me by Ken Berry
  • Mind Over Medicine by Lissa Rankin
  • Undoctored by William Davis

Tina's presentation on healthy eating for the DreamBank

Dreambank Cancer talk

hammers

Choose Your Health Tools Carefully (Sledgehammer vs Pin Hammer)

Traditional medicine has a limited selection of tools, while the Metabolic Terrain approach has a vast toolbox.

If your chronic disease looks more like a railroad spike, it needs a big hammer to place the spike. Both traditional medicine and the Metabolic Terrain approach would agree on this. However, the Metabolic Terrain approach would add that we need to take precautions to carefully wield the sledgehammer with the right amount of force and protect the surrounding area from unnecessary damage vs a more heavy-handed approach like traditional medicine would use.

But if your chronic disease looks more like a small finishing nail, why would you use a sledgehammer? You would risk doing more damage while trying to carefully place your nail. Instead, you would want a smaller pin hammer. You would select a tool appropriate for the job.
The Metabolic Terrain approach uses in-depth labs, questionnaires, and data to determine which tool is best for the job. There isn’t one tool for one type of disease (such as cancer). The size of the tool and the force used need to match the work that needs to be done. Contact me to learn more!

Should You Be Worried About Cancer?

Do you know that you have a 50/50 chance of getting cancer in your lifetime? So, what are you doing to prevent cancer? Or to prevent a recurrence or navigate a current diagnosis?

Cancer is taking over heart disease as the leading cause of death in the US and already has in many countries around the world. For some, it’s caught early and is more of an inconvenience, but for many, it’s a heart-stopping diagnosis. Their lives, families, and finances are turned upside down. Even with “successful” treatment, there’s a significant chance that cancers will come back, maybe in 6 months or maybe in 6 years. And when it returns, it’s much harder to treat.

According to the American Cancer Society (ACS), only 5% to 10% of all cancers are strongly linked to inherited genetic defects (called mutations). The remaining 90 to 95% of cancers are linked to areas we can impact. According to the ACS, these risk factors include things such as tobacco use, diet and physical activity, certain viruses, radiation exposure, carcinogenic chemicals, infections, and certain medical treatments.

So, what are you doing to prevent cancer or prevent a recurrence? Have you explored prevention but are confused by all the hype and contradictions? Are you feeling overwhelmed, trying to do too much? Maybe you haven’t even looked into it because you were unaware of the odds you might be impacted by cancer.

Over the past two years, I’ve had the honor of working with people with a cancer diagnosis. I’ve been their terrain advocate to support them in making diet and lifestyle changes along with implementing their metabolic treatments. I’ve educated, I’ve listened, and I’ve cried with them. But most of all, we’ve rallied hope. I’ve learned that the most important therapy is hope.

That’s why I want everyone to know about what’s happening on October 10th. That special day is the 2nd annual Metabolic Health Day. I’m excited to be a sponsor and to share insights, education, and resources. The goal of the Metabolic Approach is to provide better information so people can make better decisions about their health for better outcomes – not just for cancer.

Be sure to visit MetabolicHealthDay.life on October 10th (and after) and peruse (and save) the abundance of resources so you can make better decisions about your health.

What Is the Metabolic Approach & What Actions Can You Take?

I want to start by sharing my perspective and how the metabolic approach has impacted my health. For me, it all started back in 2017. I was 50 years old and sitting in my doctor’s office as she announced that I was diabetic and needed to go on medication… Now this wasn’t a total surprise since I had gestational diabetes when I was pregnant 12 years earlier and had been pre-diabetic for the past few years. But I had changed my diet. No soda, little if any candy, or sugary treats. I had reduced the amount of carbohydrates I normally ate.

I told my doctor I wanted to work on my diet more before going on medication. But she insisted I had done all I could and needed the medicine. I kept pushing back. She wasn’t happy with me when I left her office without a prescription.

I’m a scientist, so I went home and dove into the latest scientific research on diabetes. What I learned totally turned my world upside down! See, I had bought into all the guidelines and recommendations that I heard from the USDA and from the commercials on TV.  I had dropped butter and used canola oil. I had found the low-fat version of every product I could. I was eating lots of grains (after all that was the biggest part of the food pyramid) in bread, pasta, pretzels, crackers. But I tried to find whole grains. I was concerned about cholesterol, saturated fat, and too much salt.

Yet these were not matching with what I was finding in the most recent studies. Our bodies need cholesterol? Especially our brains? Even whole grains were likely causing my blood sugar to spike? Canola, soybean, and cottonseed oils can increase inflammation? But other healthy fats should be a main part of my diet? I felt betrayed and a little confused. Could this be true?

I realized I had to learn more. So I started reading books by thought leaders in the areas of diabetes and nutrition. That quickly led me to thought leaders who were using food to impact chronic diseases like cancer. And that is when I stumbled upon Dr. Nasha’s book. The Metabolic Approach to Cancer. Her experiences and scientific approach really appealed to me. Then I watched a few of her live interviews. Wow! Such passion and knowledge!! I was hooked!

After reading Dr. Nasha’s book and learning about the metabolic approach, I decided to radically change my diet. My decade-long beliefs that fat was bad made it hard to eat so much high-fat dairy and fatty cuts of meat. I also added in more low-glycemic vegetables like cauliflower, broccoli, cucumbers, and lettuce.  6 months later I ran my labs, expecting terrible results. Amazing! My triglycerides were way down. My cholesterol went up a little but it was mostly HDL (considered the good cholesterol). And my A1c – the marker for diabetes- was greatly improved.  No medication for me!!

I’ve continued to eat very low carb. I’ve cut out the inflammatory oils, removed junk food and processed food, and added lots of whole foods. I now eat mostly above-ground vegetables, seeds and nuts, and high-quality meat. I’m no longer pre-diabetic, and my joints feel better than they have since my 30s. This is a huge relief because, after menopause, my hips and shoulders were constantly aching.

In 2021, Dr. Nasha offered the first training for people to be advocates for cancer patients using the metabolic approach. She had already been training practitioners. I was thrilled and quickly signed up! After graduating, I was excited to work as an advocate with one of the doctors trained by Dr. Nasha. So I’ve had a chance to not only learn the metabolic approach, I’ve lived and breathed it and I’ve trained others how to live it.

So what is it? Let me start by defining the word metabolic or metabolism. Although its commonly used to mean the process of our body converting food to energy, metabolism is actually much more than that. Metabolic processes include all the chemical reactions in our body needed to sustain life. It includes forming new molecules like neurotransmitters and hormones. It includes processes for getting rid of toxins and activating our immune system.

In the metabolic approach, we organize these processes into ten categories we call the Terrain Ten. These include –

  • Genetics & epigenetics
  • Blood sugar balance
  • Toxic burden
  • Microbiome and digestive function
  • Immune function
  • Inflammation
  • Blood circulation & angiogenesis
  • Hormone balance
  • Stress & biorhythms
  • Mental & emotional

When the Terrain Ten are optimal and in harmony with each other, our bodies are thriving and resistant to chronic disease.

To gain that harmony, a great place to start is by taking the Terrain Ten questionnaire. This is an in-depth survey that will help you identify which of the Terrain Ten need the most attention. Then you can use the Terrain Ten Quick Guide as a handy resource to identify lifestyle changes you can make to support each area.

Of course, the book, The Metabolic Approach to Cancer by Dr. Nasha Winters has even more information for each area.

You can also work with a Terrain Advocate who can guide and support you in optimizing your terrain.

And for those who want the expertise of a practitioner who can dive deeper into supporting your health with things like certain therapies, supplements, or off-label drugs, you can work with a doctor who’s been trained by Dr. Nasha Winters.   You can search the directory for both practitioners and advocates at MTIH.org.

How is working with a trained practitioner different than other doctors? Practitioners using the metabolic approach gather extensive data about you, including the in-depth Terrain Ten questionnaire, extensive onboarding labs, past medical records, family history, current diet and lifestyle, and personal history, including traumas and life experiences. The practitioner then evaluates all the data and looks for patterns related to the ten categories. Based on this analysis, a personalized plan is created.  The motto is test, assess, address, don’t guess.

During the process of creating the personalized treatment plan, The metabolic approach considers a vast toolbox of evidence-based options. In addition to conventional therapies and medications, it includes cutting-edge treatments such as photodynamic and sonodynamic therapies, hyperthermia, mistletoe, off-label drugs, supplements and herbs, targeted IV therapies, hyperbaric oxygen and ozone therapies, plus much more. The data is carefully considered before recommending the right-sized hammer for the job, not too big or too small. All of these are layered on personalized diet and lifestyle recommendations to create a strong foundation.

Ultimately, the metabolic approach is all about making you the CEO of your health so you can feel empowered, confident, and enthused about your choices. Because when you have better information and better tools,  you can make better decisions for your health and achieve better outcomes.